Six Degrees of Separation is a meme hosted by Kate over at Books Are My Favourite and Best. It works like this: each month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the others on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.
This month we’re starting with Stephen King’s It which I haven’t read and have absolutely no intention of doing so. Far too cowardly!
I know very little about King’s novel but the blurb tells me it’s set in Maine which gives me the opportunity to scuttle quickly back into my comfort zone. J. Courtenay Sullivan’s novel Maine has a New England summer home setting and family secrets to reveal, both favorites for me.
Kate Atkinson’s Behind the Scenes at the Museum is one of the best family secrets novels I’ve read. A multitude of clues are spilled finally revealing what’s been puzzling Ruby Lennox for much of her life. Atkinson’s beautiful structured, often very funny novel won her the Whitbread Book of the Year award back in 1995 before it became the Costa.
The eponymous Cathy from Anna Stothard’s The Museum of Cathy is also keeping secrets, this time from her fiancé. The arrival of a package with no name or note attached threatens to unravel her new life in this nicely taut novel which has some gorgeous descriptions of the natural world.
The Museum of Cathy is set in Berlin leading me to Gail Jones’ A Guide to Berlin in which six people – all Nabokov aficionados, all visitors to the city – gather together to discuss the work of their literary hero but begin by telling their own stories.
Jones is also the author of Sixty Lights about a woman’s fascination with the newly emerging photographic technology which leads me to William Boyd’s Sweet Caress, an homage to woman photographers. It follows the life of Amory Clay from snapping socialites to documenting war in a career spanning much of the twentieth century. You could think of it as the female equivalent to Any Human Heart if you’re a Boyd fan.
In his novel’s acknowledgements Boyd mentions the war photographer Martha Gellhorn, one of the three wives of Ernest Hemingway whose stories were fictionalised in Naomi Wood’s Mrs Hemingway. I put off reading Wood’s novel for some time owing to my Hemingway antipathy but enjoyed it very much.
This month’s Six Degrees of Separation has taken me from a fraught New England summer holiday to the South of France in the 1920s, equally fraught at times. Part of the fun of this meme is comparing the very different routes other bloggers take from each month’s starting point. If you’re interested, you can follow it on Twitter with the hashtag #6Degrees, check out the links over at Kate’s blog or perhaps even join in.
Excellent list as always. I’ve not read any of your choices (or It) but a couple sound intriguing.
I’m already thinking of how my chain can progress…
Thank you, Janet, and I’ll look forward to seeing what you come up with.
It’s always fun to see the ingenuity of the threads in these posts. The W. Boyd is the only one here I’ve read, and i did post a while back on The Paris Wife, about Hemingway’s first wife. Not a particularly appealing character, I agree, but this novel at least gave a bit of balance to the caricature of him that’s prevalent. He did have some good points, it seems. I like the sound of A Guide to Berlin: I know the city quite well, and have a soft spot for Nabokov…
One of the joys of this meme is tracing the very different routes everyone takes.
I think you’d probably like A Guide to Berlin, then. I’m sure I missed many of the Nabakov allusions. I’ve not read The Paris Wife. I think the two novels may have come out around the same time and I plumped for Mrs Hemingway. Perhaps I should give it a try.
Love your links. I’ve been so busy, I’ve got out of sync with this meme – must get back into it next month as it’s my favourite. You’ve also reminded me I have Mrs Hemingway still on my shelves to read.
Thanks, Annabel. I enjoyed Mrs Hemingway much more than I was expecting. The wives come out of it as allies!
I haven’t read any of the books on your list, although Gail Jones is definitely an author I’ve been meaning to read. The others on your list sound equally intriguing.
Thanks, Melinda. She’s a great writer although I’d recommend Sixty Lights over Guide to Berlin.
I am glad you scuttled away from ‘IT’, Susan. The book didn’t let me sleep for so many and I hated myself for reading such a book. ‘A Guide to Berlin’ sounds intriguing. I will add it to my list. Thank you. 🙂
You’re welcome, Deepika. I’m a born coward, no fan of being scared witless!
I haven’t read any Stephen King either and, like you, probably won’t either as I like my sleep untroubled. I think I’m really going to have to read The Museum of Cathy aren’t I?
Absolutely! A must-read for you.
Great chain! Behind the Scenes at the Museum sounds very interesting. I’ve added it to my tbr-list.
Thanks you, and delighted to hear that. You’re in for a treat!
I love this book meme in particular. Some are quite dumb actually, but this one is unique and interesting to read about!
I agree with you there. This one stretches the brain a little and it’s always a joy to see what other bloggers come up with. The only other meme I have a weakness for is the annual book bingo.
Oohh never heard of that one! I look forward to your post about it 🙂
It’ll be my last post of the year and I’m hopeful that a few other bloggers will be doing it too.
I haven’t read any of the books in your chain but amazingly I have four of them in my TBR stack! (Sullivan, Atkinson, Jones and Wood)
Excellent! I wasn’t quite so keen on the Wood, although I think I know why you have it, but the other three come heartily recommended. The Sullivan would make a great piece of holiday reading.
The Wood falls into that slim selection of historical fiction that I’m always a sucker for!
It’s always so interesting how different everyone’s chains are. I don’t like fictionalised biography of real people usually, but I trust you so maybe I’ll give Mrs Hemingway a try…
Not my cup of tea, either, usually, and thank you!
Oh my good intentions of doing this fell foul this year … love your links Susan; added to my MUST DO for 2018
I hope you will, Poppy. It’s such an enjoyable monthly post to think about and write.