Come Away With Me

The holidays are finally here. Is not that I'm taking a block of annual leave -- I'm accumulating those till next year. I'm just glad it's a long weekend and that I can finally spend and give some quality time with M. A corporate director dropped by in the office today and asked me if I'm taking any leave. I said no and joked that singles like myself don't normally take leave during conventional holiday seasons.

Some friends asked me out to the movies tonight to watch Narnia. That didn't go through.

The one thing that I'd miss this Christmas, no doubt -- my ex-colleagues and their Christmas idiosyncracies. I hope they're doing fine. Take care folks.

I was at Popular just now and after so much indeciveness I finally bought John Banville's The Sea. It's this year's Man Booker Prize winner and I'm such a klutz not to mention a snob for putting so much faith on the outcome of this competition. Why I'm saying this is because after reading 23 pages of The Sea -- I've yet to derive that personal pleasure. I know that is so bloody subjective, maybe it's still too early in the novel, but that's what it is -- a matter of personal taste that basically governs everything I read.

Some Man Booker Prize winners in the past really carried me away and I can't enthuse enough.

1997 - Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
1999 - J M Coetzee, Disgrace
2000 - Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin and shortlisted Matthew Kneale, English Passengers
2002 - Yann Martel, The Life of Pi
2003 - DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little

Not all winners got my Sin dollar$ mind you. In 1995 I chose Barry Unsworth's Morality Play over the winner, Pat Barker's The Ghost Road. I thought that was a smart decision as I still find the novel mesmerizing after all these years. Yes, I tend to re-read.