Cushla's 2016 books

Welcome to my 2016 thread - it is already January 2 here so about time I left 2015's thread behind!

This is my 8th year here and I can't imagine not being part of this group. Life before LibraryThing seems so long ago, even though I just loved it as a cataloguing site for the first year or two.

For any new visitors, I live in Wellington, New Zealand with my husband and 2 kids (Christmas photo coming when I am off the iPad). We've just finished demolishing and rebuilding our house, and are looking forward to a quieter year in 2016. We'll see how that goes...

My thread is a pretty quiet place most of the year but it has bursts of activity. I teach high school maths and the New Zealand school year runs from late January to early December. I love what I do and it leaves little time for reading during the school terms. I'm getting a bit better at juggling real life and work, and my book total last year was up from 21 in 2014 to 30 in 2015, but I am way off the 75 I used to squeeze in a few years ago.

As usual though I have great intentions of being here lots and visiting loads of threads and reading the hundreds of unread books that I now own, thanks partly to everyone here!

I read a mix of stuff - nonfiction, especially history and politics, literary fiction, as long as it isn't too depressing, and crime and spy novels. When school gets going, my reading changes to easier books.

I'll be taking part in the nonfiction challenge and hopefully the Canadian Author Challenge too.

BOOKS READ IN 2016

1. George Kennan: a study of character by John Lukacs - 3 stars - Nonfiction challenge book (bio)
2. Then We Take Berlin by John Lawton - 4.2 stars
3. Music As Alchemy by Tom Service - 3.5 stars

February
4. Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland by Sarah Moss - 4 stars

March
5. Children of War by Martin Walker - 4 stars - 7th in the Bruno Chief of Police series

April
6. The Dying Season by Martin Walker - 3 stars - 8th in the Bruno Chief of Police series
7. A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters - 3 stars
8. Play it Again by Alan Rusbridger - 5 stars
9. Archangel by Robert Harris - 4 stars

May
10. The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt - 4 stars
11. The Unfortunate Englishman by John Lawton - 4 stars
12. The Swiss Spy by Alex Gerlis - 3 1/2 stars

July
13. Golden Hill by Francis Spufford - 4 1/2 stars
14. Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre - 4 1/2 stars
15. 1914 by Jean Echenoz - 3 1/2 stars

October
16. Armageddon by Max Hastings - 5 stars

November
17. My Grape Year by Laura Bradbury
18. My Grape Wedding by Laura Bradbury
19. My Grape Village by Laura Bradbury

December
20. Leaving Berlin by Joseph Kanon 4 stars
21. The Unwinding by George Packer - 5 stars
22. A Hero in France by Alan Furst - 4 stars
23. Conclave by Robert Harris - 4 stars

currently reading:
Medicus by Ruth Downie
SPQR by Mary Beard - 42% there - need to start this again!
Cooked by Michael Pollan
An Imaginary Tale by Paul Nahin

bought this year:
Some Luck by Jane Smiley - Marsden Books early 2016
Holy Orders by Benjamin Black/John Banville June 2016
The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain - Marsden Books June 2016
Golden Hill by Francis Spufford - Marsden Books June 2016
Field Service by Robert Edric - Marsden Books July 2016

Happy New Year, Cushla and happy reading 2016. Wow, one book finished.

Happy new year, Cushla. I'll check in on your thread from time to time and look forward to your Christmas photo. :-)

Happy New Year, Cushla!

Happy New Year, Barbara, Caro and Anita!

Barbara - it was a short one and I started it last year. Review to come later on.

>1 cushlareads: great intentions
Oh, don't we all...

Happy 2016!

Hi Cushla!! Your thread is a constant source of book bullets; you should have some kind of public health warning on it...

Happy New Year, Cushla!

Happy New Year!

Hi Meg, Roni, Katherine and Suzanne.

I am still on the iPad and the autocorrect is awful. It tries to change Roni to Zionism and Katherine to "at heroine". Otherwise I am having a lovely day - 5 boxes of books back from a year in storage, and numerous unread treasures are appearing.

>Suz, that is rich coming from you! I was just rereading one of your old threads earlier - it was from October or November when school was still crazy, so I had just skimmed it. It was chock full of books to go on my list!
I discovered that I had already bought Then we take Berlin and it is exactly what I'm in the mood for, so my 12 aimless hours of no real book (apart from the very good but never ending SPQR) are over.

Dropping a star .... enjoy the rest of the break

Happy new year, Cushla!

*Starred*

Hi Cushla! Best of the New Year to you and family!

Happy New Year to you, Cushla! Hope you're enjoying your summer break!

>10 cushlareads: Ha! Now I want to type my name into my ipad just to see what autocorrect does with it...

Oh, and Happy New Year, Cushla!

Welcome back Cushla. xx

Happy New Year, Cushla! Dropping a star.

Yes, but Cushla, nearly 100% of the books on your list are book bullets for me. I doubt that the ratio of what I read is quite as high for you... (Incidentally, there's a sequel for Then We Take Berlin due out soon.)

>18 Chatterbox: dropping BB bait? Lol.

Hi Cushla,
Happy new year, in your new place. Have a great summer!

Hi Cushla, just found your thread and dropped a star. Sounds like you've got all the unpacking finally under control, it must be wonderful to be in your new home.

Better late than never!

Yay, I can check you off the "missing 2016 threads list" and drop my star here instead.
Happy New Year, Cushla and Happy Reading!

>10 cushlareads: 'It tries to change Roni to Zionism and Katherine to "at heroine".'
Made me laugh! When that happens, I find myself thinking "what? 'at heroine' is a phrase so commonly used??"

Dropping off my star so I can "keep up" with you this year. :-)

Here you are! Best wishes for some wonderful reading in 2016, Cushla. This year should be a lot more settled for you. Are you loving the "new" house? Looking forward to some pics. I love my new iPad but the autocorrect is crazy, although it is a great source of amusement!

Great to see your thread up Cushla!

Hi Alex, Nancy, Lori, Donna, Suz, Nathalie, Ellen, Kim, Kerry, Megan, Mamie, Paul, Amber, Anne and Katie - thank you for more lovely greetings, and sorry for being rather absent. I've been reading and packing and doing stuff with the kids and Tim.

The summer break is going so quickly now. It's very relaxing being in the new house and we are thrilled with it, but tomorrow the kids and I leave it for a few days to go roadtripping! We are going up to Auckland via Taupo, to see Mama and Yeye (Tim's parents) and family and friends galore. It's about a 5 hour drive tomorrow so I need to get packed - I am planning to roast a chicken for our lunch on the way as well, and it's 10 pm already... (chicken roasting will be in the early morning, not now). I am hoping to squeeze a trip to either Time Out or the Women's Bookshop in - both are lovely bookshops that I seldom get to visit. We'll see how that goes.

>19 LovingLit: Megan, Suzanne already got me with the BB on her thread! I have been reading Then We Take Berlin non-stop - it's excellent and a good thing the sequel isn't far away. I have 50 pages left to read and will finish it once I turn off the computer.

>18 Chatterbox: Suz, at 30 books a year for me and hundreds for you, even if your ratio is 1:20 you are TROUBLE!

OK, going to finish my book now... will be on my phone at best for the next few days so probably mostly lurking.

Have a great time on your roadtrip. Safe travels.

Hi Cushla! Road tripping sounds fun! Enjoy!!!

Safe travels ..... & *** ahem*** sneaky reading time as well

Hope you have a good trip (and get to the bookshop too).

Hi Charlotte, Alex, Amy and Meg,

Reading time has been close to zero...I am spending a lot of time looking at Google maps! well, not really, but logistics of holidaying take time. Tim gets here tonight so hopefully tomorrow. We've done one bookshop but that was to a PaperPlus for the kids in a vain attempt to get my daughter to stop talking for a bit.

Today though it is going to rain, and hard. We're visiting friends in the morning then going to a trampolining park with other friends. I should be able to squeeze some reading time in there somewhere.

I've started a good book I bought a year ago called Music as Alchemy by Tom Service. He follows 6 conductors and their orchestras, including Simon Rattle and Claudio Abbado. Good timing too because next week we are off to violin camp for the 4th time and both kids are in ensembles this year and need to get better at watching the conductor!

Enjoy!

Wishing you a most lovely weekend, Cushla.

Best wishes on your vacation and I hope you can slip in a little reading time, but maybe not on the trampoline!!

Hi Kim, Barbara and Diana! We are on the way home today... One more chapter of my book has been read but definitely not on a trampoline. will post some photos once we are home.

Belatedly stopping by to wish you a happy new year, Cushla. Hope you and the kids got home safely.

Hi Heather! I am typing this as I try to get the kids out of bed, enticed by bacon sandwiches! It's a big drive today - 8 or 9 hours. We have the rest of Percy Jackson then an Eva Ibbotson witch audiobook so that should keep them somewhat happy.

Hi Cushla! I have you starred. I see you're currently reading SPQR. I just ordered this for the library where I work. It sounds interesting!

Hope you cope with your drive ok, Cushla. I can't think of a better place in the world to make a road trip than lovely NZ.

Home again and not at all keeping up with LibraryThing!
We have a week home till we go away to violin camp, so I'm trying to get lots of jobs done (like school stationery for the kids, dentist, optician).

Paul, I agree about our scenery - we had another beautiful drive home in lovely weather. Took us 10 hours with lots of stops.

Carrie, SPQR is very good but I am not getting through it at all! I'm sitting on 33% and I need to give it some time or I'll forget the early part. hopefully today when I have made Teresa's birthday cake...

Cushla - I'm reading a children's graphic nonfiction that your children will probably love, Human Body Theater by Maria Wicks.

Have a lovely weekend!

Hi Kerry and Diana. yes, it's the weekend! we are about to go through the camping list and get all the gear into the living room.

Kerry that book looks great and there are lots of copies in the library.

Am nearly finished Music as Alchemy and hopefully will get some time to read later today.

>40 cushlareads: ten hours in the car! Where we're you?
We had a mammoth 9 hour car trip home from the coast. It's supposed to take 5 hours, but a bus crash in Arthur's Pass meant that there would be huge delays, so we went through the Lewis Pass and added 3 hours to the trip. BUT we got to stop at Reefton and have a swim in their excellent local pool.

Good luck getting caught up!

Ten hours in the car......lovely.

Hope the arriving is worth it, Cushla. xx

Cushla, I wish you a relaxed weekend.

Hi Kim, Megan, Paul and Barbara,

>44 LovingLit: Megan, we were just in Auckland but we stopped lots on the way home. We had a latte stop in Tirau, a supermarket trip in Turangi, an aborted picnic lunch on the Desert Road due to high winds and freezingness, then a nicer picnic at a rest area, and another coffee stop in Hunterville. And then the Levin playground for nearly an hour! We like breaking it up lots when the weather's good.

>45 Berly: Kim, it's not happening!

>46 PaulCranswick: Paul, it is good to be home but we go again on Wednesday - but only a 1 1/2 hour drive this time, to Masterton.

>47 Ameise1: Barbara, is that in Switzerland? Lovely photo.

>48 cushlareads: I saw once such a situation in Switzerland, but this one isn't.

I'm glad (it sounds like) you were able to turn some of the car time into reading time.

Music as Alchemy sounds interesting. When we go to the symphony, which isn't terribly often but I do enjoy it when we go, I love watching the conductor. I think they can almost steal the show.

>48 cushlareads: Barbara - well it's definitely not in NZ! We might get one snow day every few years in Wellington, if that. But it's exciting when it happens.

>49 Ameise1: Ellen, I love watching the conductor (and going to the NZSO - it doesn't happen often here either despite my great intentions) and I will be watching even more after reading the book. I played in youth orchestra a long time ago and now our kids are just starting off in orchestras, and slowly learning that they have to watch closely. I'll do a review of the book when I get back - I'd recommend it as long as you can stomach lengthy descriptions of rapturous music listening mixed in with the really interesting stuff. I listened to quite a few of the pieces on Spotify while I read it, and that really added to the book.

We are off to violin camp in the morning and the first car is packed. We're all pretty excited and I wonder what I'll have forgetten to pack. The weather forecast is for 27-30 degrees for the first 4 days so it's going to be baking over there. (I wilt at anything above about 24...). I'm taking the Kindle in great hopes of reading a bit more SPQR during some of the kids' classes and orchestra rehearsals and while they're tearing around on their bikes or in the pool.

Happy weekend, Cushla.

Hope the trip is going well!! : )

>53 Ameise1: Oohhh, I want to sit there!

*waves at Cushla*

Hi Cushla and a very belated happy new year--I'm off to a very slow start this year but our massive snow storm this weekend has helped me catch up on many things. It sounds like 2016 has started off busy for you. I love a good audiobook for a long car trip.

>51 cushlareads: Hope violin camp has gone well Cushla.......do you have to pull any strings to get in? (sorry!)

Music as Alchemy has been on my wishlist for a while. Sigh; one of those "so many books; too few years" things. It's not in my library, or I'd go fetch it, possibly today!

Hey, I am having a bookshelves purge, there maybe one or two books which take your fancy let me know if interested ... have pics can put up on FB or dropbox

That violin camp must be a cushy number Cushla. Hope all is well.

Happy weekend, Cushla.

Updates?! :)

Have a happy weekend.

Still fiddling, Cushla? xx

Have a lovely weekend.

Happy Valentine's Day, Cushla!

It's still Sunday here so...

Suspect as school is back we won't hear from our dear friend till term end again ........

Mmmmm... 6 weeks of not posting on my own thread is shocking! Sorry, everyone, and thanks for keeping it warm. Violin camp was amazing, but feels like a long time ago. We had beautiful weather and 5 great days in the tent surrounded by friends made over the last 4 years of music camp. The kids had a blast, and played lots of violin (and soccer till late at night).

As Alex predicted, school is back and it has been the usual crazy, but in the last week (week 4 of term) things have started settling down. I am running our school's BYOD project this year (we are trialling 2 classes of kids bringing laptops) as well as my usual teaching, so the first few weeks were much more intense than usual. I was thrilled with some of my kids' exam results from last year, so that made for a good start.

Reading has been non-existent till last week. It took me 6 weeks to read Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland by Sarah Moss, which came from Karori library after Rhian recommended it. I gave it 3 1/2 stars, and it held up well to being read 3 pages at a time.

For quite a few weeks at the start of term I'd pick Names for the Sea up at 11pm or so, get through a paragraph and fall asleep. I *loved* the first bit, in which the author moves from the UK to Reykjavik with her husband and 2 small children, and experiences massive culture shock despite the UK and Iceland being 2 seemingly similar countries. Hmmm - I wonder why I could relate to all that?! There were a couple of places where she described getting her kids ready to go out and where she described feeling exceedingly stupid when Tim had to listen to me reading bits of the book out, and I was tempted to email her to tell her how well she had captured the life of a formerly intelligent woman in a strange country. (I don't think I ever told the story on here of the time I couldn't get the parking ticket out of the machine at one of Basel's shopping malls with the 2 kids in the car and a queue of traffic behind me). Anyway, this book comes highly rated if you have ever lived overseas.

My reaction to the last bit was pretty similar to Rhian's (I think she reviewed it in her first thread for 2016). The family decides to leave Iceland after a year, and it turns into a travelogue, and not a great one. I cringed at the chapter where Sarah Moss tries to find poverty in Iceland, and didn't enjoy the part about the elf people at all. So overall it was a 3 1/2 star book.

Now I have stupidly picked up Peter Ackroyd's very long book about England from its formation till 1300 or so, and we know that it will take me months to get through it. SPQR is up to a whopping 37% read. I will probably find something easier going to get through before the end of Term 1 in 7 weeks!

I will try to visit a few threads tomorrow while I am back on LT and before another big load of schoolwork hits.

Great to see you back Cushla.

Have a lovely weekend.

Welcome back! I was wondering where you'd got to. ; ) Good luck on your new English tomb. LOL. I have two of my own going, so I empathize.

Hi Kim and Paul!

Kim, I just need to stop picking up long history books and pick up short fiction instead...

Sunday night here and the weekend has vanished, but it has been really nice. I'll try to manage 3 days on LT in a row tomorrow.

I know what you mean about long history books. I finally finished my US history one (900 pp) and Phew! Time for some quick easy reads.

Read what you love, even if they are 1000+ page tomes :)

Happy belated birthday!!!!

Happy weekend, Cushla.

Hi Jenn, Megan, Alex and Barbara. Nice to see you here. Mmmm well I suppose a 3 week gap is better than a 6 week one. Barbara, those spring flowers are lovely

I am hanging out for Easter in 3 days! We have 5 days off school and I'm going to try to do very little work and quite a lot of reading.

The house is slowly getting unpacked and tidied. The pace is glacial though but I know I'm making progress. Jenn and her family gave us a lovely painting, and it might even find a spot on the wall this weekend.

Good news - I finished a book at last. It was the 7th Bruno, Chief of Police book and it was so good that I picked it up at the library and read it in 3 days. Children of War weaves in 2 stories, one about French jihadists and one about 2 Jewish children who were sheltered near St Denis during World War 2. There's the usual food, love life entanglements and French culture, and I really enjoyed it. I've bought the latest one on my Kindle.

Will try to get around some threads in the next week and catch up on everyone's goings-on.

You are back again! I am still in the same place. Reading two tomes. They are just different ones!! ; ) Yay for the long weekend with time to READ!! Enjoy.

Yay for a break coming up and reading plans!

Have a wonderful Easter.

Cushla, I wish you a relaxed weekend.

Enjoy your days off, Cushla. And Happy Easter.

Happy LONG Easter Weekend! Hoping you enjoy every minute. :)

Hope that reading binge is going well ....

Still no Cushla sightings here?

Wishing you a Happy Mother's Day!!! We miss you!

Just a fly past hoping you'll reappear soon, Cushla. xx

Briefly re-appearing after 3 months of too much schoolwork and trying to relax and enjoy hanging out with the kids and Tim when I'm not working... am hoping to come up for air in a few weeks when holidays get here. Thank you everyone for visiting.

I've been reading a bit though but not making time to come on here and update any of it. I've reverted to spy novels, same as last year! Luckily I'm not about to run out. Just finished 2 - The Unfortunate Englishman by John Lawton, the second in the series that came after the Inspector Troy ones, and not quite as good but still definitely worth reading. It's set in Berlin again, of course, at the time the Berlin Wall went up. 4 stars.

The other one was The Swiss Spy by Alex Gerlis which I gave 3 1/2 stars to overall because I didn't find the spy's recruitment particularly credible, at least the way it was written. But it kept me awake till midnight on a school night near the end. This one is set in England, Switzerland and Germany during the early years of World War 2. Very sad in places.

And today I went to Marsden Books with just Fletcher - I always buy more when I'm there with 1 or 0 of the kids! I left with the new Rose Tremain one, The Gustav Sonata, and a book by A C Grayling called The Age of Genius. Both look great.

Out of the books I missed writing up, by far the best was Alan Rusbridger's Play it Again: an Amateur Against the Impossible, about the last year of his time editing the Guardian and how he started playing the piano again properly after many years. It's been the kick in the butt that I needed to restart my own violin lessons, another reason I haven't been here - I am back to practising a little bit every day. It was already a big part of our lives with both the kids doing it. I have a long way to go to catch Fletcher but am really enjoying it! At this rate Play it Again: an Amateur Against the Impossible will be my best book of 2016. I loved all of it, the current events stuff, the journalism stuff and the description of playing music.

Back later, hopefully not 3 months later...

Hi Cushla. I've probably missed your mid term appearance but I'll drop this here just in case. Interested in any of these books? I'm making space...

A History of Their Own: Women in Europe from Prehistory to the Present
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Dover thrift edition - my son's school reject)
Blossoms and Shadows

off my shelves:
The Kingdom of This World
Close Range
Justinian's Flea (Penguin edition)
Frenchman's Creek

A Cushla sighting!! ; ) No worries. We will still be here when you emerge again. Have fun with the spy novels. I just picked up Career of Evil the latest Robert Galbraith/JK Rowling book.

Hi Jenn and Kim. Woot I am back again!

Jenn, Justinian's Flea looked good BUT I still have not read the other books you gave me and I saw one the other day and have Good Intentions. And I think Kerry wanted Justinian's Flea too.

Kim, I really liked that book - I have enjoyed all 3 now. I wonder when the next one's out?

I went Kindle book shopping yesterday - had time to read the book review section in the Financial Times, always a dangerous thing. There was a review for Golden Hill and I was sucked in as soon as it said it was a bit like Hilary Mantel's writing. It's historical fiction set in New York in the 1700s and it started off very well last night, but I fell asleep after 2 whole pages.

Off to visit some threads (including yours Kim). And do laundry...

Life gets busy, Cushla. Teaching and caring for a family are two full-time jobs. Glad you are posting now and then as you are able. I am a Rose Tremain fan and didn't realize she had a new book. Thanks for mentioning it. I'll check it out.

>92 cushlareads: Crazy says maybe October. Crossing fingers!

>90 nittnut: Wouldn't it be lucky to be a neighbour to Jenn with all those books going for free?

Have a great weekend, Cushla.

My absence form here, has coincided with the school holiday break .... Have a great term & hope to hear from you on the other side

Hi Cushla! Bang -- you got me with Names for the Sea from February, which shows you how far behind I am! Happy weekend to you!

Two and a half months since we saw you here Cushla. I hope things are good in NZ and that you'll be able to update your pals soon.

Hi Cushla. Saw the news re the quake and tsunami and wanted to check you and the family were ok.

So nice of Cushla to visit my thread before her own!!!
(she is OK, btw)
Looks like the tsunami didn't damage Wellington, and the main problems there are building appendages, perhaps some structural issues from the quake which struck 250kms or so to the south of Wellington. Schools closed, CBD closed, ferries and trains cancelled.....could be a long day there.

Just a quick heads up to anyone who is interested in Folio's Patrick O'Brian series. I've just listed The Reverse of the Medal on eBay uk. I bought it without realising I already had it! It's in fine condition and in a fine slipcase.

I am here!! Sorry. Been on FB and elsewhere on here but thread neglect continues.

All ok here but very hard to concentrate. The shaking was very rolly and violent and felt like it lasted over a minute. Our kids woke up, scared (Teresa was silent which is most unusual!) but then were asleep within 5 minutes and slept through the night's aftershocks. Yuck.

>101 djwh1: DJWH, please don't spam threads with ads for ebay. Thanks. Not interested and am blocking you now.

Glad to hear you all are okay--those long rollers are scary!

Hi Roni! Yeah, they are awful. Thanks for coming over to check up on me. I miss my LT friends but RL continues to be busy, albeit less stressful than Term 2 at school, when I was just worn out.

Very odd, tiring day here but nice to be home with Tim and the kids all in one place. The aftershocks are still coming but I haven't noticed them much since last night (a 4.1 15 minutes ago and a 4.2 22 minutes ago!!). The devastation down south in a town called Kaikoura is horrific and it is so lucky that it happened in the middle of the night.

I am going to try to read some more book later on - am in the middle of Cooked by Michael Pollan, and it is excellent. I need to update my thread - have read 4 books since July!

> good to hear you are doing well ...

Pleased and relieved to see that you are safe and well Cushla. Please take good care of yourselves and your lovely family.

Thanks Alex and Paul. All ok and looking forward to a bit more sleep tonight.

Glad that you are fine. We understand "busy". Just check in when you can.

Good to hear that you are all ok, Cushla. I hope things get back to normal soon.

Ooh and now the rain and storms are hitting you.

HI Meg, Catarina and Kerry - things are feeling more normal again after a very, very long week. I usually bounce into school like Tigger but not this week! Anyway, it's the weekend and I get two lovely days to hang out at home (and write junior reports...but they will get done). It's a beautiful day here and the torrential rain and gale force winds have left us for now.

I'm getting a bit more reading time and am hoping to finish Cooked by Michael Pollan in the next few days. I really enjoyed two other books by him - In Defense of Food and The omnivore's Dilemma - and this one feels very similar. All three are about our loss of connection to what we eat and all three will make you want to grow more vegetables! (We are just getting our vege garden going again in the new house.)

Hi Cushla, I read In Defense of Food a few years ago and thought it was excellent. Haven't read Cooked so need to look that one up. Too, Carsten just read Food Rules and wrote a favourable review.

Hi Cushla,

Still rocking and rolling up there? We haven't felt anything here since the daylight hours of Monday. Well, I haven't. My Nelson friends say they are feeling aftershocks. Did you new place sustain any cracks, or damage?

HI Megan. Touch wood the house is all good. Books came down (30 or so, of several hundred currently doublsestacked!) and a few little things off shelves but no breakages. Yes we've been feeling aftershocks, but not last night and only a couple of little ones a day. Enough to wake me up a couple of nights, but not last night. As you know from the last few years it depends a lot on where you are. My classroom must be built in rock or something because I've missed a couple of decent ones this week while in there. But the staff room is wobblier! Glad you haven't felt any since Monday.

Just checking back in on you, my dear.

I'm glad things are settling down a little. School is almost done!

Just checking in re: The Women's Room. Bought it. Read it. Loved it. 5-stars. Thank you. :)

Hi Roni, Jenn and Megan.

Roni - thank you for checking on me! All well here. Things are feeling more normal every day.

Jenn - yes.... 14 days left, and not many normal lessons at all because I am down to 1 junior class. Loads of planning for next year though, even though I am moving. All good though and I am feeling pretty relaxed already. 4 of the 5 maths exams I've prepared kids for are this week so fingers crossed they go ok. My Youtube channel is up to 280 views in the last 2 days - I am stoked!!! I hit 100 subscribers today. A great cure for insomnia.

Megan, I'm really glad you loved it. It's been so long since I read it but it was very good in 1991 or 1992. I'm pleased it has aged all right.

I bought The Unwinding by George Packer on Kindle for $2 last week and have started it before I finish Cooked - Cooked is large and won't fit in my handbag. I can't stop reading it. I'm on a chapter about Newt Gingrich's childhood and love the writing style. Cooked is still good but there was a LOT of chemistry in the chapter about baking bread and it made me realise I should read some junior high school chemistry books. Mmmm I do not think that will happen this year! I'm onto the chapter about fermentation now. It is feeling a little bit too much like doing homework.

>118 cushlareads: Ooh - you have a youtube channel?

Yup - just type in my name and you will find 175 maths videos guaranteed to cure insomnia!! (Actually you might like some of the hard calculus ones...) The level 3 exam is this morning and I hit 100 views in an hour last night. F&T are telling me to stop being obsessed about how many views I've got but it is so cool to see work I did over the whole year being used for revision now.

You are a youtube celebrity!! That is so cool. : ) I will have to check it out....

>120 cushlareads: Your own youtube channel and a hundred views in an hour - now you know you answered a need!

>120 cushlareads: I reckon that is super cool....kids using YouTube for exam study. Go you!!!

Hi Kim, Meg and Megan, Yes it is lovely to see! I expect to have subscribers drop like flies now though.

I'm starting to get reading so much more. I'm still loving The Unwinding and hope to finish it tonight (100 pages left). And I am off school the next 3 days (but working from home on loads of year-end paperwork, blah) because.... Teresa has got chicken pox. Oh dear. Yesterday morning there was one odd looking blister and now I have lost count. They are everywhere. She is a bit worried about how quickly they'll go, because we have booked to fly up to Auckland on Friday night. A few months back we found out that Teresa won the NZ medal for her year group for the ICAS reading comprehension test (a thing run by the Uni of New South Wales for kids in NZ and Australia). We are going up to the prizegiving on Saturday. (Yes I am a very very proud mother, and I will post a pic if we get there!) She has been looking forward to it for ages and we'll all be gutted if we can't fly, so hopefully they won't still be blistery by then. So, send chicken pox healing thoughts please!!

Right I will go back to The Unwinding and sitting on the sofa with T.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American LT friends!

>124 cushlareads: Good to see you safe and enjoying your reading so, Cushla.

Have a lovely Sunday.

chicken pox! was she not vaccinated?

I did see the prize photo on FB - never would have guessed there were blisters. :)

Hi Jenn and Paul. 3 weeks later I am back!

>126 nittnut: Jenn, chickenpox isn't on the NZ vaccine schedule. We did get F vaccinated though because of his eczema when he was little but didn't for Teresa. The spots disappeared pretty quickly.

School is all finished and I have packed up my classroom and handed back my keys. Now we're on holiday in the far north of the North Island in Paihia. It's a gorgeous part of the country and still very quiet before the Christmas holiday rush next week. I've been out walking on the beach at 6 am.

I'm getting quite a lot of reading squeezed in - a diet of World War 2 and cold war novels mostly. Yesterday I finished A Hero in France by Alan Furst, about the leader of a Resistance cell in Paris in the early part of World War 2. Last week I read Leaving Berlin by Joseph Kanon, set in Berlin at the time of the airlift. I think I own a couple of other books by Kanon but this is the first I've actually got round to reading. It was very good - the main character, Alex Meier, is a German novelist who got out of Germany before the war. Life is good until he gets hounded by McCarthy's officials and he goes back to Germany (I'm avoiding spoilers).

And I finished The Unwinding by George Packer. I loved it and will follow the group read on here next year with interest. I kept reading bits out to Tim (he just loves it when I tell him repeatedly that he has to read a book) and the parts about the overheated Florida property market gave me a different look at the same old story. Definitely 5 stars.

Right, the beach is calling (actually the kids are calling) so I will be back later!

Wouldn't it be nice if 2017 was a year of peace and goodwill.
A year where people set aside their religious and racial differences.
A year where intolerance is given short shrift.
A year where hatred is replaced by, at the very least, respect.
A year where those in need are not looked upon as a burden but as a blessing.
A year where the commonality of man and woman rises up against those who would seek to subvert and divide.
A year without bombs, or shootings, or beheadings, or rape, or abuse, or spite.

2017.

Festive Greetings and a few wishes from Malaysia!

Merry Christmas Cushla and family! We miss you! I hope your holidays are full of joy!

Happy Christmas Cushla! Have a great New Year!

This is the Christmas tree at the end of the Pacific Beach Pier here in San Diego, a Christmas tradition.

To all my friends here at Library Thing, I want you to know how much I value you and how much I wish you a very happy holiday, whatever one you celebrate, and the very best of New Years!

>127 cushlareads: "chickenpox isn't on the NZ vaccine schedule" am surprised about that .. am sure it was when we were all younger ( by that I mean me & my brothers) ... hmmm

By sounds you will be offline but on the off chance you are not

Hope you have a great xmas, New year with lots of time for reading etc before the school year

Merry Christmas, Cushla.

A Cushla sighting!! All is well. Wishing you Happy Holidays.

Thanks for your lovely Christmas and holiday messages! I hope everyone has had a relaxing time with friends and family and lots of food. We are back home now and had a great time in Paihia and Auckland. I'm sitting here looking out at blue sky and a tui in our kowhai tree.
Wellington welcomed us back with a 5.5 earthquake this afternoon, but I missed it because I was driving to Marsden Books at the time.

I went walking on the beach every morning in Paihia before anyone was up, and on the last day I misjudged the height of the ramp going up from the beach. I crashed onto the sand in a most undignified manner and my handbag went under a couple of centimetres of water. I managed to grab my coffee cup, then get my phone out of the handbag, but forgot my Kindle... it is no longer! It's in a rubbish bin in our Auckland motel. I'd been reading on it non-stop so spent the next few days stealing Tim's tablet but bought my own new one in the Boxing Day sales that I usually try to avoid. NZ$150 for a little Lenovo thing and I've downloaded the Kindle app - I really couldn't see much benefit in getting a real Kindle for at least $30 more.

I am up to 23 books and should get to 24 before New Year's Eve. I raced through Robert Harris's latest, Conclave, and really enjoyed it (I gave it 4 stars). It's set in the near future, and the pope dies right at the start of the book . We see the conclave of cardinals who must elect the new pope through the eyes of Cardinal Lomeli, the Dean of the church who's in charge of organising the conclave. It's less of a real thriller than some of his other books, e.g. Archangel, but it was still pretty tense as cardinals got knocked out of the election to become Pope. My favourite priest when I was a kid ended up being called to the Vatican and the Conclave takes place there. Being ex-Catholic and having visited St Peter's definitely added to the interest, but it's a good holiday read even without this.



And this afternoon I snaffled the latest Doctor Watson book - The Sign of Fear. I'll finish my Kindle book first, because it is really good too - Medicus by Ruth Downie, because I can't help starting new crime series before I finish any of the old ones.

It is so nice to have time to sit here and be back on LT! I have seen the new group is up but won't start a thread just yet.

Good to see you back, Cushla. Lots of 2017 activity going on its hard to resist getting in on it, but not quite time yet. Good to see that you came out relatively unscathed in your mishap.

Hi Meg - yes I am waiting for a couple more days, otherwise I will have more new year posts than for the rest of the year!! I've just visited a couple of threads in the new group and will try to do more later on tonight. I love the big school holidays - I am really not working.

Hi Cushla, you hit me with a BB Conclave goes straight to my list.

>137 cushlareads: It would be nice to have holidays that coincide with the school year. I was lucky enough to have one job at a college that gave us time off between Christmas and New Years. I miss that - must toddle off to work now. I wonder what the weather here has in store today *sigh*. I envy you your beach weather.

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTMK2zUZWizHPUglRKucazX3fFf...

Happy New Year, Cushla!

I wish you from my heart health, happiness, satisfaction and much exciting read in 2017. May all your wishes come true.


from my hometown Zürich, Switzerland