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 Salman Rushdie’s memoir of his shocking stabbing, Knife, which I’ve yet to read
Hard to follow that so I’m linking by title to Souvankham Thammavongsa’s superb short story collection How to Pronounce Knife about the experience of immigrants and refugees.
Thammavongsa won the Giller Prize in 2020, a prize I like to keep an eye on. The last winner I read was Suzette Mayr’s The Sleeping Car Porter about a young man of colour working hard on Canada’s cross country night train in 1929.
Alex Schulman’s Malma Station (transl. Rachel Willson Broyles) sees three characters travelling the same train route through rural Sweden set across three different timelines.
Mikael Niemi’s historical crime novel To Cook a Bear (transl. Deborah Bragen-Turner) is also set deep in the Swedish countryside.
Linking by title again to Franz Olivier-Giesbert’s Himmler’s Cook (transl. Anthea Bell) who’s formidable 105-year-old narrator has lived through many of the twentieth-century’s darkest hours but kept her sense of humour.
William Boyd’s Logan Mountstuart also rubs shoulders with many who shaped the twentieth century in Any Human Heart.
This month’s Six Degrees has taken me from an horrific attack on a renowned author to a novel telling the story of the last century through a bystander with diversions to Canada and Sweden along the way. 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.
Well. An excellent chain as usual, and unusually I’ve read several of your choices. I’ve definitely bookmarked How to Pronounce Knife, and Himmler’s Cook – the two I haven’t read. Don’t you think How to Cook a Bear is the best book title ever? And a pretty good read, as I remember.
Thank you! Two thoroughly enjoyable books in very different ways. It’s a brillany title isn’t it. It would make a great movie/TV adaptation
Definitely!
I haven’t read any of these, but I enjoyed your chain. I’m sure I’ll read Any Human Heart eventually as I’ve loved some of William Boyd’s more recent books.
Thank you, Helen. That’s my favourite Boyd!
Great first link Susan! I’ve never read Boyd but I did love the TV adaptation of Any Human Heart
Thanks, Cathy. It’s such a clever title given its subject matter. Me, too – Boyd adapted it himself so it’s true to the book.
Such an interesting chain, Susan; found the bear (that’s incidentally been on my list since I read your review) and the immigrants! I also like the sound of Himmler’s Cook!
Thank you, Mallika. Two very different books but not dissimilar bears!
Himmler’s Cook? Oh my, I’m not sure I’d want to read that. But this is a very nicely done chain.
Thank you!
What a great first link!! All were good, but that first one! I really enjoyed Any Human Heart. Good job!
Thank you! That title is so clever it stuck in my mind.
Great route around the world with this selection. Have heard of most of these books but haven’t read any yet.
I always enjoy a trip to Sweden!
It’s on my list. Just finished reading Tessa Hadley’s The Party, which you recommended some time back. Did not want it to end, it is very good. I think there is a bigger novel in it, loved the characterisation of the two sisters. She is a new writer to me, so if you can recommend any of her other books, it would be greatly appreciated
I’m so glad you enjoyed it, Lucy. I’ve had quite a mixed experience with Hadley’s writing. For me, this is her best but I can recommend Late in the Day.
Thanks. I will watch out for it.
Nice way to solve that launching link! (Also, I can hardly wait to see what she writes/publishes next.)
Thank you – it’s such a clever title! I read her new one on NetGalley last week and enjoyed it very much. A novella, due here in September.