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 others to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the titles on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.
This month Kate’s offered us a wildcard – starting with a book with which we’d ended a previous chain. I decided to stick with last month’s Susan Hill’s Howard’s End Is on the Landing about the author’s year of reading the books on her shelves rather than buying any new ones. With that as my starting point I’ve indulged myself with a chain linking six books about books and bookselling.
Coincidentally, I’d posted a review of Cathy Rentzenbrink’s Dear Reader the day before November’s Six Degrees. Subtitled The Comfort and Joy of Books, Rentzenbrink’s delightfully bookish memoir is woven through with her reading and includes lots of pleasing anecdotes from her bookselling days.
Rentzenbrink worked for Hatchards as a bookseller, no doubt encountering a similarly posh clientele to Hilary, decades before, working in the book department of Everyman’s, a thinly disguised Selfridges, in Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford’s hugely enjoyable novel, Business as Usual.
Sheridan Hay’s The Secret of Lost Things is set in the Arcade, a rambling New York bookshop – suspiciously like the legendary Strand – staffed by a bunch of eccentrics who are joined by eighteen-year-old Rosemary, fresh from Tasmania. When she opens a letter offering a ‘lost’ Melville manuscript the fun begins in this enjoyable yarn of thwarted love and literary detection.
New York is also the setting for much of Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore which playfully meshes the old reading world with new technology in a quirky edge-of-your-seat story of bookish folk. Apologies for trotting this one out yet again but it’s one of my favourites.
Booksellers on a mission also put in an appearance in Charlie Hill’s Books when an independent bookseller witnesses the sudden death of a woman reading book by a vacuous bestselling author. As Spontaneous Neural Atrophy Syndrome spreads, a psychologist seeks his help in investigating the phenomenon. Liberally scattered with book titles, authors’ names and in-jokes, Books is both very silly and very funny.
Hill’s humour put me in mind of Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair, in which literary detective Thursday Next is determined to get a whole series of characters back on their rightful pages, literally entering into the text to do so. One of those books that has you constantly sniggering, annoying everyone within earshot
This month’s Six Degrees has taken me from a year’s book-buying ban to disappearing into the pages of a novel by way of several bookshops. 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.
Lovely – and apart from Susan Hill which I have read, I want to read all of the rest.
Thanks, Annabel. Mission achieved!
I’ve always wanted to read that 24-hour bookstore novel… Nicely done chain!
Thank you! I felt a bit uncomfortable trotting Mr Penumbra out yet again but as my chain seemed to be wandering off down a bookselling route I couldn’t leave it out. It’s an excellent comfort read, should you be in need of one.
I think I’ve got it on one of my wish lists… one day…
A very bookish chain with some lovely covers! I’ve read the 2 Hills and the Fforde and I’m reading Cathy Rentzenbrink’s book now. I can’t resist these sorts of titles.
Me, neither! I hope you’re enjoying the Rentzenbrink.
I will soooo not survive a year of book buying banning. It will be like a jail sentence to me. But maybe I should try it sometime… This year should actually have been the perfect year, come to think of it!
I still haven’t read Mr Penumbra’s 24hours Bookshop. Gosh, I need to get my hands on it.
I love how your theme pulled through and I love books with a setting in a bookshop. One of my favorites will have to be The Collected works of A.J. Fikry. That’s why I used a spin on it on my latest Top Ten Tuesday!
Here’s my latest 6 Degrees of Separation – One, two, buckle my shoe
Thank you, Mareli, and I’m with you on the idea of a year’s book-buying ban. We need to keep bookshops going if nothing else!
Fun chain and very bookish!
Thank you! Couldn’t help myself…
Great to see you managed to get Business As Usual in there. I have a copy of it that I must get round to reading.
It’s such treat, Cathy. One to brighten up the winter months.
Hi Susan, have you changed the settings on your blog, as I can no longer read your content on the WordPress app; I can only read the comments.
No, that’s very odd. I’ll check it out. Thanks for letting me know, Kim
Love the theme!
An irresistible one for me!
Love the link between Dear Reader and Business as Usual – great chain!
Thank you! It did turn into a chain about bookselling, something close to my heart.
Nice chain! I so enjoyed Mr Penumbra’s
Here is my chain: https://wordsandpeace.com/2020/11/07/six-degrees-of-separation-from-truth-to-a-notebook/
Thank you, and glad to hear you enjoyed Mr Penumbra.
What’s not to love about a chain of books about books, especially one that ends with The Eyre Affair which is a such a fun read!
Enjoyed your chain!
Thank you! I chortled my way through The Eyre Affair one holiday then my partner got his own back.
Love the Hill so much, and Business as Usual – and I got Dear Reader for my birthday yesterday!
Happy birthday, Simon! You’re in for a lovely comforting treat with Dear Reader. I’ve a feeling I’ll be giving Business as Usual another outing in my books of the year post in December.
I love books about books – so this chain is great for me!
The Cathy Rentzenbrick sounds especially appealing.
I have read Mr Penumbra but couldn’t decide about it. On the whole I thought it was good though, and a very interesting idea.
So many people have raved about Business as Usual, I’m looking forward to reading that soon.
The last bookshop book I read was The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend. I had high hopes for it but felt a little disappointed; it was just too unlikely, and the heroine too tedious for me!
I’m glad it hit the spot, Rosemary. Dear Reader is a lovely book, and I hope you enjoy Business as Usual as much as the rest of us who have been shouting about it. Shame about your last bookshop read. Not one I know but it sounds like it’s to be avoided.
I adore The Eyre Affair. It’s on the all time favourite list. I really need to read Mr Penumbra at some point!
It’s hugely entertaining isn’t it. I’d be amazed if you didn’t love Mr Penumbra, Janet.
A wild card? What fun. And such an appropriate theme for you, of course. I think it’s your recommendation of the Sheridan Hay that landed it on my TBR at some point. I’ve just put in a library request for it, because it aligns with one of my future “Here and Elsewhere” destinations (and now you have a sneak peek). I’m looking forward to it immensely!
I couldn’t resist that theme. Hope you enjoy the Hay. I’ll be looking out for your Here and Elsewhere post.