#6Degrees of Separation From Hydra to Hidden Figures

It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation!

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees.

This month’s starting book is Hydra by Adriane Howell. It’s a book I’ve not heard of, let alone read but I’ve learned that it was shortlisted for the Stella Prize 2023, a literary award which celebrates Australian women’s writing. (The winner of the prize, announced on 27th April 2023, was a poetry collection, The Jaguar, by Sarah Holland-Batt.)

The British equivalent of the Stella Prize is probably the Women’s Prize for Fiction. One of the books on the shortlist for the 2023 prize is Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris. It’s set in Sarajevo in 1992 during the period when that city was under siege.

The Good Father by S. R. Wilsher is also set in the besieged city of Sarajevo and depicts the horrors endured by nine year old Effie and her twelve year old brother Ajan following the loss of their parents.

Another book which focuses on the experiences of people under siege (and has ‘good’ in its title) is The Good Doctor of Warsaw by Elisabeth Gifford. This time the setting is the Warsaw ghetto during the period of the Nazi occupation of Poland.

A city under Nazi occupation, or more accurately a city within a city under occupation, is the focus of My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor. The book is based on the true story of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, a priest based in Vatican City, who risked his life to smuggle thousands of Jews and escaped Allied prisoners out of Italy under the noses of the Nazis.

The Hidden Village by Imogen Matthews is set in WW2 Holland and tells the story of Berkenhout, a purpose-built village located deep in the Veluwe woods which protected dozens of persecuted people from discovery by the Nazis.

My last link concerns a different way of being invisible. Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly reveals the previously untold story of the vital role played by African-American female mathematicians in NASA’s space program.  The film of the same name was released in 2016.

My chain has taken me from Sarajevo to outer space. Where did your chain take you?