May is the last month of autumn for us in the Southern hemisphere, and what an autumn it’s been. So warm. I shouldn’t be pleased, however, because the cause is worrying … so, let’s get on to something uncontroversial and non-worrying – our Six Degrees of Separation meme. It’s currently hosted by Kate (booksaremyfavouriteandbest). Please click the link on her blog-name for her explanation of how it works. Meanwhile, this month’s meme is  Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, which, woo hoo, I’ve read, along with all the linked books.

Like last month’s Memoirs of a geisha, I’m guessing most readers, except millennials perhaps, will have read this 1998 book. It was Kingsolver’s fourth novel, and made quite a splash. It’s about a family of missionaries who go to the Belgian Congo in 1959.

Now, I’ve read several novels about missions and missionaries, and most of them critical. The most recent one is, and if you’re Australian you’ve probably guessed it, Claire G. Coleman’s Terra nullius (my review). It’s a debut, dystopian novel by an indigenous Australian author, and aims to encourage Australians to understand what being invaded means.

Another dystopian novel wanting us to understand “something”, is Jane Rawson’s A wrong turn at the Office of Unmade Lists (my review). (I still love this title!) The something she’s warning us about – is the something I alluded to in my opening paragraph – climate change. It’s a great read – serious but with a touch of humour too. But, time now to move on to the next link, which is …

California! California because Rawson’s novel is partly set in San Francisco, 1997 San Francisco in fact, to which a couple of 2030 Melbourne Aussies go. Another book in which an Aussie or two go to California is Sara Dowse’s Schemetime (my review), though her characters are involved in the film industry and they go to the Los Angeles area in the 1960s.

So, where next? Well, Sara Dowse was a member of Canberra’s famous Seven Writers, and so were a couple of other writers who have appeared here, Marion Halligan and Dorothy Johnston. As Halligan has appeared in my Six Degrees a couple of times already, and Johnston hasn’t, I’m going to share it around and choose her new coastal-Victoria-based detective series, which started with Through a camel’s eye (my review).

And now, because, after starting in Africa, we’ve only been to Australia and the USA, I’m going to take us somewhere completely different, to a perfect setting for camels, Pakistan/Afghanistan/Iran. Jamil Ahmad’s debut novel, The wandering falcon (my review) comprises nine stories, the third of which is titled “The death of camels”. This novel explores what happens when political borders are plonked down without regard to people and how they live in a land.

Now, I read Ahmad’s book as part of the 2011 Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize team, so I’m going to end on another memorable book I read for this project, Yan Lianke’s Dreams of Ding village (my review). Set in China, it was inspired by the plasma economy that developed in Henan Province in the early 1990s. It was an engrossing book, and I’d love to read more Lianke.

Well, I’m thrilled that this month we not only managed to keep our travels up, but I also kept the word count down! I fear I’ve become too wordy in my Six Degrees of late. Interestingly, unlike last month, which was historical fiction heavy, this month we dipped our toes into the future a couple of times. The gender balance, though, has been the same, two male authors amongst our six.

What will Kate suggest for June?

And now, my usual question: Have you read The Poisonwood Bible? And regardless, what would you link to? 

The Six Degrees of Separation meme, currently hosted by Kate (booksaremyfavouriteandbest), is, I’m starting to realise, an effective marker of passing time – and I’m not sure I like it. This passing of time I mean, not the Six Degrees meme, which I enjoy! If, perchance, you are not familiar with this meme, please click the link on Kate’s blog-name – you’ll get all the gen you need there. Meanwhile, this month’s book is one that I bought with a Christmas gift voucher, but I haven’t read it yet. It’s George Saunders’ Booker Prize-winning Lincoln in the Bardo.  As always though, I’ve read all the linked books, albeit some before this blog.

Now, the reason I bought Lincoln in the Bardo is not so much because it won the Booker, but because one of our ex-reading group members (ex because she retired to the coast, not because we expelled her I might add!) recommended it. She said it was challenging to start with but a great read. However, when I put it forward as an option for this year’s schedule, it was not chosen. I still plan to read it – but when?

Another book that I recommended for this year’s schedule and that was not chosen was Ali Cobby Eckermann’s verse novel Ruby Moonlight (my review). I don’t usually recommend a book I’ve read, as I like to use my reading group to read a new book for me, but I would like us to read more indigenous authors, and this one, a work of historical fiction in verse, is particularly interesting. In the end we chose Claire G Coleman’s Terra Nullius which suits me just fine as it’s one I’m keen to read.

I’ve enjoyed quite a few verse novels during my reading life to date, but the first one I reviewed here was local Canberra author Geoff Page’s The scarring (my review). It’s a gut-wrenching story about war, love and loneliness, revenge and male power. And it’s one of those books that I haven’t forgotten.

Talking about firsts on this blog, and first verse (ha, that rhymes!) in particular, the first verse collection I reviewed here was A.B. (Banjo) Paterson’s now classic collection The man from Snowy River and other verses (my review). Interestingly, Paterson differentiated between verse and poetry, which he saw as a higher form. He wrote verse he said.

Mr Darcy, illus by CE Brock (Public Domain, courtesy Wikipedia)

Like many of us I’m sure, I was introduced to reading by my parents. I remember as a very young child carting a pile of picture books into my dad in the mornings (as he was an early riser), but the first author I remember him sharing with us was the aforementioned Banjo Paterson. It perhaps won’t surprise regular readers here that the first author I remember my mum sharing with me was Jane Austen. And the first book of hers she shared – read aloud in fact – was, of course, Pride and prejudice. I haven’t done a full review of it here – I hardly dare – but I did write a post about it to commemorate its 200th anniversary.

Now, the thing about Pride and prejudice, according to the Independent, is that it’s never been out of print. Another book that I’ve read, though long before I started this blog, that hasn’t been out of print – according to the The Irish Times – is Ayn Rand’s The fountainhead. It’s one of those books I’m glad I’ve read though I can’t claim to love it as I do Pride and prejudice!

Most authors, of course, would be thrilled to know that their books have never been out of print, but not all. One such is Patrick White who didn’t want his first novel, Happy Valley (my review), to be republished. Fortunately for us, Text Publishing disagreed with him – after his death, anyhow – and published it as part of their wonderful Text Classics series. I’m so glad I got the opportunity to read it! Not only is it an interesting read, but it’s an accessible introduction to his themes and style.

So, this month we’ve not travelled far, culturally speaking anyhow, having only been to the USA, England and Australia. Historically, though, we’ve been a bit more diverse, including visiting Regency England and colonial Australia. We’ve spent time on farms and in cities, and we’ve met some moral men and not so moral ones. I wonder whom we’ll meet next month and where they’ll be! I can’t wait to see the starting book Kate has chosen for us.

And now, have you read Lincoln in the Bardo? And whether or not you have, what would you link to? 

It’s a new year and I’ve committed, for the moment at least, to continuing with the Six Degrees meme which is currently hosted by Kate (booksaremyfavouriteandbest). For details about the meme, please click the link on Kate’s blog-name. Meanwhile, on with the challenge. This month we start with a book that I have, in fact, read, Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency – and, as always, I’ve read all the linked books too, though some before I started blogging.

Most of you will know that light, crime books are not my usual fare. However, there was a time when reading the latest book from this series was something my parents, mother-in-law, husband and I did on our annual coast holiday. When those holidays ceased, somehow the impetus to read the books ceased too. While it lasted, though, it was a lot of fun to share a reading interest, and ponder the warmth and practical problem-solving of Precious Ramotswe.

For my first link, I’m going with a book by another non-African writer setting stories there, Catherine McNamara’s Pelt and other stories (my review). McNamara is an Australian expat writer currently living, I believe, in Italy, but she also lived and worked for some time in Africa. Several stories in this collection, as the cover might suggest, are set in Africa, particularly West Africa. But they are definitely not warm and fuzzy like McCall Smith’s Botswanan set stories!

And since we rarely visit Africa here, let’s stay there for the next link, and look at Chinua Achebe’s Things fall apart (my review), a classic that I finally managed to read in 2016. It’s set in a small village in Nigeria, and deals with the impact of change in Africa – the missionaries, colonialism – by presenting a variety of reactions and behaviours. He shows western colonialism to be arrogant and oblivious to the culture being overtaken, but also sees aspects of African culture which made it vulnerable.

My next link takes us from Africa to Australia, but stays with the idea of missionaries and their role in the colonialism project. The book is Marie Munkara’s Every secret thing (my review). She uses humour to explore her theme, telling stories in which the Bush Mob use every bit of ingenuity they can muster to resist the incursion into their life and culture by the Mission Mob. As with Things fall apart the power imbalance is too strong, but the Bush Mob manages nonetheless to strike some blows for its side.

At this point I had a few options for linking, including staying with the colonialism theme in Australia, and I was highly tempted. However, I suddenly realised that my previous two books had “thing” or “things” in the title, and that I’ve read another book whose title includes this word, Eimear McBride’s A girl is a half-formed thing (my review). It had to be – not only because it was an irresistible connection but because it enabled me to shift gear for this link, and thus the next one. 

If you’ve read McBride’s book, you will know it is a tough read about a young girl who feels alone and unsupported in her family, for understandable reasons – but she doesn’t deserve what happens to her. It reminded me of a book I read this year which had a similar gut-wrenching impact on me, and whose protagonist, while different, feels unsupported by her family and, increasingly, an outsider within her community. The book is Anosh Irani’s The parcel (my review) about the transgendered Madhu in Mumbai’s red-light district.

For my last link, I’m sticking with the idea of outsiders, and returning to an indigenous Australian writer. The book is Tony Birch’s Ghost River (my review). It tells of the friendship between two young boys, Ren and Sonny, and their involvement with a group of homeless men living by the river and about to be “dispossessed” of their spot by plans to build a freeway. These men, though, are not the only outsiders in the book. Sonny, who is from a disadvantaged background, is also an outsider. Birch demonstrates that once you are an outsider, everything is just that much harder. It’s a double whammy.

So, this month we’ve travelled from Africa to Australia, then popped over to Ireland before returning to Australia via India. Our writers, though, have been even more multicultural – two indigenous Australian writers, an Indian-born Canadian writer, an expat-Australian writer living in Italy, an Irish writer born in England, and an African writer. What a fascinating bunch, eh?

And now, have you read The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency? And whether or not you have, what would you link to? 

And so we come to December and the last Six Degrees of Separation for the year. For newbies to blogging – because the rest of you surely know by now – this is a meme currently hosted by Kate (booksaremyfavouriteandbest). For information about how the meme works, please click the link on her blog-name. It’s fascinating to see the wild and wonderful paths different bloggers go, all starting with the same book – which, this month is a book I haven’t read (as is more common than not), Stephen King’s It. As always though, I have read all the books I link to.

The reason I haven’t read It is that I’m not a big fan of horror, either to read or see in movies, and It is, I understand, horror. I have enjoyed some movie adaptations of King’s novellas, like The Shawshank Redemption, Stand by me, and Apt pupil, but the horror stories? Not so much. So, how to link a book that I have not only not read but is a genre I don’t like? Well, I’ve chosen something superficial …

One-word-titles! How original, eh?! There are many possibilities here, but I’m going to choose one I read this year, Ian McEwan’s Nutshell (my review). It’s one of those books that some people love and some hate, mostly because of its narrator. Some people just don’t like a foetus as a narrator! Can’t understand it myself. After all, fiction is supposed to be about the imagination. Seriously, though, I do understand the uncertainty about such a device, but I thought McEwan pulled it off …

As did too, I felt, Courtney Collins with her dead baby narrator in The burial (my review). If you think a foetus is a little bizarre, a dead baby speaking from the grave may be a step too far for you, but again, I thought Collins carried it off to present a fascinating historical fiction work about an Australian female bushranger. I haven’t heard anything more about Collins since, but I do hope she’s working on another book.

Anyhow, my next link is the obvious one. It’s on the word “burial” in the title and is, of course, Hannah Kent’s Burial rites (my review) Not only does it have “burial” in the title, but it is also a work of historical fiction, albeit one set in remote 19th century Iceland, not early 20th century outback Australia. Kent’s book, however, was not the first book set in Iceland that I’ve read. That honour goes to my next linked book …

Halldór Laxness’ spare, mesmerising Independent people. Unfortunately, I read this book a few years before I started blogging, so I don’t have a review to link to. One day I might fish out my reading notes and try to concoct a review, just to have it recorded on my blog. But, I probably won’t – because I fear the result would be too superficial. I really need to have a book fresh in my mind to write my reviews.

Now, the thing about Laxness, besides being Icelandic, is that he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1955. He is, apparently, Iceland’s only Nobel Laureate. Aussies may see where this is going – it’s to Patrick White, who is not quite our only Nobel Laureate, but he is our only Nobel Laureate in Literature. The Nobel Prize goes, as you know, to a body of work, so I’m doing the logical thing and have chosen the novel that got him going, his debut novel, Happy Valley (my review).

I’m going to stick with this idea of debut novel for my last link – and choose another older debut novel, Louise Mack’s The world is round (my review). While White’s book was first published in 1939, the year he turned 27, Mack’s book was published in 1896 when she was 26. Mack may not have gone on to have the stellar literary career that White did, but she’s part of our early literary tradition and I don’t want her forgotten!

So, this month we’ve travelled the globe a bit, from America to England to Australia to Iceland and back to Australia! We’ve visited remote cold places and remote hot places. And we’ve met some unusual narrators. I’ve had fun – and I hope you have too.

And now, to end, have you read It? And whether or not you have, what would you link to? 

Last month I changed my Six Degrees titling practice to not including the end book. Most commenters preferred that approach, so I’m sticking with it for the moment, with apologies to those who demurred! And now, before I get stuck into this month’s choices, the formalities. Six Degrees of Separation is a meme currently run by Kate (booksaremyfavouriteandbest). For information about how the meme works, please click the link on her blog-name. It’s a fun meme.

This month’s book, as often happens, is one I haven’t read, Bret Easton Ellis’s Less than zero. It’s set in 1980s Los Angeles, and the GoodReads summary calls it “a raw, powerful portrait of a lost generation who have experienced sex, drugs, and disaffection at too early an age, in a world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money– a place devoid of feeling or hope.”  Plenty there for connections, but that’s not the way I’m going to go. However, before we set off, I’ll reiterate that, as always, I’ve read all the books in my chain, though some before I started this blog.

So, the obvious link for this book would be to go with a title with a number in it – and that’s what I’ve decided to do, except I decided to challenge myself further and find six books I’ve read that have numbers in the title, starting with one, then two and on through to six. And I did it. First cab off the rank is Jessica Anderson’s ONE of the wattle birds (my review). Anderson was a well-regarded Australian author whose best-known book is the Miles Franklin Award winning Tirra Lirra by the river. One of the wattle birds was her last novel.

For two, I have Irma Gold’s short story collection TWO steps forward (my review). I loved the title of this because it suggests that phrase “two steps forward, one step back” which is pretty much how life often goes, isn’t it? The thing about short story collections is that it’s often hard to remember the stories years down the track, but in this collection there’s one in particular that has always stuck in my mind, “Refuge” about an empathetic woman working in a refugee detention centre. She cares deeply for the detainees but she’s powerless to change anything. It’s a story that’s still (if not more) relevant today – but then all the stories are, because they are about ordinary people and the things that happen to them, such as divorce, terminal illness, miscarriage, homelessness.

The next book is also still relevant today, though it’s nearly twenty years old. It’s one, though, that I haven’t forgotten. I’m talking THREE dollars by Elliott Perlman, which has also been adapted to film. It’s an excruciating book about when bad things happen to good people, about what happens when you stand up for what you think is right. You can end up with nothing but three dollars, that’s what. Elliott Perlman is not a prolific writer, but when he writes it’s usually powerful.

Now, number four is the odd one of the group because although I’ve read it – my reading database says so – my memories of it are vague. I read it when I was actively involved in a few online bookgroups. The book is The rule of FOUR by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. You know how GoodReads displays the ratings/reviews by your “friends” at the top of the list of reviews for a book? Well, for this book they were all from some of my internet bookgroup pals. Their ratings are 4, 2, 2, 1 and 1. This probably tells you why I don’t remember much about it.

It’s a different story for number five, however. The book is Nocturnes: FIVE stories about music and nightfall (my review) by this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature winner, Kazuo Ishiguro. I’m a big Ishiguro fan, having read all but two of his books, and I enjoyed this collection. It’s identifiably Ishiguro, not only because it deals with subjects he likes, such as music, but also for the style. The stories all have narrators who are either unreliable or in some other way not completely across what is going on, and they have an overall tone “of things not being quite right, of potential not being quite achieved, of people still looking for an elusive something but not necessarily knowing quite what that is.”

And so we come to the end, and it is, surprisingly, another short story collection, Tegan Bennett Daylight’s Stella Prize shortlisted SIX bedrooms (my review). However, unlike Nocturnes, the “six” doesn’t relate to the number of stories in the book, but to the title story about a six-bedroom share house.

And I’ll leave it there. This has been an odd one to write up. I’m not sure that I like the way I decided to go. It was fun searching for books to meet my sequential numbers challenge, but it’s more fun looking for ideas to link on. Back to normal next month!

Meanwhile, have you read Less than zero? And whether or not you have, what would you link to? 

I’ve decided to change my blog titling practice for my Six Degrees meme, from including the end book to not! I’ve decided it’s more fun to read the post following the connections until the end, rather than knowing the end book at the beginning? Let me know what you think. But now, the formalities. Six Degrees of Separation is a meme currently run by Kate (booksaremyfavouriteandbest). To find out more about it please click the link on her blog-name. It’s a fun meme.

Now, the book Kate chose for October is one I’ve actually read, unlike many of her other choices, but it was long before I started blogging. It’s Laura Esquivel’s Like water for chocolate. Unfortunately, I no longer have my beautiful hardback copy, having lent it to someone and never got it back, as happens sometimes in our reading lives. As always, I’ve read all the books in my chain, though not all since I started this blog.

I had fun choosing my first book. Should I go with chocolate in the title (like Chocolat), or Mexican authors (like Valeria Luiselli), or magic realism (like Gabriel Garcia Marquez), all of which or whom I’ve read? Nope! The subtitle of Esquivel’s book is “a novel in monthly installments (sic) with recipes, romance and home remedies”, so I’ve chosen another book that (like Chocolat in fact) also glorifies food and eating, Fannie Flagg’s Fried green tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. I read it before blogging, so no review to link to I’m afraid.

Food plays a shocking role at the end of Flagg’s warm Deep-South-set comedy, but I’ve decided not to go there. Instead, I’m linking on the cafe idea, and have chosen another book that I read before blogging, Marion Halligan’s The point, about a beautiful, top-class, but fictional, glass restaurant in my city, the capital of Australia. I did say I wasn’t going to follow Flagg’s shocking end, but I need to admit that there’s a murder in this book so it’s not all champagne and caviar! It deals with haves and have-nots, with insiders and outsiders (for which the glass motif works well, of course.)

And now, I’m going to get to books I’ve read since blogging. Another book which deals with insiders and outsiders is Emily Bitto’s The strays (my review). Its narrator is an outsider who is welcomed into a Victorian artists’ community as the friend of the founding artists’ children. She has her life, her expectations, her dreams turned around, until things go awry. How much it was all to her benefit is a question we ponder at the end, and that is also a relevant question for my next book …

William Lane’s The salamanders (my review) which has its origins in an artists’ colony though the book is set sometime after that colony had disbanded. However, it too explores the impact on the children of the artists. It’s a very different book to Bitto’s, however, delving into bigger issues relating to the land. Salamanders, and lizards in general, feature, both to represent the antiquity of the Australian continent and also, I think, resilience.

Regardless of the intent, this motif reminded me of the bar, cheekily called the Legless Lizard, in Thea Astley’s Drylands (my review)! It’s set in the dying town of Drylands and presents a bleak picture of Australia. Here is the quote I used in my review, describing Drylands as

a God-forgotten tree-stump of a town halfway to nowhere whose population (two hundred and seventy-four) was tucked for leisure either in the bar of the Legless Lizard or in front of television screens, videos, Internet adult movies or PlayStation games for the kiddies.

[…]

No one was reading anymore.

Drylands could be called dystopian, albeit one set in the present not the future. And that made me think of Jane Rawson’s A wrong turn at the Office of Unmade Lists (my review). There’s no doubt about its definition as a dystopian novel, dealing as it does with the devastating effects of climate change. Coincidentally, it also has several scenes in a bar!

Well, we haven’t travelled far once leaving the Americas – besides returning there briefly in Rawson’s book – but we have spent quite a bit of time in kitchens and bars. What does that tell you about me?

Have you read Like water for chocolate? And whether or not you have, what would you link to?