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 Australian author Charlotte McConaghy’s Wild Dark Shore which I’ve not read but I gather from the blurb features a woman who is washed up on the shore of a remote island near Antarctica.
McConaghy’s compatriot M L Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans sees a dinghy washed up containing a living child and her dead father on an island which the childless lighthouse keeper’s wife accepts as a gift from God
In Sheila Armstrong’s Falling Animals huge efforts are made to identify the corpse of a man found on an Irish beach.
Jim Crace’s Being Dead describes the decomposition of a couple’s corpses found on a beach.
In case you’re thinking enough already with the dead bodies, my next link is by landform to Alex Garland’s The Beach although there is a fatal shark attack as I remember.
A magnet for young hedonists, Garland’s fabled beach is in Thailand where part of Joan Silber’s Secrets of Happiness is set.
My final link is by title to Niall Williams’s This is Happiness.
This month’s Six Degrees has taken a rather grisly route from a research station close to Antarctica to an Irish coming-of-age novel set in the 1970s. 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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That’s quite a dark chain this month! I loved The Light Between Oceans and have just started A Far-flung Life.
I know! Bit gruesome, too. I hope you’re enjoying A Far-flung Life. One of this year’s favourites for me.
Oh… hm… yeah, not a very light chain here.
Definitely not!
That’s a Jim Crace I haven’t read!
He came in for a lot of stick because the science behind his descriptions wasn’t accurate but I seem to remember he politely pointed out it was fiction.
Yep a dark, body filled chain. At least Niall is offering some hope! I have his book on my tbr. Would you recommend it?
He did! I enjoyed This is Happiness much more than than Time of the Child. He captures the period very well.
wow, great chain!
Mine: https://wordsandpeace.com/2026/05/02/six-degrees-of-separation-owls/
Than you
OK, I’m not morbid, but I have to say that I really liked Being dead. Not only did I learn some grim stuff about decomposition – and I like learning stuff – but I thought it was really well told. I am going to be reading This is happiness in a couple of months, and am looking forward to finally reading Niall Williams. All of which is to say, I rather enjoyed your chain.
Oh and I saw the film of Light between oceans but never did read it.
Did you enjoy the film? I thought Being Dead was great, a rare example of originality. Glad you liked it.
It’s a while ago but I did think it was an interesting film.
As for Being Dead I keep wanting to read another Crace but it never seems to happen.
I’ve read and watched the film of The Beach – that scenery! Not keen to think about the shark attack scene because I don’t want to frighten myself out of going in the water!
I know what you mean!
haha, love the grisly corpses to This is Happiness, great links!
Thank you! They just kept turning up…
I’ve read three of these: The Light Between Oceans, Falling Animals and Being Dead – which I loved. As you say, very original.
I’m pleased to have heard from several fans of the Crace!
Grisly, perhaps, but interesting. I’ve only read Light Between Oceans and it was good.
Thank you. I’d recommend her new one, A Far-flung Life.
Thanks
The dark side of beaches indeed! The Crace one sounds particularly gruesome – I’ve only read Harvest by him and found that quite timeless though terribly dark. And I remember when the film based on The Beach was all the rage and everyone wanted to go to Thailand.
I know – I don’t know what got into me! Crace’s fiction is quite diverse but Being Dead is his most striking, I think.
Lots of corpses and dark themes, I see Susan, but so long as there’s a mystery involved, I I’d be picking these up. I know I have Fallen Animals on the radar from your previous mention of it!
Definitely took an uncharacteristic dark turn, Mallika!
I liked Stedman’s novel, but somehow haven’t read another of hers. Just yesterday, I came across a note with Joan Silber and a kajillion asterisks next to her name, to urge me to make a mini-project of reading her this year… but, here it is, already May!
I do love Silber’s writing. Hoping more of it will become easily available over here.