A 680-page book was launched in Singapore on September 16th and in two days all 35,000 volumes had been snapped up. The second print run hit the shops on Friday last. It sold out again, even more quickly. Only through a friendly telephone operator at the Raffles Hotel, who knew somebody who knew somebody, did I manage to acquire The Singapore Story by Lee Kuan Yew, elder statesman and prime minister of Singapore for three decades until 1990.
The Singapore Story has caused a sensation here and in neighbouring Malaysia, playing a significant role in what one Malaysian newspaper called a "miniature diplomatic offensive" breaking out on both sides.
It is Mr Lee's account of how he led Singapore into a merger with Malaysia in 1963 and out again two years later. He first supported federation because the British were leaving south-east Asia and he feared for the future of his mainly Chinese entity - 214 square miles at low tide - in the midst of "a Malay archipelago of about 100 million people".
But the federation broke up after bitter disputes over taxation, policing and Mr Lee's attempt to organise the large Chinese minority throughout Malaysia. He claimed that the Malay-dominated government did not want the Chinese to be represented by a vigorous leadership with a multi-racial approach.
The Malays themselves were fearful of being swamped: at the time of the merger the population was 43 per cent Malay and 41 per cent Chinese.
Both sides were having second thoughts about union and began discussing new forms of association. At one stage Mr Lee asked the Malaysian leader, Tunku Abdul Rahman, if Singapore could be linked to its neighbour like Northern Ireland or Southern Ireland to Britain, and got the reply: "Somewhere in between. "
But in the end there was a clean break and the fears of Singapore's prime minister proved unfounded as his authoritarian city-state blossomed into a world-class economy. Looking back, however, Mr Lee accused the dominant party in Kuala Lumpur, the United Malay National Organisation (UMNO), of provoking the split by stirring up trouble in Singapore.
He singled out Syed Ja'afar Albar as the "hatchet man of the UMNO leaders hostile to Singapore", describing him as a "totally ruthless and unscrupulous rabble-rouser" who instigated racial clashes in Singapore which left 23 people dead. His son, Syed Hamid Albar, happens to be the current Defence Minister of Malaysia and he took exception to this.
The day after Mr Lee's tome was published, Malaysia suddenly closed its air space to Singapore war planes, citing noise pollution and violations. On Thursday last week the Defence Minister claimed that ships and planes from Singapore violated Malaysian territory seven times. Singapore denied this and claimed that on September 23rd, when a British Navy Lynx helicopter crashed in a South China Sea exercise, it took over four hours for Malaysia to give clearance for a Singapore Super Puma rescue helicopter to fly through its airspace (Malaysia said it took only one minute).
Every day new grievances are aired. On Thursday, for example, Singapore complained that Malaysian police in plain clothes visited the Singapore offices of the US business network CNBC without prior clearance. The Malaysian police were angered by an interview given to CNBC by Wan Azizah, the wife of jailed Malaysian deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, in which she expressed fears that police would inject her husband with the AIDS virus.
The political turmoil in Malaysia has contributed to the heightened tensions, with some Singaporeans claiming that nationalistic sentiments are being stirred up by the Malaysian Prime Minister, Mohathir Mohamad, to distract the public, and Malaysian ministers accusing the Singapore media of "stirring things up". Relations have plummeted further over a Malaysian railway which runs through Singapore, and veiled threats to Singapore's water supply, which is piped across the causeway from Malaysia. Singapore's Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, told his citizens not to let themselves be "pushed around" after Singapore athletes were booed at the 16th Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.
Many Malaysians believe, however, that wealthy and insensitive Singapore could have done more to help its neighbour in the current economic crisis. To stop currency speculation, much of it emanating from Singapore finance houses, Dr Mahathir imposed controls on the Malaysian ringgit, creating another cause of friction. Since Thursday last cash controls have been rigidly enforced. Declaration forms have to be completed for everyone leaving Malaysia, including babies, and officials have begun making random checks on travellers' wallets to ensure they are not taking out more than the maximum 1,000 ringgits (£160).
Some bus passengers going to Singapore were turned back at the causeway when the blue declaration forms ran out, and others had to buy copies from unofficial pedlars.
It is all a far cry from the non-communal federation which Mr Lee, now 75, once aspired to. Today 's crisis would pass, he told journalists. "It's one way for us to get it out of the system, doing a war dance, plumed feathers and so on." He did concede, however, that there was a danger of an "accidental clash of plumage - but we are not given to such practices," he said. "We know what our long-term interests are."