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 Michelle de Kretser’s Theory and Practice which I’ve yet to read but I gather it draws on the author’s own life, including her university experience.
As does David Nicholls in Starter for 10 about a student obsessed with the quiz show University Challenge.
I’m linking by title to Austin Duffy’s Ten Days about grief and memory as a man takes his wife’s ashes to New York to scatter over the Hudson.
As well as being an accomplished novelist, Duffy’s also a doctor as is Abraham Verghese whose moving, compassionate novel Cutting for Stone deals with female genital mutilation.
As does Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy which takes up the story of Tashi, who appeared in The Colour Purple.
Leading me to Simon Garfield’s Mauve which tells the story of the titular colour which had originally needed many cochineal beetles to be crushed.
Making me think of Ned Beauman’s dark, funny Boxer Beetle which defies description although both a boxer and many beetles play a part.
This month’s Six Degrees has taken me from a novel which draws on its author’s life to one which some might find a step too far. 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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I’ve read not one of these. No, not even the Alice Walker. Will you please stop adding to my TBR?
Can’t help myself, I’m afraid!
What an interesting chain. I haven’t read any of these books, but they all sound fascinating. Why didn’t I realise the origins of purple and mauve colours! Thank goodness chemists discovered how to make a synthetic version.
It must have been carnage! Thank you, Margaret.
I loved Cutting for Stone and you’ve reminded me that I still haven’t read Abraham Verghese’s latest book, The Covenant of Water! Great chain.
I have it, too. It’s quite a chunkster, isn’t it.
Well, you certainly put up some very interesting books in this chain. I didn’t know about the color mauve… which, if this had been in my chain, might have led me to The Blue by Nancy Bilyeau, which is about the intrigue surrounding a new shade of blue.
Not one I’ve come across. I’ll look it up. Thanks!
Love the beetles link.
Thank you! All those poor cochineals…
Very good! I’ve only heard of Cutting for Stone. I knew of The Color Purple, but not that there was more to Tashi’s story.
Thank you! Highly recommend Cutting for Stone. Not a comfortable read but an enlightening one.
I was in Malawi from 89-91. While there an big article came out [Science?? I can’t recall the journal/magazine] on FGM. Horrific.
It is indeed, and very widespread.
Well, this chain went to unexpected places! Those poor beetles!
Oh, I love the quiz show University Challenge!
https://wordsandpeace.com/2025/07/05/six-degrees-of-separation-this-and-that/
Thanks for the link. You’d enjoy Starter for Ten.
I love the sound of Starter for Ten!
Mauve was my grandmother’s favourite colour so that is interesting to me too!
Good chain!
Thank you! Starter for Ten is lovely. There’s a great film adaptation, too.
Great chain Susan, though I’ve only read Cutting for stone, besides the starting book (the first this year that I’ve read). Mauve sounds interesting too. All I know about mauve, really is the beetles. I also know that purple is a royal colour – is that the same as mauve, here, or different?
It’s a paler version with some grey in it. The colour was chemically synthesised in the nineteenth century and became all the rage. Purple is such a deep colour – must have taken a lot of poor beetles to make it.
I love this connection theme. Only book I have read is Theory and Practice a couple of weeks ago. I liked it a lot but felt it was trying to be a bit too clever in its form and structure.
Six Degrees is the only meme I regularly participate in. It’s such fun to write then see what other readers come up with. Very annoying when a structure gets in the way.
Too many beetles in this chain! Purple is my favourite colour though…
I’m not a beetle fan but I can’t help feeling sorry for all those poor old cochineals,
But isn’t the inclusion of the cochineals because of the red component of mauve? There is a brand of fruit drink over here that includes them on the label (most brands simply include it as a “natural colour”, just as the beaver gland vanilla-strawberry flavour is billed as “natural flavour”)…fair of them to, at least, admit the source.
It was before it was chemically synthesised allowing mass production of the colour and setting off a craze for it, apparently. You’re right about the poor things still being used, though.