Category: 6Degrees

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 Ghost Cities by Siang Lu, winner of The Miles Franklin Literary Award 2025, a literary prize awarded annually to “a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases”. As is often the case, it’s a book I haven’t read. Links from each title will take you to my review .

The blurb states Ghost Cities is inspired by ‘the vacant, uninhabited megacities of China’. This provided me with inspiration for my first link – Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape by Cal Flyn, a nonfiction book also about abandoned places – ghost towns and exclusion zones, no man’s lands and fortress islands – and what happens when nature is allowed to reclaim them.

Continuing the theme of abandoned places, historical novel The Lost Lights of St Kilda by Elisabeth Gifford is set on the remote Scottish island group of St. Kilda whose few remaining inhabitants were evacuated to the mainland in 1930 when life there became untenable.

Clear by Carys Davies is also set on a remote Scottish island now inhabited by one man, its last remaining occupant. The landowner wants to evict him in order to turn the island into grazing land for sheep.

The need to abandon your homeland also features in Exit West by Mohsin Hamid which tells the story of two young people forced to flee the war-torn city in which they live and seek safety in another country.

From west I’m heading north to North Woods by Daniel Mason. Set around a single house deep in the woods of New England, the book relates the stories of the various people who have occupied and then abandoned the house over the centuries.

Shelter by Sarah Franklin is also set in a forest, the Forest of Dean in WW2. Connie has joined the Women’s Timber Corps to escape bombed out of Coventry whilst Seppe has found a degree of safety even though confined in a Prisoner of War camp.

My chain has taken me from abandoned cities to a place of refuge. Where did your chain take you?

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 The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden, winner of The Women’s Prize for Fiction 2025. For once, it’s a book I’ve actually read although I wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about it as other readers. Links from each title will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

Isabel, the main character in The Safekeep, is the sole occupant of the family home purchased by her uncle after the Second World War, but it is her brother who will eventually inherit it. The possession of property also features in The Dutch House by Ann Patchett in which brother and sister, Danny and Maeve, are thrown out by their stepmother from the house in which they grew up.

Objects separated from their owners is the subject of Lost Property by Helen Paris. Dot Watson works in Baker Street’s Lost Property office diligently cataloguing lost umbrellas, lone gloves and an alarming number of shoes.

Deconstructing the previous author’s name, Helen and Paris are both characters in Homer’s The Iliad, set towards the end of the Trojan War. Euripides’ play The Trojan Women is one of the plays staged by Lampo and Gelon, the main characters in Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon.

Glorious Exploits won the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize in 2024. This year’s winner is The Artist by Lucy Steeds. It’s set in a remote farmhouse in Provence, the home of a reclusive painter.

Set in 17th century Rome, Disobedient by Elizabeth Fremantle is the fictionalised story of Artemisia Gentileschi whose dreams of becoming an artist seem likely to be thwarted by the limitations placed on the lives of women.

A Light of Her Own by Carrie Callaghan is based on the life of another remarkable 17th century woman, Judith Leyster, who sought to challenge the social norms and prejudices of the time in order to fulfil her artistic talent. It’s set in the Netherlands which is also the location of The Safekeep bringing my chain full circle.