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 The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig, translated by Joel Rotenberg. It’s a book I haven’t read but from the description I think it’s one I might like so I’ve added it to my wishlist. Thank you, Kate! Links from each title will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.
In The Post-Office Girl a young Austrian woman receives a telegram from a rich aunt requesting she join her and her husband in a Swiss Alpine resort. A similar summons occurs in A Single Rose by Muriel Barbery in which forty-year-old Rose gets a call from a lawyer asking her to come to Kyoto for the reading of her estranged father’s will. Once in Japan she is guided along a mysterious itinerary designed by her deceased father.
Also set in Japan and with a mystery at its heart is Flashlight by Susan Choi, shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2026. One evening, Louisa and her father take a walk out along a breakwater on the Japanese coast. She is found half-drowned, he has disappeared without trace.
Pretty much the opposite occurs in The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr in which a baby is found abandoned on a beach on Ireland’s west coast. The baby is passed from house to house before being adopted by a local fisherman and his wife.
Another abandoned baby features in Time of the Child by Niall Williams, also set in a small Irish community. As Christmas approaches, the local doctor and his daughter agree to care for a foundling but crucially its presence must remain a secret.
Time of the Child was shortlisted for the Winston Graham Historical Prize 2026 as was The Pretender by Jo Harkin. The Pretender is the story of twelve-year-old John Collan who discovers he’s not the person he thought he was – the son of a farmer – but Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick, the son of the executed Duke of Clarence. He’s told he was secretly exchanged at birth for his own safety and that he has a claim to the throne of England.
The Pretender has been shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2026 as has The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly. The book is set in the ‘Curative Education’ department of the Vienna Children’s Hospital where children whom we would now describe as being on the autism spectrum are the subject of observation and research. Adelheid Brunner is one of those children. She does not speak but writes and draws instead, her ambition being to own one thousand matchboxes. However, that doesn’t stop Adelheid from telling us her story, one which reveals unimaginably evil acts being carried out by the Nazi regime.
My chain has brought me full circle back to Vienna via Japan, Ireland and England during the Wars of the Roses. Where did your chain take you?
What Cathy Read Next... 