Author: Kate Gardner

I live in Bristol and I like to read books and share what I thought about them here. I read mostly general or literary fiction, with pretty much every genre making an appearance from time to time. I love to receive comments, whether you've read the same books or not!

Book review: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin

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Left handHof Darkness book coverWhen my book club put out its call a few months ago for book suggestions on the theme of gender, I felt that science fiction could be a good angle from which to explore this topic but I feared that might put off some of the group. I needn’t have feared. Not only was my suggestion of The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin the vote winner for our March meeting, it was also a really well attended (virtual) meet-up and a very fruitful, lively discussion. I should never have doubted them.

This novel certainly provides a lot of fodder for discussion. It’s difficult to boil down the plot succinctly (which is perhaps why looking in different places you’ll see very different synopses that sound like entirely different books) but here is my attempt. Genly Ai is an envoy from the human interplanetary collaboration the Ekumen. He has been sent alone to the planet Gethen to see whether he can persuade the inhabitants to join the Ekumen. Between the planet’s perpetual wintry conditions and the Gethenians’ androgynous nature, Genly is struggling with his ambassadorial role. His primary contact is Estraven, who seems to want to help, but can they ever truly understand and trust one another?

For me – and most of the book group – this was a slow burner. There is a LOT of background to set up about Gethen’s people, politics and languages. On reflection there is also a lot of plot and character development from the start as well, but for me that got a bit buried under my trying to get to grips with the world building. And then around the halfway point I realised I was really enjoying the book and by the end I loved it.

As with every aspect of the novel, Le Guin goes into a lot of detail of the Gethenians’ androgyny. She has invented something called “kemmer”, a period of fertility akin to mammals in heat. During kemmer, Gethenians experience sexual urges that are overwhelming to the point that no-one is expected to work during that period. Though some Gethenians do have an equivalent of marriage, most are promiscuous and go to communal “kemmer houses” to have their sexual needs met. Genly finds this all a little strange, but what I really liked is that Le Guin has the Gethenians find Genly revolting because to them, he’s sexually aroused (or capable of it) all the time.

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March 2022 reading round-up

Sick day company

Well, Tim and I have both now had COVID and survived, which makes the world feel a bit less scary. Obviously we know we can be re-infected, and it wouldn’t necessarily be the same a second time round, but for now we’re enjoying the higher level of immune protection and the psychological relief of our worst fears not being realised.

I read four books this month, which is a big drop from Jan and Feb, but three of them were science fiction and two of those I found pretty challenging. Plus I had COVID and then the weather got glorious and I mostly wanted to be outside.

My favourite book this month was The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders (see below for a brief summary), which I liked so much that even when I felt absolutely awful on my first day of having COVID, I avidly read for the majority of the day. Usually when I’m sick I struggle to read and turn to TV instead. Not sure if it’s because COVID is a different kind of sick to my usual, or if I’m turning to the wrong kinds of books at those times.

I did also watch a lot of TV as per usual, don’t get me wrong. This month I discovered Man Like Mobeen, This Way Up and The Woman Across the Street From the Girl in the Window – which are all ideal if you need to laugh. And as for films, even just the really good ones make for a long list. I can recommend Mixtape, A Quiet Place, Columbus, Encanto, Colombiana and Tick Tick Boom.

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Book review: The Memorial by Christopher Isherwood

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The Memorial

I forget when I discovered Christopher Isherwood, but of course the first of his books that I read was Goodbye to Berlin and I was hooked. I have been gradually adding more of his books to my library and none of them has yet disappointed.

This is Isherwood’s second novel, published when he was just 28, which is remarkable in hindsight. It depicts a group of family and friends in the aftermath of the First World War, jumping around in time in the 1920s.

The two primary locations are London and a small Cheshire village. Sisters-in-law Lily and Mary do not get on well with each other, but having both lost their husbands in the war, their lives move closer in some ways, as do those of their children.

Each chapter is not only set in a different year, it is told from a different character’s perspective. From the large ensemble cast, we not only get to see through the eyes of Lily and Mary but also Lily’s son Eric, as well as Edward – childhood friend of Lily’s husband.

“Edward didn’t feel the cold. He started forward again, his overcoat flapping loose around him, singing to himself. He was beautifully warm all over, and the thing which kept whizzing round in his head gave him a pleasant sensation of deafness which was in itself a kind of warmth, blunting the edges of the freezing outside world.”

The book opens in London, with a fairly cosy, chatty look at Mary’s bohemian home filled with artistic and activist friends. Equally cosy is Lily getting close to a new gentleman friend, while fretting about her son who has disappointed her in some unnamed way. It’s a shock then to jump to Berlin, where a lonely Edward is struggling with survivor’s guilt and PTSD, contemplating suicide.

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February 2022 reading round-up

Valentine's

Oh dear. I had grand plans for an LGBT+ History Month reading summary, with slightly longer than usual descriptions of what I’d read. But then for complicated reasons I didn’t have access to my laptop for a week and a half and suddenly it’s 11 March. Ah well.

I did read a lot again in February (right now it is not looking like March will be so successful) and most of the books were excellent. I think my favourite read was Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis, so I will definitely be looking out for more books by the Uruguayan author.

I seem to have watched an even greater than usual roster of films old and new, including Blade Runner, Last Night in Soho, Lady Macbeth, Aliens and Passing. And in-between the grey drizzly days there was some glorious sunshine for dog walks. We even went out for a super fancy meal at an actual indoor restaurant.

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Book review: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

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A fine balance book coverAfter tearing through books in the first half of January, I decided it was a good time for a big book and Rohinton Mistry’s epic A Fine Balance certainly fit that bill.

A Fine Balance is epic in scope, but the bulk of it takes place in one single year: mid-1975 to 1976. In an unnamed Indian city on the coast, four people are thrown together, their lives increasingly integrated as political unrest leads to restricted freedoms in the form of the Emergency.

Mistry does a wonderful job of giving all the characters complex backgrounds and motivations, so that time after time, someone who is introduced as an annoyance or outright villain becomes a sympathetic character, even someone to root for. He also takes the time to give thorough backgrounds for our four leads before the main narrative gets going.

First we have Dina, a Parsi woman who was widowed young and has struggled to maintain a life independent of her controlling older brother. She is brittle and judgmental, but this is often a facade to hide her fear of losing the life she has. After years of working as a seamstress to make ends meet, her eyesight is now failing and she must turn to two new sources of income: taking in a tenant and subcontracting sewing work to tailors she can supervise.

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Book review: Around the World in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh

Around the World in 80 Trains book coverThe book club at work picked Around the World in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh for our December meeting and I’m so glad I was encouraged to read it. It’s a travel memoir where (almost) all the travel is by train and was actually already on my TBR.

Rajesh has a chatty, witty, conversational writing style, coming across as very open and honest from the start, where she shares the discussions she and her fiance Jem had about the trip before deciding to travel together. This was Rajesh’s second epic train adventure, as she had previously travelled alone around India (also in 80 trains). But that was before she met Jem and in a country she knew at least a little. This time, most of the countries she was heading to would be new terrain for her, and of course it would be nice to share the adventure.

So the couple hop on the Eurostar armed with Eurail passes and a fairly detailed plan for travels through Asia and America – but for some reason almost no plan for Europe, which quickly causes them problems. Perhaps it was a simple misunderstanding, but Rajesh had failed to realise beforehand that Eurail passes only really save you money if you make a plan and stick to it. Otherwise, in most of Europe outside the UK, trains are cheap enough that you may as well pay as you go. With their attempt to be spontaneous, their journey gets off to a rocky start of fines and fees that makes her writing about Europe decidedly gloomy.

This was not a good start. I have never in my life travelled for more than three weeks at a time, but even the first time I took the train alone to the south of France, aged 18, I had done more research and enjoyed a smoother experience than this supposed travel writer. I certainly know not to go to a dry cleaner with my dirty clothes, but instead find a self-service laundry, if I want to have any money left.

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January 2022 reading round-up

Reading snuggle

Well, January has been a bit grey and cold-but-not-snow-cold, but on the plus side I have torn through books this month. I finished 10 books – four of them in the first week. A lot of them were good but I think my favourite was Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram.

As has become habit now, we watched a lot of films. I’d say the best were Don’t Look Up (the recent big budget sci-fi film on Netflix) and Only Yesterday (an old Studio Ghibli film about a city woman who takes a holiday to the countryside and reminisces about her youth).

I also turned 41, went on a lot of dog walks and finally, after a few months’ break, started watching another K-drama (Cinderella and the Four Knights), which was…fine.

Maybe next month we’ll actually leave the city at some point. Who knows?

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Book review: An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine

An Unnecessary WomanA very long time ago (17/18 years, to be less vague) I used to regularly browse the sales boxes at Blackwell Bookshop in Oxford. I had recently graduated, was working in my first publishing job, and was reading everything I could. I bought books in large quantities, anything that caught my eye, and in that way discovered some amazing authors (and of course some duds). One of my discoveries was a book called I, the Divine by Rabih Alameddine, the Lebanese author’s second novel. It’s an experimental novel, written in the form of a series of first chapters, and I loved it. Then I completely failed to follow up and buy any more of his books.

Skip a decade or so and I discovered Alameddine’s Twitter stream, a delightful collection of artworks and poetry curated by someone I share taste and a sense of humour with. (Seriously, these days his Twitter is one of the few good reasons to keep bothering with that particular arm of social media.) Last year I finally bought another of his books, the novel An Unnecessary Woman, and over the Christmas break I read it.

The “unnecessary woman” of the title is Aaliya. She has lived alone in her Beirut apartment since the end of her brief marriage decades ago. She is not on good terms with her family, who resent her independence (and the reasonably nice flat she was able to keep when her husband left). Every year she translates a book into Arabic, starting her new project each 1 January. Appropriately enough for when I picked this up, the book is set over the end of one year and the start of the next, as Aaliya is musing on her next project.

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Book review: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

HomegoingI’ve had Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi on my TBR for a few years and I had put off reading it from fear that it would be sad or tough. I shouldn’t have worried. While it deals with tough subjects and has sad moments, it is also a highly enjoyable read with a lot of joy in its pages.

Effia and Esi, born in the 1750s on the Gold Coast of Africa, are sisters but they have never met. Raised in different villages, as they reach marriageable age they are in very similar positions, with promising local matches, but fate has something rather different in store.

Effia is married off to a white trader. She loves him but can never fit in with the other wives in the British fortress. Esi is captured when war breaks out between tribes and sold into slavery. She is shipped to America from the very fortress where her sister is living.

Gyasi traces the lineages of these two women through to the 21st century, through them telling the story of Ghana and the USA. From plantation slavery to missionaries, from colonialism to Harlem slums, there’s a lot to cover here and a lot of it is serious stuff, but this book has enough light moments and warm characters to never feel heavy.

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Bout of Books 33 reading round-up

In all the excitement of the new year and my birthday, I almost didn’t realise there was a Bout of Books readathon last week. Thankfully, I spotted some Tweets on Tuesday morning and decided to join in, albeit a day late. It seemed like odd timing to me initially, but on reflection it was the perfect way to start the year.

Bout of Books is a week-long readathon held three times a year. It was started in 2011 by Amanda Shofner, who still co-hosts, and has a wide community, from those who consider themselves bookstagrammers, booktubers or book bloggers, to people who just like to chat about books on Twitter and other social media. It really feels like you’re part of an event when you’re seeing lots of updates on the #BoutOfBooks hashtag and having live conversations with fellow book lovers.

As well as encouraging us to carve out time to read every day, Bout of Books is distinguished by half-hour reading sprints three times a day. As it’s US-based and I was working full time Tuesday to Friday, these didn’t fall at super helpful times for me in the UK but I did like that there was a sprint every day at 11 p.m. GMT, encouraging me to switch off the TV (if it had been on) and read for my last half hour before bed. It slotted perfectly into my routine, and I think I slept unusually well last week so I’ve tried to maintain the habit even after the readathon ended.

2022 has so far been mostly wet and grey, and going back to work after all the excitement of Christmas is always a little sad, so it would have been very tempting to just stare at the TV every night last week. I am so glad that instead I curled up with a book (and usually the dog). I tore through books from the TBR and I felt a bit more positive about myself. Plus reading itself is a good time, which you wouldn’t think I’d need reminding of, but that TV is such an easy temptation.

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