Culture
Turning over a new leaf to pursue a true passion Let’s start by you telling us a bit about yourself… I live down a very bumpy track in Horsmonden, with my husband, Jonny, my three children - Harry (13), Rosalie (10) and Bill (8) – and our three dogs. We have lived here for five years but I grew up in Sevenoaks and went to school there. I always knew I would likely end up back in Kent, especially as my mother lives in Tonbridge and my sisters live in Plaxtol and Goudhurst. Although I met my Scottish husband at uni, his parents moved to Otford near Sevenoaks when he was 14 so really a life together in Kent was inevitable! Have you always been an avid reader? Yes! My mother loves reading and instilled the reading bug in me and my sisters from an early age. We always teased my father as he wasn’t a big reader and he would start a new book every holiday and never finish it. When I was younger, holidays were always my most prolific reading time and I would have loads of library books filling up the boot of the car as I was always terrified I would run out! Now I read all year round and always have a book on the go. What do you enjoy most about books? I love escaping into different worlds – not that I don’t love my own world - but there is something very liberating about reading a book and immersing yourself into the world of another. I always have a ‘to do’ list buzzing round my head or thinking about something for the children so I find that reading is the one way I have of really switching off from real life.
Hannah Kirsop traded working in the City for running her own book club and blog. Here the editor of Bainden Bookclub – and newly appointed literary critic for the Times of Tunbridge Wells - tells Eileen Leahy why reading can enrich us all in so many ways… 24 | August 2021 | SO Magazine
Is reading and writing reviews your full-time job now? It’s not at the moment, but I’m really enjoying doing something for me again. I stopped working in the City a couple of years ago to spend some time focusing on my children and my father who was unwell. I really miss working but don’t want to go back to what I did before so that’s why I decided to start my book blog the Bainden Bookshelf.
