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 Rapture by Emily Maguire. It’s set in 9th century Europe and tells the story of Agnes who disguises herself as a man and becomes a scribe in a Benedictine monastery. Apparently it’s inspired by the apocryphal story of the female Pope Joan. It’s a book I haven’t read but is on my wishlist.

All sorts of monastic routes suggested themselves but I’ve gone with For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain by Victoria Mackenzie which depicts, in fictional form, the lives of two female religious figures – Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe. It was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2024.

Staying in the 14th century, in Sister Rosa’s Rebellion by Carolyn Hughes, Sister Rosa finds herself torn between her vows of obedience and her dismay at the changes wrought by the new prioress of Northwick who seems to prioritise her own pleasure over piety.

Leaping ahead to the 1950’s, in Murder at Gull’s Nest by Jess Kidd former nun Nora Breen arrives in the seaside town of Gore-on-Sea to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her pen pal.

Switching to male religious figures now let’s go to 17th century Scotland and Witch Wood by John Buchan which sees young parish priest David Sempill arrive in Woodilee to find evidence of Satanic practices and witchcraft amongst some of his flock.

There’s no witchcraft to defeat in My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor, just Nazis to outwit. The book is based on the true story of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty who, from his base in Vatican City, smuggled thousands of Jews and escaped Allied prisoners out of occupied Rome during World War Two.

This very obviously takes me to Conclave by Robert Harris, not least because of the recent death of Pope Francis and the fact a real life conclave will be taking place soon behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel. If you’ve read the book, you’ll know there’s a link to the starting book in this month’s chain.

My chain has a distinctly spiritual theme. 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 Knife by Salman Rusdie, his personal account of surviving an assassination attempt.

In a New York Times interview in September 2015, Rushdie talked about his childhood reading growing up in Bombay. As well as Agatha Christie, he revealed ‘I also liked Swallows and Amazons because I couldn’t believe how much freedom those English kids were given to mess about in boats in the Lake District and have adventures’.

My first link therefore is to Pigeon Post by Arthur Ransome in which the Swallows and the Amazons set out on an expedition to find a lost gold mine. They use carrier pigeons to communicate with their mothers back home to reassure them they are safe.

I could have gone down a bird themed route but I’ve chosen instead a book which involves a different means of communication. The Prince of the Skies by Antonio Iturbe is based on the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the author of The Little Prince, but also a pioneer of the postal air service transporting mail across Europe, Africa and beyond.

Another form of communication features in the short story collection, A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth by Daniel Mason.  ‘The Line Agent Pascal’ tells the story of the lonely existence of a telegraph operator stationed in the depths of the Amazon jungle who maintains a connection with the outside world only through the signals of his fellow operators up and down the line.

Daniel Mason’s The Piano Tuner was produced as an opera for the Royal Opera House in London. In Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, a gang of terrorists interrupt the performance by a world-renowned opera singer at a birthday party in honour of a visiting Japanese industrialist and take the audience members hostage. The hostages come from many different countries and possess no common language with which to communicate.

The lack of a common language is also a theme of Clear by Carys Davies. Set in the period of the Highland Clearances, John Ferguson is sent to a remote Scottish island to evict its only inhabitant, Ivar, in order to turn the island into grazing land for sheep.  Initially, John and Ivar are unable to communicate because Ivar speaks little if no English and John knows nothing of the language Ivar speaks. Carys Davies based the latter on Norn, a long extinct language once spoken on the islands of Orkney and Shetland. 

Norn is one of five languages descended from Old West Norse. Another is Faroese, still spoken by some inhabitants of the Faroe Islands. The Island of Sheep by John Buchan is set in the fictional Norlands which are based on the Faroe Islands. (Buchan and his son Johnnie spent a fortnight there in 1932.)

My chain has taken me from The Lake District to the Faroes. Where did your chain take you?