Six Degrees of Separation: from Sorrow and Bliss to Windyridge

It's the first Saturday of the month and time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month the starting point is Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason. Once again, I've not read the book we are starting with and, as last month, time is not my friend due to various committments, the highlight of which was a four-day family get-to-gether to celebrate my father's 96th birthday (which I'm still recovering from).

As Sorrow and Bliss has been shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022, I thought I'd look at previous winners. This wasn't very helpful, but at least it gave me a starting point. The only author I was familiar with was Helen

Six Degrees of Separation: From True History of the Kelly Gang to Jack and the Beanstalk

It's the first Saturday of the month and time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month the starting point is Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang. Ive only read one book by this Australian author and that is Jack Maggs, which I liked.

As I'm pressed for time, this book is my first link and sets the theme for my quick, pictorial post: books with the name Jack in the title.

My Six Degrees of Separation includes a popular maritime series, an Australian classic, a military series, an infamous historical figure and a well-known fairy tale.

Six Degrees of Separation: From Our Wives Under the Sea to All the Rivers Run

It's the first Saturday of the month and time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month the starting point is Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. I don't read much contemporary fiction these days so it is unlikely that I will ever read this novel. However, part of the book's description:

Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah may have come back wrong. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has carried part of it with her,

Six Degrees of Separation: From The End of the Affair to Lady's Maid

It's the first Saturday of the month and time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month the starting point is The End of the Affair by Graham Greene. I've not read any of this author's novels, although I do vaguely remember seeing the film based on one of his books, Our Man in Havana. Whether I enjoyed it or not, I also can't remember. As I'm lacking inspiration for my first link, I'll take the easy route and use the word affair.

Lauren Willig is a favourite author of mine and I'm linking to her first standalone novel.The Ashford Affair. This is a dual-time historical romance set in the Edwardian/post-World War I era of England and Africa, and present day New

Six Degrees of Separation: From No One is Talking About This to Heidi

It's the first Saturday of the month and time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month the starting point is No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood. Usually when I haven't read the novel I look to Goodreads for help. Unfortunately, the book's blurb didn't provide any flashes of inspiration so I'm going with a book that I have flagged as "Want to Read": The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healy.

In 1939, Hetty Cartwright is given the job to evacuate and look after a collection of mammals from the natural history musuem. Lockwood Manor is the destination, where Hetty and her charges are to remain for the duration

Six Degrees of Separation: From Rules of Civility to Murder at Melrose Court

It's the first Saturday of the month (and year) and time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month the starting point is Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. I haven't read this novel and have relied on the Goodreads' book description for inspiration. The shorter one gave me my first link: paper planes.

In a jazz bar on the last night of 1937, watching a quartet because she couldn't afford to see the whole ensemble, there were certain things Katey Kontent knew. By the end of the year she'd learned - how to launch a paper airplane high over Park Avenue, how to live like a redhead, and how to insist upon the very best.

Six Degrees of Separation: From Ethan Frome to The Age of Innocence

The first Saturday of the month is time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month the starting point is Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, a sad and tragic story, and not one I will ever read again. A sledding scene in the novella takes me to my first link - a much more uplifting one than what happened in Ethan Frome

The Bobbsey Twins Annuals were a staple of my Christmases growing up, as was the fun of sledding. We had a few mishaps, but the worst thing that happened to us was that we went home cold and wet!

Another childhood delight was the Bunty and Judy girls' comics filled with stories of boarding

Six Degrees of Separation: From What Are You Going Through to At Summer's End

The first Saturday of the month is time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month the starting point is What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez, which centres around a woman dying of cancer. This brought to mind The Winter House by Nicci Gerrard where a group of friends travel to Scotland to be with another friend who is also terminally ill with cancer.

Scotland is the link to my next book, Strings of Murder by Oscar de Muriel, the first in a Victorian mystery series that features a mismatched pair of detectives. McGray believes that the supernatural is behind many of their cases and Frey believes there is a

Six Degrees of Separation: From The Lottery to Falling Creatures

The first Saturday of the month is time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month the starting point is The Lottery, a short story by Shirley Jackson. I read this yesterday, which means this is one of those rare occasions where I come into this meme better prepared.

The Lottery is a disturbing story, set in America, where a village gathers for their annual lottery, a tradition to ensure a good harvest. The winner, however, is not as happy as you would expect a lottery winner to be.

Supersition and bizarre rituals immediatley brought to mind The Wicker Man by Robin Hardy and Anthony Shaffer. This is the

Six Degrees of Separation: From Second Place to The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

The first Saturday of the month is time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month the starting point is Second Place by Rachel Cusk, a novel I haven't read, in which an artist plays a major role.

Art and painting is the obvious way to go for that first link, and indeed that's where I'm heading with this novel by another Rachel, The Glass Painter's Daughter by Rachel Hore. The story does involve painting, but in a different medium: stained glass.

Creating pictures of glass leads me to animals made of glass in Tennessee William's popular play The Glass Menagerie. Whilst I haven't read the play, I do remember the 1950 film

Six Degrees of Separation: from Eats, Shoots & Leaves to Valentines from Bath

The first Saturday of the month is time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month the starting point is Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss, a book that topped the critics ‘best of 2019’ lists. It is about punctuation told in such away as to make it a fun read. I haven't read this book, but am adding it to my TBR pile.

I haven't participated in this meme for a while as I was unable to launch from the starting book. This time that first jump came to mind instantly and the rest followed on easily from there.

Punctuation goes hand in hand with writing, which uses some sort of writing implement

Six Degrees of Separation: From Redhead by the Side of the Road to The Unfortunate Victim

The first Saturday of the month is time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point, which today is Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler.

I've not read this book but have read several by an author with the same surname: L.C. Tyler. Len Tyler writes comic crime novels. I'm following his historical mystery series set in the 17th century which features John Grey, a lawyer and a spy. The latest and fifth book in this series is The Bleak Midwinter.

The fifth book in another series I'm following is The Bee's Kiss by Barbara Cleverly. Initially this series was set in 1920s India during the

Six Degrees of Separation: FromThe Turn of the Screw to A Christmas Carol

Once again it's the first Saturday of the month and time for Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point, which today is The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Here is a bit of the book's description from Goodreads:

... The Turn of the Screw tells of a nameless young governess sent to a country house to take charge of two orphans, Miles and Flora. Unsettled by a dark foreboding of menace within the house, she soon comes to believe that something malevolent is stalking the children in her care. But is the threat to her

Six Degrees of Separation: From Rodham to Mariana

The first Saturday of the month is time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point, which today is Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld.

Here is a bit of the book's description from Goodreads:

From the New York Times bestselling author of American Wife and Eligible, a novel that imagines a deeply compelling what-might-have-been: What if Hillary Rodham hadn’t married Bill Clinton?

I haven't read this book and didn't know where to go to from here. So, as last month, I

Six Degrees of Separation:from How to Do Nothing to The Portrait of Molly Dean

The first Saturday of the month is time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point, which today is How To Do Nothing by Jenny Odell.

Here is the book's description from Goodreads:

This thrilling critique of the forces vying for our attention re-defines what we think of as productivity, shows us a new way to connect with our environment and reveals all that we’ve been too distracted to see about our selves and our world.

When the technologies we use every day

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION From The Road to The Keys of the Kingdom

The first Saturday of the month is time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month we're starting with Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It is a book I haven't read as I'm not a great fan of post apocalyptic novels. I'm quite happy to read about death and destruction in historical wars, but an apocalyptic war and its aftermath is not for me.

However, back in high school, I did pick up a post apocalyptic novel. This was On the Beach by Neville Shute, which was set in

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION: From Stasiland to The Pearl of York, Treason and Plot

The first Saturday of the month is time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month it is Stasiland by Anna Funder. Once again, I've not read the book we're starting with, but I have read Funder's debut novel All That I Am. It details the rise of Hitler and the Nazis as witnessed by a group of exiled activists which included real life figures, Ernst Toller and Dora Fabian.

My next link takes me to a recent release that I've just finished reading, which also involves the rise of Hitler

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION: From Wolfe Island to Island of Bones

The first Saturday of the month is time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month it is Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar. Once again, it is a book I haven't read yet, even though I had intended to before this month's Six Degrees of Separation. The setting is an island off the north east coast of the USA

My first thought was to link to other novels set on islands. I've read many books with this setting, but as I'm pressed for time this month, I'm going with the

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION: From Fleishman is in Trouble to The Ballad of John MacLea

The first Saturday of the month is time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month the starting point is Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, a book that topped the critics ‘best of 2019’ lists.

Once again we're starting with a novel I haven't read. That's okay. I'm getting used to searching for that first link no matter how obscure. This time, however, I didn't have to look too deeply. I'm using the fact that this was Brodesser-Akner's debut novel to make my

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION: From Daisy Jones & The Six to Shepherd

It's the first Saturday of the month and time to play Six Degrees of Separation, the first for 2020. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Read is this month's starting point. It is about a fictional 1970s rock and roll band.

Again, I haven't read the book we are starting with, which makes it that little bit harder to launch the chain. The book's blurb, however, contains the phrase coming of age. A classic coming of age story, and a