Other People’s Bookshelves #6; Kate Gardner

For the latest instalment of other peoples book porn bookshelves we get to have a nosey through the lovely Kate Gardner’s shelves this week. Kate blogs at Nose in a Book for three years, she says “I still feel like I’m just discovering how it all works and how many great book blogs are out there. I’ve always been an avid reader – I remember many a mealtime as a child being told to put my book down just long enough to eat! I live in Bristol with my boyfriend Tim and I’m originally from the Forest of Dean, which is beautiful but rural so maybe my book love comes from a lack of anything else to do? Or maybe it stems from me having glue ear when I was six, which made me almost deaf for about a year and as a result super shy. Or maybe it was a love that was always destined to be! It was a glorious moment for me when in 2011 we turned our dining room into a library/games room. Sadly it’s currently full of boxes while we’re redecorating other parts of the house but I look forward to getting it back soon!” So let’s find out more about Kate and through her shelves shall we?

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

I try to be strict with myself and only keep books that I thought really good and/or want to read again. That’s probably a bit more than half of the books I buy, so I am fast running out of space!

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

I keep my TBR books separate in their own half a bookcase (and they’re overflowing that…) and I don’t organise them at all. But my other books are strictly alphabetical order. There’s just too many to be able to find the book I’m looking for otherwise. I have sections for general fiction, poetry/plays/philosophy, literary non-fiction, reference, children’s, comics/graphic novels, SF and fantasy. Most of those last three genres aren’t my books anyway, they’re Tim’s. Not that I object to muddling our books up together, it’s just an easy separation to make.

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

I don’t remember for certain. I do know my favourite present from an early age was book tokens. When I was quite young (about 7?), there was a competition in the local paper to be the first to go into the town bookshop and sing this song they’d made up to the tune of “Oh my darling, Clementine”. I studiously memorised the words (I still remember the opening: “Down in Coleford, there’s a bookshop…”) then rushed down into town and sang it at the shop. I think they were a bit surprised by my eagerness! The prize was a book token and I think I spent it there and then, possibly on Roald Dahl books? I certainly still have all those, with my name scrawled inside the covers because you know, sibling rivalry and all.

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

Not really. Although I must admit I wouldn’t read Anais Nin outside the house, but somehow it’s fine to have her on the shelves!

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

Tough one. I suppose some of my old kids’ books that I loved and have held onto – especially Alpaca by Rosemary Billam – but it’s the stories that have meaning for me, so if I lost them and had to buy replacements I’d be okay with that. I mean, I’m sure I’d be upset, but not over any specific book.

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now?

I was encouraged by my Mum to read any books available to me from pretty young so I don’t really remember a specific transition at home. Certainly I know Mum was passing her Jean Plaidy and Victoria Holt books on to me when I was really too young for them! But I do remember the transition at school quite clearly. In third year infants (so I was 6 or 7) I had finished all the infant readers but the teacher didn’t want to start me on junior books yet so she opened up her special book cupboard for me. It was amazing! In there I found Mrs Pepperpot, Mr Majeika, all sorts. The teacher retired soon after that so it was literally a whole career’s worth of collecting great kids’ books together. We all loved her.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

No, borrowing is fine…until I get an urge to read it again. Usually I spend a while hunting for it before I remember I don’t own it!

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

The newest And Other Stories turned up in the post last week – Black Vodka by Deborah Levy. I’m excited to read that as I really enjoyed Swimming Home. (Which I may well have bought on your recommendation, Simon, so thank you! It was so good, I subscribed!)

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

Oh, far too many. My wishlist is at least 100 titles long and that doesn’t count all the books I want because they’re pretty. Ahem.

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

Reasonably eclectic, quite literary but with some unusual stuff thrown in there, like my collections of the Modesty Blaise comic strips. I must admit that some of the more impressive titles, such as the Iliad and the Odyssey, I haven’t actually read, but I totally intend to. There will be time one day.

***************************************

A big thank you to Kate for letting me grill her. Don’t forgot if you would like to participate (and I would love you to) in Other People’s Book Shelves series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance. In the meantime… what do you think of Kate’s responses and/or any of the books she mentioned?