It’s the first Saturday of a new 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 What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt which I’ve not read but, according to the blurb, it’s the story of a life-long friendship between two men set in the art world of New York.
Also opening in the art world of New York is Fake Like Me by Babs Bourland. After a fire in her New York studio, a young artist gains a place at Pine City, an exclusive but rather creepy retreat set on a lake. It’s run by a notorious collective of successful artists, one of whose members has recently died.
Another book that features a young woman leaving New York to travel to a remote lakeside location and experiencing more than she bargained for is The Room by the Lake by Emma Dibdin.
In Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke, Texas Ranger Darren Matthews becomes involved in the search for a young white boy lost on the vast Lake Caddo in east Texas. The title of the book is from a blues song.
Songs, in this case by The Beatles, are the inspiration for the titles of Alan Johnson’s series of memoirs. In The Long and Winding Road he charts his rise from postman to positions in the highest levels of the UK government.
Staying with the postal theme, The Lost Letters of William Woolf by Helen Cullen concerns a so-called letter detective employed in the Dead Letters Depot who spends his days trying to reunite lost letters with their intended recipients.
Meet Me At the Museum by Ann Youngson is an epistolary novel in which two people, Danish Professor Anders Larsen and East Anglian farmer’s wife, Tina Hopgood, conduct a long distance correspondence as a result of a shared interest in the Tollund Man.
This month we’ve travelled from New York to Denmark (in letter form, at least). Where did your chain take you this month?
Lockdown and social distancing measures due to the coronavirus continue to be gradually eased here in the UK. The 15th June saw the reopening of “non-essential” shops, which includes bookshops, although it’s a case of look, don’t touch…unless you’re going to buy. And bars, restaurants and, most importantly, hairdressers are due to re-open on 4th July. I managed to get myself an appointment in three weeks time which is sooner than I’d expected.
What Cathy Read Next... 