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Category: Blog

Far from the maddening crowds

May 21, 2025May 21, 2025 No Comments

Devon is nice. Holidays are nice. These are my wholly original observations. The world right now feels stressful, the daily news is awful and in order to keep on fighting for what I believe in, I badly needed a break. So we took ourselves off to Devon for a week. Dartmoor isn’t the easiest place to holiday without a car but we made it work and it was pretty awesome in the end. We had ideal weather, stayed in a cute dog-friendly glamping pod thingy and all got weirdly used to seeing very few people. Which may have ruined the dog for city life – she’s going to need a week or two to get used to people again.

Thanks to a very generous Christmas present from Tim, I now have a new SLR camera that’s much more portable than the old one I had basically given up on for being too much weight to carry around. So for the first time in years I took a bunch of photos on this holiday on a real actual camera and they really are so much better than phone photos. Which was handy as within a couple of minutes’ walk of our holiday park we were in ancient woodland and a mile later on the moor itself. And it was all beautiful.

Continue reading “Far from the maddening crowds”

Kate Gardner Blog

April 2025 reading round-up

May 1, 2025May 18, 2025

It feels like midsummer here in Bristol. Which is kinda lovely but also kinda terrifying on a climate-catastrophe level.

April was busy, mostly with fun things. We made our own spiced rum, went fossil hunting in Lyme Regis and saw the very excellent poet-musician Joshua Idehen perform.

April has also been a shitshow politically, especially for trans people in the UK. I am ashamed of my country right now. I’m trying to help by writing to my MP, donating to the Good Law Project and generally being vocal in my solidarity. Trans rights are human rights. No women are made safer by legitimizing the exclusion and ill treatment of a subset of women. I truly hope this is a short-term setback on an overall upward trajectory and that things will get better.

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Kate Gardner Blog

It’s Easter, it’s readathon time

April 18, 2025April 18, 2025

Long weekend plans

Pretty much every Easter I get 3 or 4 days entirely to myself – no work, no Tim or other family, no commitments. Just me and whatever I want to do. Well, okay, for the past couple of years I’ve had the dog for company too. So I go for walks, cook myself nice food, buy and eat Easter eggs. But most of all – I read.

I don’t set myself any targets or rules. I try to choose from my existing TBR because let’s face it, there are over 100 books sat in my bedroom waiting for my attention. But if a dog walk should happen to take us to a bookshop, then who am I to ignore the call of fate?

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Kate Gardner Blog

March 2025 reading round-up

March 31, 2025April 1, 2025

Three-cornered leek

The sun has started to show its face; the clocks have changed; our cherry tree is in full blossom. The herb seeds I planted a month ago are varying from just peeking through the surface to recognisable plants on various windowsills around the house. I do like spring.

Health-wise, I’ve been getting out on my bike at least once a week and even started running again. My shoulder isn’t 100% recovered but I’m inching closer.

I joined BlueSky last year and so far my favourite part is the Banned Book Club, which names a different book each month to discuss. This month’s selection was Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and I’m so glad I was pushed to finally read this terrifying modern masterpiece. It’s definite a good candidate for discussion. In fact, I think the discussion prompts really helped me to process this challenging read.

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Kate Gardner Blog

February 2025 reading round-up

March 2, 2025March 31, 2025

Elektra

Not such an eventful month as January or nearly as prolific reading-wise. It’s honestly been a bit of a tough one as recovery from surgery is proving much slower than I had expected. But I’m now cycling again, which feels like a big step.

We ended the month with a trip to London to see Brie Larson on stage in Elektra. She was absolutely brilliant in this bare bones, angry, punk staging that uses Anne Carson’s translation of Sophocles. It’s the most experimental play I’ve ever seen in the West End or indeed in any traditional old theatre. If it weren’t for the huge Hollywood and Broadway names (Clytemnestra is played by Stockard Channing) this play would have felt right at home at Bristol’s Tobacco Factory Theatre or South Street Arts Centre in Reading. I loved it, even if I didn’t quite understand a couple of the set details (why is there a zeppelin?).

I’m still not sure I’m quite ready to read the Ancient Greeks, even in modern translation. But this has reignited my interest in these stories enough to queue up the second part of Claire North’s Songs of Penelope series to read soon. The blurb suggests this novel heavily features Elektra and her brother Orestes. (They were minor characters in the first book, Ithaca.)

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Kate Gardner Blog

January 2025 reading round-up

February 2, 2025February 3, 2025

January projects

Well that was a month. I usually don’t mind January as much as other people do. After all, it starts with my birthday and ends with the first spring flowers. Plus I really don’t mind cold weather for walking the dog in crunchy frost and then warming up at home with a hot drink and a book.

But I have to say this year January was tough. It’s been wet. World news is awful. And it turns out that recovering from shoulder surgery is more slow and painful than I anticipated. Plus, I have yet to see a spring flower that’s, you know, flowering (in fairness, I haven’t left the house all that much).

The list below makes it look like I read a lot of books in January. Which technically is true. But the pain and reduced range of movement I’m experiencing, though both are improving week on week, means it is still difficult for me to hold a book that requires both hands to read. So I’ve mostly restricted myself to my ereader (which I can use one-handed) and the set of tiny 50-page Penguin Modern mini classics that Tim bought me a few years ago. Plus a couple of chapbooks of Korean short stories from the University of East Anglia’s Yeoyu project.

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Kate Gardner Blog

Top reads of 2024 and some fun stats

January 11, 2025February 1, 2025

Line graph showing books read and pages read per month

Happy New Year! I have recovered enough from shoulder surgery to type one-handed for short periods. Which means it’s time for a slightly belated (and shorter than usual) look at my reading stats for 2024.

Last year I read 88 books or 23,928 pages. I get lovely stats and graphs from Storygraph, as their name suggests. For instance, I spent an average 6 days on each book (with lots of overlaps). I read 79% fiction, 21% non-fiction. The average book length was 275 pages. I read the most in May but I liked the books the most in August.

According to my own records, I read 18 books in translation. As for gender split, I read 64 by women, 23 by men and one by multiple authors of various genders. I’ve come a long way since the days when I strived to read as many women as men! It’s perhaps no surprise then that all 5 of my favourite books this year were written by women.

Continue reading “Top reads of 2024 and some fun stats”

Kate Gardner Blog

December 2024 reading round-up

December 31, 2024January 10, 2025

Christmas Day 2024

Happy New Year’s Eve folks!

I actually wrote this post a couple of days ago as I will be incapable of blogging on 31 December. I’m scheduled for minor surgery just before the New Year and expect to be on strong painkillers for a few days. Hopefully after a few weeks of convalescence my shoulder will no longer cause me constant pain. That’ll be nice.

Looking back over December, it was a month of two halves. First half was busy with Christmas parties, get-togethers, shopping and planning. Second half was hospital appointments; keeping myself away from crowds so I don’t get sick before having surgery; and a very quiet chill Christmas at home. My brother joined us for a few days and we ate a lot of very good food.

Staying home more than usual means Tim and I powered through our list of Christmas films. We watched a lot of them, old and new, good and bad. I can recommend A Christmas Affair (1949), Desk Set (1957), The Apartment (1960), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) and The Ice Harvest (2005). Plus the new Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is great. It’s not set at Christmas but it was premiered on Christmas Day so it’s basically a Christmas film.

I also read a lot this month. I thoroughly enjoyed Butter and Behind You is the Sea, but I absolutely loved This House. It’ll probably be a week or two before I name my top books of 2024, so here’s a hint: This House will be on the list.

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Kate Gardner Blog

November 2024 reading round-up

December 1, 2024December 2, 2024

Beckett meets Ted

Well that was November. We had snow! I met my Dad’s puppy! Also there were fireworks for weeks, which is not great with a nervous dog. And my shoulder pain is back with a vengeance. Chronic illness is fun.

I didn’t speed through books this month. Pain makes concentration harder, so I watched a lot more TV instead. We’re most of the way through season one of Three Body Problem – based on the book by Cixin Liu – and I’m also most of the way through the K-drama Hometown Cha-cha-cha. One of those is considerably lighter on the ol’ brain.

I went with friends to see the stage production of Never Let Me Go – based on the book by Kazuo Ishiguro – at Bristol Old Vic. It was excellent. Tissues definitely required. I also went with the same friends to an evening of traditional Egyptian and Lebanese music. We sat on cushions on the floor, drinking tea – a very chill night out.

The Christmas activities have already begun. I took my Mum to see Luxmuralis: In the Beginning at Bristol Cathedral – a light art installation that tells the story of the Nativity through laser projections. It’s a bit cheesy but also quite impressive. And again, quite chill.

Continue reading “November 2024 reading round-up”

Kate Gardner Blog

October 2024 reading round-up

October 31, 2024November 3, 2024

I do like autumn. This month has been mild, mostly dry and my health is finally in a good enough place to cycle the dog off on Sundays for long walks again. I’d missed our adventures.

October was socially pretty full – we went to the Great Western Brick Show, saw the Dandy Warhols and celebrated Tim’s birthday. I went to the first night of Neneh Cherry’s book tour and a folk concert of spooky music. Plus our usual film nights and pub quizzes.

I read some great books this month but the highlight was definitely Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang. I don’t know why it took me so long to read any of her books. I’m tempted to jump straight into Babel next.

Continue reading “October 2024 reading round-up”

Kate Gardner Blog

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