Portobello Book Blog

Kirsty from The Curious Ginger Cat Blog is my Blogger in the Spotlight today. Thanks for agreeing to be part of my Blogger in the Spotlight feature Kirsty. First of all, would you tell me a little about yourself?

Hi Joanne, thank you for featuring me on your blog! My name is Kirsty and I run the Curious Ginger Cat blog. I currently live in Berkshire with my lovely tech-geek husband and (despite my blog name) no pets! I work as a lawyer during the day and indulge in my love of books in the evenings. I travelled quite a bit in my childhood, growing up in England, South Africa and the United States, and I still love travelling and exploring new places – fortunately my husband loves holidays as much as I do!! My other favourite past time is curling up with a mug of green tea and a book.

What books/authors did you enjoy as a child?

One of my favourite childhood memories is being read to by my mother. She would sit in her recliner chair with my baby sister on her knee and my twin sister and I each sat on an arm of the recliner chair, whilst my mother read chapters of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series to us.

I really enjoyed Enid Blyton books, with some of my favourites being Malory Towers, The Folk of the Faraway Tree and The Naughtiest Girl in the School. I also liked the newer Famous Five series, although I must admit that I don’t know who wrote them.

As I got a bit older, I loved the Nancy Drew mysteries by Carolyn Keene, Sweet Valley Twins by Francine Pascal and Chalet School Girls by Elinor Brent-Dyer.

What made you want to start blogging?

I love reading but none of my friends are as keen as me, so I’ve never really had anyone who I can regularly discuss books with. My husband persuaded me to join Twitter and follow a few publishers/authors. I was delighted to discover that that there was a whole community of book bloggers out there. After reading a few blogs, I thought it would be a great forum for discussing the books that I am reading and/or want to read and, as a result, I set up my blog Curious Ginger Cat.

What do you enjoy most about blogging?

I love the interaction between bloggers, authors and publishers. I love the sense of community that there is in the book blogging world. I have met so many lovely people, in real life as well as online, whom I can discuss books with. I also love making and receiving book recommendations. One of my favourite things about blogging is that I get the opportunity to read so many books that I may not have chosen myself. It has certainly widened the variety of books/genres that I now read.

Tell me about your blog – sell yourself!

My blog is called Curious Ginger Cat. Whilst most people assume this is because I love cats, it actually comes from a drunken text message from my husband in which he called me ‘Ginger Cat’ – a bit of an in-joke. I mostly blog about books I have read but I also like to throw in some travel reports, restaurant reviews and some odds-and-sods to keep things interesting. I tend to read a whole range of books, although not a big fan of fantasy or Sci-Fi, and I love to try new authors and debut novels.

What’s your favourite book you’ve reviewed in the past year? Or favourite three if you really can’t choose.

There have been so many good releases in 2015/16 that it is impossible to choose just one book!  As such, I’ve tried to pick three very different ones that I thoroughly enjoyed in the past 12 months – Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey, Angela Marson’s 3 thrillers (Silent Scream, Evil Games and Lost Girls) and Holy Cow by David Duchovny.

What are you reading just now? 

At the moment (April 2016), I’m currently in the process of reading The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley (Bloomsbury Publishing) and although I’m only halfway through, I absolutely love it so far! It’s an elegant and interesting read, very atmospheric.

Tell me about your reading habits:  book or kindle, bed or bath, morning or evening?

Both – I think there is a place for real books and for my Kindle. Whilst I read both books and e-books at home, my Kindle travels everywhere with me in case I find myself with a spare 5 minutes. I’ve even been known to get out my Kindle whilst sat in a pub waiting for a friend!!

I prefer reading in bed to the bath. I do enjoy reading in the bath but I worry about dropping my book/Kindle whilst I’m in there. Plus it’s horrible when I suddenly realise that the water has got cold whilst I’ve been absorbed in a chapter! I often read in bed and will even climb into bed during the day purely to read. I rarely go to sleep without reading at least one chapter in bed to help me relax.

I read in the evenings during the week as I start work quite early so don’t have time in the mornings to read. At the weekend, I like to get up extra early and get a couple of hours of peaceful reading before my husband wakes up. This ensures that even if we are out in the evening, I still get my book fix for the day.

How can people follow your blog or connect with you on social media?

You can find my blog at thecuriousgingercat.co.uk or you can find me on Twitter at @GingerCatBlog and on Instagram at @Ginger_Cat_x. I do also have a Facebook page but I’ve not yet got the hang of using Facebook *must try harder*

 And finally, if you could be a character in any book you have read, who would it be and why?

 This is a hard question, but I think I would quite like to be Nancy Drew or Robin Ellacott (from Robert Galbraith’s novels) as I’m quite nosy, so I think I’d make a great Private Detective. Alternatively, maybe Meggie Folchart from Inkheart by Cornelia Funke, as she has the ability to bring characters from books into the real world when reading aloud, which would be an amazing thing to experience.