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 doesnāt need to be connected to all the others on the list, only to the one next toĀ it in the chain.
This month weāre starting with Lisa Taddeoāsā Three Women which has been all over my Twitter feed for months. I havenāt read it but I know itās about female desire.
As is Nancy Fridayās My Secret Garden, a catalogue of female sexual fantasies, very popular years ago when I was a bookseller. Copies used to turn up all over the shop, furtively shoved on to inappropriate shelves when shy browsers felt on the verge of being discovered, I imagine
Fridayās book is not to be confused with The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson-Burnett, a much-loved childrenās classic in which a lonely little girlās life is transformed when she finds the key to a locked garden.
Taking the garden link a step further, after a tour of the worldās miseries Voltaireās eighteenth-century satire, Candide, ends with an exhortation to tend your garden.
Candide is regarded as a seminal Enlightenment text. Pierre Choderlos de Laclosā Les Liasons Dangereuses, about the corruption of a young girl, was also published during the Enlightenment. Renamed Dangerous Liasons, it was made into a film starring Glenn Close.
As was Meg Woltizerās The Wife which features a celebrated male author whose spouse is the real star of the literary show, a part Close played beautifully.
Which leads me to Dick Francisā Flying Finish. Francisā wife did a great deal of the research for his novels, learning to fly for this one, apparently. Unlike Wolitzerās character, Francis was only too happy to credit his wifeās contribution, describing them as a team
This monthās Six Degrees of Separation has taken me from a book which explores female desire to transporting race horses. Part of the fun of this meme is comparing the very different routes other bloggers take from each monthās starting point. If youāre interested, you can follow it on Twitter with the hashtag #6Degrees, check out the links over at Kateās blog or perhaps even join in.
Dick Francis seems to have collaborated with all his family to write books… I had not hear of My Secret Garden. Can you imagine people buying it for their young nieces under the impression it was the FH Burnett one?
Always a worry – the jacket was far from explicit!
lol – I hate to think of anyone confusing The Secret Garden with My Secret Garden!
Absolutely! You wouldn’t want to do that.
Your link from My Secret Garden to The Secret Garden made me LOL. Brilliant!
Thank you! Not a mistake you’d want to make.
I loved the Candide link. Ever since I saw The Wife on screen, I’ve been meaning to read the book – it is on my shelves…
Thank you, Annabel. The Wife was a rare example of the film being as good as the book for me. Glenn Close is brilliant in it.
wow, what a trip! I only read the French titles and the (second) secret garden. I have 2 chains today!!: https://wordsandpeace.com/2019/10/05/six-degrees-of-separation-from-three-women-to-a-riddle/
No one’s yet confessed to reading the first Secret Garden! Very impressed by your two chains.
Now I have this image of some white haired elderly lady desperately trying to secret that book among your shelves terrified of being discovered
Ha! I’m sure it happened…
My Secret Garden came to my mind as well. As a young teenager three friends and I pooled our pocket money to buy a copy to read, Iām the one who ended up with it.
Thanks for sharing your chain.
You’re welcome. I hope it brought back happy memories!
Haha – you did make me laugh at the thought of some child receiving a copy of My Secret Garden by mistake… š
I did enjoy that paticular link!
Ohh… Candide! Cool you got that in here. I know the opera based on the story well. Leonard Bernstein at his best.
Oh, I didn’t know about that. I must look it up. Thanks.
Good job. I loved The Wife and I’m a big Dick Francis fan–but only in audio, lol.
Thank you. I have to confess I’ve never read a Dick Francis but I’ve sold many of them in my time.
Your ‘secret garden’ link made me laugh out loud. I do wonder, with people hiding copies of books in the shop, are they worried that other shoppers will see them reading it, or the book sellers…? Surely they know there’s no judgement from the shopkeeper š
I was pleased with that one! We opened until 10 pm in the early days – I suspect ‘browsers’ thought they had the shop to themselves towards closing time then suddenly found they didn’t.