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.
This month’s starting book is Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë chosen because of the recent release of a new film adaptation. For a change it’s a book I’ve read. Links from each title will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.
The latest adaptation of Wuthering Heights isn’t the first. There was a 1939 version starring Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff and Merle Oberon as Cathy. Later Laurence Olivier played the role of Charles Strickland in a TV adaptation of The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham, based on the life of artist Paul Gaugain.
I Am Not Your Eve by Devika Ponnambalam is the story of Teha’amana, Tahitian muse and child-bride of Paul Gauguin. It was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2023. Gaugain died on the island of Atuona in French Polynesia.
Another author who died on a tropical island – in this case Upola, an island in Samoa – is Robert Louis Stevenson. His novel Weir of Hermiston, set in the Napoleonic Wars, was unfinished at the time of his death.
Game of Hearts by Katy Moran (first published as False Lights) is set in a world where Napoleon defeated the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo and England is under French occupation.
Game of Hearts is set in Cornwall which is also the location for Daphne du Maurier‘s most famous novel, Rebecca.
Daphne du Maurier was also the author of The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë, a biography of the brother of the Brontë sisters. An unsubstantiated rumour that circulated for a time was that he not his sister Emily was the author of Wuthering Heights. Oh look, we’ve come full circle.
[Bonus links: Laurence Olivier starred in the 1940 film adaptation of Rebecca alongside Judith Anderson as Mrs Danvers. She also appeared in the same TV version of The Moon and Sixpence he did. And George Sanders, who played Jack Favell in Rebecca, also played Charles Strickland in a 1942 film version of The Moon and Sixpence.]
What Cathy Read Next... 