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 we’re starting with Elizabeth Day’s Friendaholic which I’ve not read but the subtitle tells me she describes herself as a ‘friendship addict’.
Leading me to Robin Dunbar’s Friends in which the author looks at the importance of friendship.
Which made me think of Robert D. Putnam’s Bowling Alone which looks at the fraying of community and friendship in America.
In Elizabeth McCracken’s Bowlaway, a character is found unconscious in a churchyard with ‘a bowling ball, a candlepin and fifteen pounds of gold’.
McCracken is married to Edward Carey, the author of Little, a quirky fictionalised biography of the diminutive Madame Tussaud.
Leading me to Louisa May Alcott’s much loved classic Little Women about the March sisters.
Geraldine Brooks’ March imagines the life of the sisters’ father, an army chaplain on the abolitionist side during the American Civil War
This month’s Six Degrees has taken me from a book about being addicted to making friends to a novel based on the absent character from a nineteenth-century classic. 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.
Result, for once. I’ve read the last three of your choices, which just leaves me with three to consider!
And oh yes! Of course Elizabeth McCracken wrote The Hero of this Book. Right. Bowlaway goes straight on the list!
I should warn you it’s a bit of a chunkster although it does bowl along nicely. (Sorry!)
Ah. Chunkster. I’m about to embark on Demon Copperhead, so another chunkster may have to wait.
Good plan, and good luck with Ms Kingsolver!
Actually, I’ve read 20 pages, and I’m not enjoying it, though I’ve loved her writing previously, and have read all the positive reviews.
I’ve never been much of a fan of what I call the tribute band novel. Much preferred her earlier writing. Lovely descriptions of the natural world.
Well, quite. This isn’t really what I was expecting at all. Tribute Band novel: I like that, and may imitate (duly acknowledged, obviously!)
The first four of these are new to me, and of them Little stands out the most since I am curious about Mme T! Little Women probably ended up being a not so favourite book with me as we had it as a school text (class V I think) which automatically puts it on that no so fond of list 😀
I know what you mean about books studied at school. I loved Little not having expected to at all.
Well, ‘a bowling ball, a candlepin and fifteen pounds of gold’ does sound intriguing. (Did you know that I once belonged to a local bowling league?)
I didn’t! Not sure whether to recommend Bowlaway to you or not, then.
Argh, forgot it was 6degrees day. Later, perhaps! I love your bowling links, and had no idea that McCracken and Carey were an item.
Thank you! I think I worked that one out from Twitter during the pandemic when Carey did a drawing a day.
Such an interesting chain. I read the two last books and found them absolutely fascinating. At the moment, I read another book by Geraldine Brooks “People of the Book”. Fascinating.
My Six Degrees of Separation took me from Friendaholic to Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami.
Thank you. I’ve not read People of the Book yet. My favourite of hers is Year of Wonders although I enjoyed Horse recently. Thanks for your link.
Love it! I’ve read three of yours and am particularly fond of Little and March. That was a McCracken novel I couldn’t make it through, alas.
Thank you! Not her best, for sure.
Nice to see a mention of Little, I loved that book.
Such a clever idiosyncratic piece of fiction.
I enjoyed his book, The Swallowed Man as well
I’ve never read nonfiction about friendships, but I quite like the idea. Will add the Dunbar book to my list of possibilities together with Friendaholic.
Such an important part of our lives but rarely written about it seems.
From memory, Day quotes Dunbar’s book on friendship – I must look it up.
I can’t remember how many people he argues we can count as real friends but it’s significantly fewer than the zillions of the Facebook variety many have.
Loved Little! Great chain Susan
Thanks, Cathy. Little was one of those books I wasn’t expecting to like then it ended up on my books of the year list.
Great links! That mini-blurb for Bowlaway is quite eye-catching!
Thank you! It’s quite a premise for a novel.
I need to check out Dunbar’s book. And I have ‘Little Women’ (kind of) on my chain too..
Here is my #6Degrees: https://www.ladyinreadwrites.com/finding-friends-everywhere-six-degrees-of-strong-connections/
Thanks for the link. I’ll wander over and take a look.