#6Degrees of Separation – A book chain from Seascraper to The French Lieutenant’s Woman

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 #6Degrees 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 X using the hashtag #6Degrees.

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This month’s starting book is Seascraper by Benjamin Wood, a book – for once – I’ve read, and which I highly recommend. Links from each title will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

Seascraper‘s protagonist is twenty-year-old Thomas Flett who, like his grandfather before him, makes a living as a ‘shanker’, scraping for shrimp along the shoreline of the (fictional) coastal town of Longferry.

The Geometer Lobachevsky by Adrian Duncan features another traditional shoreline activity, the harvesting of seaweed by the inhabitants of a small island in the Shannon estuary in the 1950s. The book’s main character, Nikolai Lobachevsky, arrives in Ireland to help with surveying peat bogs in preparation for the provision of electricity to rural areas of Ireland.

In This Is Happiness by Niall Williams the small Irish village of Faha is also awaiting the arrival of mains electricity, paving the way for modern appliances such as refrigerators and toasters that initially bemuse the locals.

SPIT by David Brennan is also set in a small Irish village, the eponymous Spit. An unseen witness to everything that goes on in the village, and the book’s predominant narrator, is a ghost known as the Spook of Spit.

Another book narrated from beyond the grave is The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. Susie Salmon, murdered when she was fourteen years old, watches from heaven as life on earth continues without her.

Saoirse Ronan played Susie in the film adaptation of The Lovely Bones. She also played the part of pioneering palaeontologist and avid fossil collector Mary Anning in the film version of Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier.

Mary Anning was born in Lyme Regis on the Dorset coast which is also the setting for The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles.

My chain has taken me from the seaside to… the seaside! Where did your chain take you?