Chasing Daylight

My most recent read is a non-fiction book by Eugene O'Kelly, entitled "Chasing Daylight". It's one of those books that have been sitting on my shelf for the longest time - like a year or so. It never fails to amaze me how fast time flies. Anyway, on the cover it writes "New York Times Bestseller", so I'm told. But what provoked me to buy this book wasn't that it was on the bestseller list of the NYT, it was the very nature of the book - last words by a dying someone. And it was it isn't a moany and groany piece, or the "you got to live well, what happens if you die tomorrow" in-your-face kind of book. What really enticed me though, was he was the former CEO of KPMG America. The kind of person that lived his life at 100 miles per hour, with much thrill and action and exhilaration in the business scene. The stark contrast of living that kind of life, planning for weeks, months and years ahead, only to hear that he had only 3 months to live.

I'd like to quote something from that I've once heard by someone who's successful in his own right. More or less the same stuff...

"You can do anything if you give your best energy to it. Time truly becomes less important."

It's a paradigm shift, when so much of our work is prized upon how many hours we clock in, commitment is based on the sheer amount of time we're at work. But it isn't time that we're viciously fighting against, think of it, we'll lose. What we got to focus on is on putting in our best, our all, so that time somehow slows for us. Because of sheer concentration and focus, we find ourselves accomplishing more than we could have imagined. Or maybe the same amount of success, but less time engaged in work.

Not done with the book yet, but when I am I probably should pen down my thoughts. Not sure when that would be though... There's just too many things to do, and I do need to believe I can do it all, I can do everything and anything.

Novel

Not a review, this post. It's just a scribbling of my search for a new novel to read. There are some titles at the back of my head, I'll list them down:

The white tiger by Aravinda Adiga (Man Booker Prize winner, '08)
The god of small things by Arundhati Roy
A thousand splendid suns, or Kite runner by the same author - Khaled Hosseini
Oliver Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (this year's Pulitzer Prize winner)
The gathering by Anne Enwright (Man Booker Prize winner too)

And basically considering a Man Booker or Pulitzer Prize winner. I know I shouldn't use prizes and what nots to ascertain if a book's great. Then again, what's great, excellent, far better than average? Does winning a prize automatically determine that? I'll say no, but it sure helps in narrowing a list of books to choose from. It's almost dizzying having to pick out a book to buy from the bookstore. I know it sounds weird, but I like to have a few books in mind before going down to the store to compare the few. I mean, I won't mind being vague and saying, okay, let me go pick out a book from Borders. I guess I'm being more anal this time 'cos I've got some expectation of a good novel read. It's been a while since I finished a novel, and there's the appetite that needs to be whet, a thirst for a good book that I can devour entirely.

And hey, if I do pick out a book soon, I'll be able to revive this personal review blog a little. Which reminds me, I can't believe UP is ending and I haven't caught it. I don't think anywhere shows it in 3D anymore, ahhhhh, I missed wearing those plastic specs.

ST Grammatical/ Spelling Error

So I've heard of the multitude of spelling and grammatical errors ST had, and continues to have. I never thought much of it, the main reason being I hardly read the daily paper. The secondary reason, and ironically the more important one is that I don't think my England is that powderful to accurately critique what's "grammatically correct" and what's not. I'm thinking, I don't even write grammatically flawless essays in the first place (or at least I don't think so). Reason being, I can't even remember the technicalities of grammar, like subject, verb, object, and I'm probably writing it wrong, so you see my point here.

And then I saw this, no big deal, but now I get what those folks are grumbling about, that yes, ST does have grammatical errors. I've seen it aplenty in CNA online, just haven't seen enough to see it on ST.

Here's an example:

"This mean that going forward, ANZ will hire more staff in Singapore, including commercial bankers and relationship managers, he said." Okay, I just realised he's quoting some guy, but I remember seeing brackets in articles, like (this) one. I think that's the reason for brackets right? Do educate me if I'm wrong.

So here's from me in a LOOOOOONG while!