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 Maggie O’Farrell’s Land which I’ve not read but the blurb tells me it’s inspired by the mapping of Ireland
Daniel Kehlmann’s Measuring the World reimagines the parallel lives of Alexander van Humboldt, who travelled the world measuring it, and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss who mapped the universe in his head.
Kehlman’s novel was translated by the late, great Carol Brown Janeway who also translated Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader.
Schlink is a lawyer bringing to mind barrister John Mortimer who wrote the Rumpole series, the first of which was Rumpole of the Bailey.
When I was a bookseller, I once served Leo McKern who played the irascible Rumpole on TV. Another famous customer was John Thaw who played Morse in the series which began with Colin Dexter’s The Dead of Jericho.
Dexter’s Morse novels were set in Oxford as was Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, one town the other gown.
Which has to be balanced by Tom Sharpe’s Cambridge-set academic satire Porterhouse Blue.
This month’s Six Degrees has taken me from mapping to a Cambridge campus novel by way of a few brushes with fame. 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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Sharpe’s best novel that! Loved the TV adaptation too with David Jason as Skullion and Ian Richardson as the dean.
I remember that! Wonder if it’s on a streaming platform
I also used mapping as my first link, but a different book. I like your famous customer links – always good when you can work your own personal experiences into the chain!
Thank you. One of these days I’ll get Tom Stoppard in (there, I’ve done it!).
Oh that first link is very clever! Well done.
Thank, Cathy. He’s one of my favourite writers.
Yay! Rumpole, Tom Sharpe, and Evelyn Waugh all in one spin. All that’s missing is Bertie Wooster!
Ha! Maybe next time around.
The “brushes with fame” is a fun and unique link. Cool!
Bookselling next to a popular theatre! We also had a few famous names living in town.
Great chain, especially your nods to fame!
Thank you!
Fabulous connections! Neat to include events from your bookseller’s experience.
I went with land: https://wordsandpeace.com/2026/08/01/six-degrees-of-separation-land/
Thank you!
Such an inventive chain here, and each link is different, but they all work perfectly. Brava!
Thank you. Very kind!
A clever chain, and one with very personal links to you. Read some, others not: always a satisfactory state of affairs with 6 Degrees.
Thank you. It is indeed.
Good chain. I loved Rumpole on tv and read a few of the books–maybe they were the tv books and not the originals–I’m not sure. How cool that you had those actors as shop customers! My only claim to fame on that score is asking an Indy 500 racing car driver for his driver’s license back in the 80s when you had to give that to write a check.I got teased all the rest of the evening. When I tell you this was in Indianapolis two days before the race…..oh and he was buying forgotten underwear!
Thank you. Underwear is not something I’d forget when packing! They tended to be one-offs as we were very close to the theatre although Van Morrison was a regular as he lives in town.
Fun!
This is fun. I have read two of the books. Land is a big book, a bit too dense and descriptive for me although the premise is based on historical facts. I loved The Reader many years ago.
It’s addictive! I don’t think I’ll be reading Land. I thought The Reader was an extraordinary novel. A bestseller in Germany which tells you a lot.
I love the Oxford connections. I have always meant to read the Morse novels, especially because I seem to recall there was a Morse walking tour which sounded fun.
I’m much more familiar with the TV series. The walking tour sounds a great idea.
A very informative chain, Susan. Inspector Morse also showed up in my 6 Degrees list of last month
Thanks, Mary. Morse feels like a national treasure!
I really like the link about mapping! Very clever!
Thank you!
I love your chain Susan for several reasons, but most particularly for referencing John Thaw. Mr Gums and I have been just recently re-watching Inspector Morse. I love your link to him, and away from him too!
Thank you. Always worth revisiting those, series – Endeavour is excellent, too. I always had a soft spot for John Thaw who looked a little like my father.
I hope your father looked after his health better than John Thaw! But, he must have been a nice looking man. Yes, we liked endeavour too – mostly. It did get a bit dark. I didn’t like that “Italian” storyline. But overall, it’s good and we’ve watched it through around 3 times over the years!
He did, and my mum would have agreed with you! Endeavour and Morse are ‘tired’ viewing for us, beautifully made but not too taxing.
I absolutely love your chain this time, Susan, especially that you started with Measuring the World, a book that I loved so much, and also have Rumpole in your chain! And Brideshead which I almost had as my final link (going from tails to heads) but I felt it was too similar to my midsummer-midwinter link and went another way!
Thank you so much, Mallika! Kehlmann’s a favourite author of mine. He got off to a brilliant start with Measuring the World, didn’t he.
Absolutely; when I revisited the book for German Lit month a few years ago, I’d forgotten just how funny it was as well.