Tag: 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 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.

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This month’s starting book is a memoir, Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen. I’ve not read it but I am familiar with Springsteen’s music.

I’ve taken as inspiration for my first link the third line of the lyrics of ‘Born To Run’ – ‘Sprung from cages out on highway nine’.  Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke is the first in her ‘Highway 59’ thriller series.

Sticking with American highways and thrillers, Poor Boy Road by James L. Weaver sees former mob enforcer Jake Caldwell hunting down a ruthless drug lord in Missouri.

Jake’s best friend is the local sheriff, known as Bear. A bear (this time one named Aloysius) is the companion of Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.

Sebastian’s younger sister is called Cordelia which is also the name of a character in Shakespeare’s King Lear. Learwife by JR Thorp imagines the life of Lear’s Queen following her banishment to an abbey.

Another reimagining of the life of a female character from one of Shakespeare’s plays is Lady MacBethad by Isabelle Schuler.

And on a slightly lighter note, Death of a Gossip by M. C. Beaton is the first in her series of crime novels featuring Scottish village cop, Hamish Macbeth.

My chain has taken me from America to Scotland. 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 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.

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This month’s starting book is Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life by Gail Sheehy. First published in 1976, it’s a self-help book I’ve never heard of let alone read. Judging by the blurb, it’s not one I’m likely to read either.

Picking up the theme of adult life crises, my first link is to Train Man by Andrew Mulligan in which Martin’s meticulously prepared plan to throw himself under a high-speed train is disrupted by a twelve-minute delay.

A railway station is also the starting point for The Ends of the Earth by Abbie Greaves. It’s the story of Mary O’Connor who, for the past seven years, has waited every evening at Ealing Broadway station with a sign which says: ‘Come Home Jim’.

A missing person is also the focus of End of Summer by Anders de la Motte in which a woman returns home to try to solve the mystery of her brother’s disappearance many years before.

Moving from summer to the opposite season, A Winter Grave by Peter May is a futuristic thriller set in Scotland.

Taking the previous author’s surname provides me with a link to Only May by Carol Lovekin whose main character – May – is a young girl who can’t be fooled by a lie.

Staying with untruths, Liar by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen concerns the unforeseen consequences of a lie told by a teenage girl.

My chain has taken me from the predictable to the unpredictable. Where did your chain take you?