A Possible Life

My God, what an amazing year of reading this has been. Last Friday morning on the bus to work I finished A Possible Life by Sebastian Faulks, and it was the first time I was brought to tears by a book in such a public way. I've gotten a bit teary before, but this time I actually shed those tears. I have never read anything by Sebastian Faulks before, but this was absolutely beautiful.

A Possible Life is described as a novel in five parts. Each of the five short stories contained within stand on their own, but there are common threads. They all deal with love, hope, betrayal, and thoughts of what might have been had the characters chosen different paths. I just found this fantastic review which does the book much more justice than I can.

My favourite stories were the first, based in a Nazi concentration camp, and the last, which told the story of a musician in love. The stories were so melancholy, and each of the main characters in all the stories were so real and raw and relate-able, even if not entirely likable.

The best way to sum up this book - I loved it! It only loses half a star because one of the stories within didn't engage me as much as the others did. But overall - wow.

A Possible Life by Sebastian Faulks - 4.5 out of 5 stars!

A Possible Life by Sebastian Faulks

Let the festivities begin!

I absolutely love this time of the year - not because of the weather (I hate hot summer days, plus it's spider season) but because I love Christmas, and I love the lead up to Christmas because it's the only time of the year my social calendar seems to fill up! As such, Friday was a fabulous day!

The work day was broken up with an excellent lunch, with Fork on the Road putting on a fantastic spread. I was supposed to have lunch with K & M at our usual cafe, but when I told K about all these food trucks, she got so excited by all the vegetarian options that we decided to go check it out instead. So there's me, who eats anything, K who is vegetarian, and M who has some gut problems and as such is on a very strict diet, including gluten free amongst other things. The challenge was on. It didn't take me long at all to find what I was after, as I ended up having a Chimi Steak from this Argentian food truck:

K and M both ended up grabbing something from Veggie Velo, with them being awesome enough to accommodate M's dietary requirements as best they could. As M headed back to her office, K and I perused the baked goods at the Craftea & Cake stand. K had been talking about how much she was looking forward to trying their vegan strawberry cheesecake for at least 24 hours, and had brought in a cooler bag so she could take some home with her, but unfortunately there were none on offer on the day so she was a bit disappointed. She ended up getting LOTS of veg-friendly cakes though, while I bought a Fruchoc cupcake and a Fruchoc rocky road (I cannot resist anything Fruchoc). They were DELICIOUS!

The Friday just kept getting better with the first of many upcoming work Christmas events being the social club drinks at the Hotel Metro on Grote Street. I made excellent use of the bar tab, knocking off many lovely frosty beers. Once people started drinking Jaegerbombs the bar tab quickly ran out, so several of us moved on to the Union hotel to dance the night away. I actually can't remember the last time I went out dancing and I had so much fun. The DJ at the Union on Friday nights is fantastic, especially for people in their 30s I think. Loved it! As Glen isn't used to me actually going out, when he sent a text after 11 asking when I'd be home I figured it was time I headed out to get a cab and do just that, but could have quite easily lost another couple of hours on the dance floor. Fun! Let the silly season commence...