Tag: memes

#6Degrees of Separation: From Sorrow and Bliss to Diamonds Are Forever

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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.

Sorrow and BlissThis month’s starting book is Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason, a book I haven’t read but which is in my TBR pile.

Meg Mason is a journalist, an occupation she shares with Katherine Faulkner, the author of Greenwich Park.  Greenwich Park features a protagonist who is befriended by a woman who may have other motives besides friendship.

The same is true of Young Women by Jessica Moor in which Tamsin, a glamorous young actress, befriends Emily, a young lawyer who works for a women’s advocacy charity.

The Murder Rule by Dervla McTiernan features Hannah, a young woman studying to become a lawyer, who becomes part of a project aimed at proving the innocence of those convicted of murder.

A notorious real life miscarriage of justice features in To Encourage the Others by David Yallop which concerns the case of Derek Bentley who was hanged for the killing of a police officer that was perpetrated by another young man, 16-year-old Christopher Craig. (Craig was too young to be given the death penalty.) Bentley was finally granted a posthumous pardon in July 1993.

Staying with miscarriages of justice, The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed tells the real life story of Mahmood Mattan who was hanged for the murder of a shopkeeper in 1952 on the basis of dubious evidence and despite professing his innocence.

The Fortune Men is set in Cardiff’s Tiger Bay, the birthplace of the singer Shirley Bassey who is well known for singing the theme songs to several James Bond films, including Diamonds Are Forever by Ian Fleming.

My chain has featured toxic friendships and miscarriages of justice but ends with a sparkle. Where did your chain take you?

#WWWWednesday – 1st June 2022

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WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

News of the DeadNews of the Dead by James Robertson (Hamish Hamilton)

Deep in the mountains of north-east Scotland lies Glen Conach, a place of secrets and memories, fable and history. In particular, it holds the stories of three different eras, separated by centuries yet linked by location, by an ancient manuscript and by echoes that travel across time.

In ancient Pictland, the Christian hermit Conach contemplates God and nature, performs miracles and prepares himself for sacrifice. Long after his death, legends about him are set down by an unknown hand in the Book of Conach.

Generations later, in the early nineteenth century, self-promoting antiquarian Charles Kirkliston Gibb is drawn to the Glen, and into the big house at the heart of its fragile community.

In the present day, young Lachie whispers to Maja of a ghost he thinks he has seen. Reflecting on her long life, Maja believes him, for she is haunted by ghosts of her own.

The Fire KillerThe Fire Killer (DI Barton #5) by Ross Greenwood (eARC, Boldwood Books)

When DI Barton is asked to investigate a seemingly innocuous fire that kills, he believes it’s either children fooling around or a worrying racially motivated crime.

As he delves deeper into the case, he soon realises that there is a history of similar blazes spread out over many years, all within a close area. And after an idea is suggested by pathologist Mortis, Barton suspects he has the arsonist’s motives wrong.

When a night worker comes forward with a tip, Barton narrows down the suspects. Yet all of them act suspiciously and he knows for sure that one or more of them are lying. And when a huge house blaze shocks everyone, Barton fears the killer has lost all control.

Who is The Fire Killer? What will be next to burn?

Recently finished

Twenty-Eight Pounds Ten Shillings: A Windrush Story by Tony Fairweather (HopeRoad Publishing)

Young Women by Jessica Moor (Zaffre)

Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers by Emma Smith (Allen Lane)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

Villager Cover ImageVillager by Tom Cox (eARC, Unbound)

There’s so much to know. It will never end, I suspect, even when it does. So much in all these lives, so many stories, even in this small place.

Villages are full of tales: some are forgotten while others become a part of local folklore. But the fortunes of one West Country village are watched over and irreversibly etched into its history as an omniscient, somewhat crabby, presence keeps track of village life.

In the late sixties a Californian musician blows through Underhill where he writes a set of haunting folk songs that will earn him a group of obsessive fans and a cult following. Two decades later, a couple of teenagers disturb a body on the local golf course. In 2019, a pair of lodgers discover a one-eyed rag doll hidden in the walls of their crumbling and neglected home. Connections are forged and broken across generations, but only the landscape itself can link them together. A landscape threatened by property development and superfast train corridors and speckled by the pylons whose feet have been buried across the moor.