Books connect Banyan Group director Ho Ren Chun to friends and family

Who: Mr Ho Ren Chun, 31, is director of corporate development at Banyan Group, which opened its 100th property, the Mandai Rainforest Resort by Banyan Tree, in November 2025.

- Shawn Hoo

The former lawyer published his first book of poems Shrines And Streetlights in 2012. He enjoys browsing and buying books from bookstores.“Many of the most meaningful books have come to me through conversations with others. My copy of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years Of Solitude was a gift from a dear friend with whom I founded the Cambridge University Poetry and Prose Society when we were second-year roommates. On his old copy, he had written something like, ‘This gave me new dreams; I hope it does for you too.

There are many such examples. I was recommended Frank Herbert’s Dune through a close male friend during national service and Arundhati Roy’s The God Of Small Things through one of my closest female friends.

Part of the essential magic of books is that it is akin to sharing the words to a spell that does something different depending on who speaks it.