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 Siang Lu’s Ghost Cities which I’ve not read but I gather explores themes of cultural identity.
As does Charles Yu’s very funny Interior Chinatown which follows a Chinese American bit-player in a never-ending cop drama playing Generic Asian Man
C Pam Zhang’s How Much of These Hills is Gold explores racism against Chinese Americans through an orphaned brother and sister travelling in an almost mythical landscape.
As do another brother and sister this time in Tasmania in Robbie Arnott’s Dusk
Arnott is also the author of Flames which features characters on fire as does Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here two of whose characters spontaneously combust.
I first came across this phenomenon in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House in a vividly grisly scene.
Bleak House memorably opens with an extended metaphor featuring fog which plays an atmospheric part in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles.
This month’s Six Degrees has taken me from a prize-winning novel inspired by uninhabited Chinese megacities to a classic detective story set largely on Dartmoor. 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.
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Bleak House was the first time I came across spontaneous combustion in a book too. I haven’t read the other books in your chain but keep meaning to read the C Pam Zhang.
I bet you remember that scene!
All six of your picks are on my shelves! Not yet read any of them, but would start with the Yu.
Bingo! The Yu is a quick, funny but thought provoking read. I think you’ll enjoy it.
What an interesting chain, and glad I didn’t spontaneously combust while reading it! Brava.
I’m very glad you didn’t, and thank you!
Good to see two well-loved classics here. As well, of course as Dusk.
Dusk is definitely a 2025 favourite for me.
Very good!
Thank you!
What a great chain! I would have never bet that spontaneous combustion could be a link!
Ha! Nor would I when I started it. Thank you.
Enjoyed your chain particularly the Bleak House link. And I must read Dusk one day
Thank you. It was a set text many years ago but I still remember that spontaneous combustion scene!