When last month’s Six Degrees went to air, I was on holiday in outback Queensland. I have since returned from that wonderful trip, but am now in Melbourne for two weeks, catching up with family, including of course our two gorgeous grandchildren. I could do the grandmotherly thing and wax lyrical about what fun they are, but if you have grandchildren, yours will be just as much fun, and if you don’t, then, my stories will bore you very quickly, so let’s get straight to this month’s Six Degrees. As always, if you don’t know how the #SixDegrees meme works, please check host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. This month we are back to books I haven’t read, this one being Colm Tóibín’s Long Island. I’ve seen (and loved) the movie of the first novel, Brooklyn, but haven’t read it or this sequel. I’d like to though!

I considered many ways to take this chain but in the end, I decided to go with the idea of a sequel. My link is an old Australian novel, Louise Mack’s Girls together (my review), which was published in 1898 and was the sequel to her novel Teens.

Girls together is about two friends, 16-year-old Lennie, who is at a point of transition in her life, and 18-year-old Mabel, who returns in the opening chapters from Paris and is training to be an artist. My next link draws on the idea of friendship between two young women. Nell Pierce’s A place near Eden (my review) is very different to Girls together, but the main friends here, Tilly and Celeste, are, like Lennie and Mabel, two years apart in age, meaning that from the start, Tilly is less experienced than Celeste – and she feels it. For the main part of the story, they are 19 and 21, and something happens, near Eden, for which Tilly is blamed.

My next link is simple, obvious, so MR at least is sure to love it! I am linking, in other words, on title. The book is Chris Flynn’s A tiger in Eden (my review). It’s about Billy, “a thug-on-the run” in Thailand from his violent past in Belfast. He is, of course, the “tiger” in Eden, but there are more tigers to the story than just this.

A tiger also appears in my next novel, Fiona McFarlane’s The night guest (my review) which is about an older woman living on her own, the carer her children organise for her, and a tiger which starts to visit at night. As in Chris Flynn’s novel, there are layers here to the idea of the tiger.

The older woman in my next link has far more agency than McFarlane’s Frida who is, admittedly, in the early stages of dementia. The woman is the narrator of Sigrid Nunez’s essay-novel cum autofiction work, The vulnerables (my review). It’s the story of a woman who, in the early days of COVID and lockdown, takes on the task of pet-sitting a miniature macaw in a classy New York apartment, but finds herself sharing this role with a disaffected, opinionated Gen Z son of friends of the apartment owner.  An uneasy relationship develops between these two strong-minded people.

My last link is about another older woman and a younger man living in the same apartment complex. They become friends when he is locked out of his apartment, but their friendship happens rather more easily than Nunez’s pair because they quickly find points of connection. The novel is Michael Fitzgerald’s Late (my review). It is a “what if” story about Marilyn Munro spun through a story about Sydney’s 1980s gay murders. Late encourages us to think about who Marilyn might have been had she been allowed to be herself, and who her young gay neighbour might be if allowed to be himself!

So, we started with Kate’s book in greater New York, but moved very quickly to Australia, before popping over to Thailand, back to Australia, and then to New York again, before finally ending up in Australia. We’ve met tigers and thugs (not to mention a macaw), older women and younger men, and we’ve come across some interesting girl friends. We’ve met people to be trusted and some not so much. I hope you’ve been intrigued!

Now, the usual: have you read Long Island and, regardless, what would you link to?

It’s the start of spring down under and, as some of you know, I am on a holiday in outback Queensland. It’s a bit of a sentimental journey for me, but it’s a region that is worth visiting regardless of personal connections. Anyhow, my holiday is not what you are here for, so I’ll get onto the meme. As always, if you don’t know how this #SixDegrees meme works, please check host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book, and this month she selected another book I have read! That makes two in a row! Unheard of – or, at least, very rare for me. The book is Larissa Behrendt’s After story (my review). As its subject matter is a mother-daughter holiday – this one to England – and as I am currently also on holiday, I plan to use some sort of holiday theme for all the links this month.

Given my plan to stick with the holiday idea, my first link is obvious to me, Jessica Au’s Cold enough for snow (my review). Not only is it about a holiday – this one to Japan – it’s also about a mother and daughter with some issues to resolve, from the daughter’s point of view anyhow.

For my next link, we are staying with the parental theme, but in this case the protagonist, an adult son, is running away from his oppressive elderly mother, to an old holiday haunt from his childhood, a place called Jimenbuen in the Monaro region of New South Wales. The book is Nigel Featherstone’s My heart is a little wild thing (my review), and our character falls passionately in love. It’s a wonderful experience, even though it doesn’t quite end the way he’d like.

The Monaro is a beautiful place, and it just so happens that I have another novel set there that fits the bill. Charlotte Wood’s Booker Prize long-listed novel Stone Yard devotional (my review) is about a woman who goes to a place on the Monaro for specific type of holiday, a retreat to heal her troubled spirit. Gradually, we come to understand her troubles, and many stem from unresolved grief over the loss of her parents, decades earlier.

Now, because I can’t have all Australian authors, I’m taking us back to England, but staying with a parental link. It’s a daughter again, but in this case the novel opens with her father having just died at the place they had taken for late summer. Utterly bereft, she stands at the front gate when a man goes by. Vulnerable in her grief, she falls in love, but as it turns out he’s not what she thought at all. Elizabeth von Arnim’s Vera (my review) is an early, chilling study of coercive control.

My next link is a little tenuous in more ways than one. It is about a camping holiday taken by two women, and we are back in Australia, so no connections there. However, I can find one link, besides the holiday one, and that’s the idea that holidays don’t always go to plan. For Lucy, it’s the death of her father that puts paid to the happy times, while for our two camping women it’s a flood, one serious enough for them to have to consider how best to survive it. The book is Susan Hawthorne’s verse novel, Limen (my review).

And finally, I am concluding with a sort of everylink! That is, a link that should work with any book featuring a holiday because, what do you do when you go on holidays? Hmm, perhaps that should be, what did we used to do when we went on holidays? Send postcards of course. So, my final link is American poet and blogger Jeanne Griggs’ Postcard poems (my review), which enables us to end on a positive note! Thankyou Jeanne!

So, we started with Kate’s book taking us to England, then I took us to Japan, Australia and England, before ending with Jeanne who takes us all over the USA and a few other places besides. I’m sorry-not-sorry to say, however, that all but one of my authors this month are women. (Sorry, because I do enjoy many male authors, but not sorry because I also love supporting the women!)

Now, the usual: have you read After story and, regardless, what would you link to?

It’s another new month, meaning time for another Six Degrees. Last month, in my introduction, I said that one of the things I like about doing this meme is seeing what book Kate has chosen next. Little did I know when I was writing that post, that the book she had chosen for this month was inspired by a recent post of mine on writers and artists. What a surprise, but how lovely. However, before I share what that book is, I need to do the formalities, that is, to tell you that if you don’t know how the #SixDegrees meme works, please check host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

So, the first rule is that Kate sets our starting book, and as you know for this month she selected a book from a post of mine. The book is Heather Rose’s novel, The museum of modern love (my review) and – haha – I have actually read it! In case you haven’t, it was inspired by artist Marina Abramović’s 75-day performance piece, The Artist is Present, which she performed at MoMA (the Museum of Modern Art) in 2010. From this, Rose weaves two stories, one about the real Marina Abramović and the other about a fictional musician who regularly attends the performance.

Where to from here? There were many options, but I decided to go with something fairly obvious, another novel set in a museum, this one a fictional house museum devoted to an artist and her muse, Helen Meany’s novella Every day is Gertie Day (my review). This museum, like MoMA during Abramović’s performance, attracts a lot of attention, albeit for different reasons.

Meany’s novella was co-winner of Seizure’s 2021 Viva La Novella Prize with Christine Balint’s very different book, Water music (my review). Balint’s book, unlike Meany’s contemporary-near future novel, is an historical novel set in a musical orphanage for girls in 18th century Venice.

So next we are going to Venice and a book I read quite early in my blogging days, Geoff Dyer’s unusual Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi (my review). I could almost call it a double link because this book reads more like two loosely connected novellas, than a single novel, albeit both parts are set in watery cities.

My next link didn’t come naturally. Instead, it is the result of some research I did into Dyer’s book which turned up that it won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction in 2009. Quite coincidentally, I have also read the 2010 winner, Ian McEwan’s climate-change inspired novel Solar (my review).

Next we go with something more obvious! That is, I’m linking on author’s name to another novel by Ian McEwan, Nutshell (my review), this one a literary mystery inspired more than a little by Hamlet.

My final link is not obvious if you don’t know the books, as it is on unusual narrators. Nutshell is narrated by a foetus, while my final book, Carmel Bird’s Family skeleton (my review), is narrated by the proverbial (or is it literal) skeleton in the closet. Either way, these unusual narrators provide a perfect link between two enjoyable – and witty – novels. (And neatly, our first book, The museum of modern love, also has a different sort of narrator.)

This is a different chain to my usual because four of my six books are witty, humorous and/or satirical. I like humour but it’s not always easy to find. The author gender split is 50/50, and we have travelled in space and time from 18th century Venice to 21st Century Australia.

Now, the usual: have you read The museum of modern love and, regardless, what would you link to?

Another month, another Six Degrees. This is the only meme I do as a regular thing, and sometimes I wonder why I do it. It is fun to think about how to link books, so it’s always exciting to see what book Kate has chosen next. But, is it more than fun? Does it result in our choosing to read books we hadn’t considered before? Is its main value in keeping us connected? Are there other benefits or impacts? Any thoughts?

While you ponder that, I’ll just get on with it … if you don’t know how the #SixDegrees meme works, please check host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. For this month she set the 2024 winner of the International Booker Prize, Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos (translated by Michael Hofmann). It is described at GoodReads as “a complicated love story set amidst swirling, cataclysmic events as the GDR collapses and an old world evaporates”. I’d like to read this one but suffice it to say I haven’t, to date.

I considered choosing another book set in or about the GDR, but I ended up choosing another translated German writer, without specific relevance to the GDR. My link is W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz (my review), translated by Anthea Bell. If you know Sebald, you will know that this is no ordinary novel, but very broadly its central, titular character is a man who, traumatised by being a kindertransport refugee from Czechoslovakia in 1939, tries to recover his memory and his life some 50 years later.

My next link is to a book in which the protagonist translates Austerlitz, among other books, because translating great books is her hobby, her passion. The book is Rabih Alameddine’s An unnecessary woman (my review). My reading group read this novel, and we did a straw poll on which of the books the protgonist writes about we’d most like to read. There were several, but Austerlitz was the winner. An unnecessary woman is a beautiful book about readers and reading.

A very different reader is Alan Bennett’s in his novel The uncommon reader (my review). The reader is Queen Elizabeth II, and in his story she discovers reading through a mobile library that visits the palace grounds. In my post, I wrote that Bennett cheekily suggests what the impact might be on her family, staff and the politicians around her when reading becomes not only something she wants to do all the time (instead of her work) but also results in her starting to think and question. A whimsical but not unserious book about readers and reading.

It’s no accident that Alan Bennett’s Queen discovers books through a library. Bennett is surely making a statement there too. A book which the librarians in my reading group loved for its love and promotion of libraries is Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land (my review). Among other things, this novel is about the role played by librarians in fostering knowledge and reading. Doerr’s Dedication is “For the librarians then, now, and in the years to come”.

I cannot resist staying with the libraries and librarian theme. A character in Doerr’s book speaks of how endangered books are, “They die in fires or floods or in the mouths of worms or at the whims of tyrants. If they are not safeguarded, they go out of the world.” Librarians and readers safeguard books, and this is exactly what is happening in the first story in Rebecca Campbell’s dystopian book, Arboreality (my review). A librarian and university researcher are fighting desperately against time to save books which are being destroyed by climate-change induced floods and fires.

Besides its interest in books, Arboreality is – obviously – about trees. It features many trees, but one species provides a linking thread between the stories, the Golden Arbutus. A very different tree but an equally significant one in terms of the book is the greengage tree in Shokoofeh Azar’s The enlightenment of the greengage tree (my review), translated by Adrien Kijek (pseudonym). It is on top of this tree that the character Roza attains enlightenment. Coincidentally, in this Iran-set politically-driven novel, a library is burnt.

This chain has taken us around the world – but, unusually for me, not to Australia – and through time, from centuries past and into the future. Also unusually for me, four of my six writers are male. Finally, I’d like to draw your attention to a neat circle – my closing book, like the book that starts this month’s meme, is translated.

Now, the usual: have you read Kairos and, regardless, what would you link to?

Today is the first day of winter here in Australia, and we can feel the chill in the air here in Ngunnawal/Ngambri country (or Canberra). I don’t like winter, but my new home (apartment) has the best aspect and we get sun streaming in most of the day in winter (if there is sun, as there mostly is here). I am so so happy. My last home had a good aspect, but also a good verandah so most of the sun landed on the verandah. But, let’s get to the meme … and if you don’t know how the #SixDegrees meme works, please check host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. This month she set “a crime novel with difference”, Asako Yuzuki’s Butter, which, of course, I haven’t read. GoodReads says it is about “a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story” and that it is “a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan”.

Now, before I go to my next link I’m going to introduce it by saying that after my review of Late, I had an enjoyable email correspondence with one of my wonderful commenters (whom I will leave to out herself if she’d like) about the title. At the end of our to-and-fro, we decided that single-word titles were a trend – and then what do you know but, for this month’s Six Degrees, we have been given a single-word title. So, this chain is going to comprise all single-word titles, but with another link too, if I can manage it. My first is Michael Fitzgerald’s Late (my review), and my link is that, although it is not a crime novel, its background is the gay-hate crime wave in Sydney in the 1980s. So, the link is from the hate of misogyny to gay-hate here.

Nella Larsen’s Passing (my review) deals with another sort of hate, racism, and the practice of light-coloured people passing as white in order to avoid that hatred and its attendant discrimination. It also contains a death that could be a fall or suicide or murder, which provides another link to the gay deaths in Sydney, many of which were treated as accidents or suicides rather than murders.

My next link is a crime novel. It starts with a cold case and uncertainty about whether the missing girl – the sister of the protagonist – had run away or been abducted and/or murdered. What did happen to her? What happened is the question we are left with at the end of Passing, and is also a question returned to many years later about the deaths of some of Sydney’s young men. The book is Shelley Burr’s rural noir debut, Wake (my review).

Staying with crime, I am moving to the only crime genre novel to have won the Miles Franklin Award, Peter Temple’s Truth (my reviews). (Have I made you happy M.R.?) It’s a crime novel, set mainly in the city, but as well as the crime novel link, I’m noting a loose climate-change link. The farm at the centre of Burr’s Wake is struggling, partly due to the father and daughter being distracted by their grief over the missing daughter/sister but also due to the impact of climate change. In Truth, we do get into the country sometimes, where the detective father’s property is being threatened by bushfire. As Australians know, bushfires are increasing in frequency and intensity here due to climate change.

Next, stay in Australia, and Catherine McKinnon’s Storyland (my review) which links to Truth on the climate-change issue, as well as the single-word title. Storyland traces the trajectory of Australia’s land from an almost pristine state at the dawn of colonisation through increased farming to climate-change-caused destruction in 2033 followed much later by a mysterious post-apocalyptic world in 2717. It starts as an historical novel and concludes a dystopian one.

This leads nicely to my last link, Rebecca Campbell’s Arboreality (my review) which is dystopian climate change fiction set in near future Canada, where the land has been devastated but people are using their ingenuity to find new ways of living.

So, all single-word title novels, in which the titles vary in their intent, but are mostly multi-layered conveying aspects, like setting, plot, character and, in particular, something about their themes. I can’t see much of a link between Butter and Arboreality, except for – yes – their single-word titles, but we’ve been on a challenging journey this month through Asia, Australia and the Americas that confronts some of the world’s harder issues. Two of my six writers this month were male.

Now, the usual: have you read Butter and, regardless, what would you link to?

And so my life settles into its new routine, bouncing between the land of the Wurundjeri Wandoon people of the Greater Kulin Nation (my part of Melbourne) and, where I am this weekend, my home in Ngunnawal/Ngambri country (or Canberra). Autumn is rapidly coming to an end, and it has been mostly a lovely one, weather-wise. But enough small talk, let’s get onto the meme … If you don’t know how the #SixDegrees meme works, please check host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. This month she set one of the books longlisted for the Stella Prize, Stephanie Bishop’s The anniversary. Kate opens her review of the novel by telling us the novel starts with an author taking her husband on a cruise to celebrate their anniversary, only to have something terrible happen …

There’s also a cruise in Rachel Matthews’ novel Never look desperate (my review), but it doesn’t open the novel and is not dramatic in the way like the one in Bishop’s novel. But it does offer an entertaining satire on cruise holidays and those who go on them. (Which is not to cast aspersions on cruises. I have never been on one, but those who know tell me that cruises can be great. You just have to find the style that matches your needs.)

Matthews’ character who goes on the cruise, Goldie, has a prickly relationship with her son (though he is not on the cruise with her). Another novel in which a mother has a prickly relationship with her son, is local author Nigel Featherstone’s My heart is a little wild thing (my review). The novel opens dramatically with the son leaving his home in a distressed state the day after he’d “tried to kill his mother” – though it’s not as bad as it sounds!

Featherstone’s protagonist runs off to the Monaro where, through a quoll, he meets the first big love of his life. Another novel in which a quoll plays an important role is Robbie Arnott’s Limberlost (my review). Both books are linked not just through the quoll, however. Both also have sensitive male protagonists. Such men can be rare in contemporary literature, but I’ve come across a few.

And here is where my chain stalled a bit, not because I had no ideas but because I wanted to travel out of Australia. Then the link came to me. Robbie Arnott’s title Limberlost reminded me of a favourite childhood book, Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter. I haven’t reviewed that here, but I have reviewed an article/essay by her called “The last Passenger Pigeon” (my review). It’s another dual link because Stratton Porter as a young child, like young Ned in Limberlost, lived close to and loved nature, albeit Ned’s relationship to nature is more complex, as he both uses and loves it at the same time.

But, oh oh, although the Passenger Pigeon was an American bird, we are returning to Australia, and to Carmel Bird’s collection of short stories, Love letter to Lola (my review), because in this collection, which features several stories about extinct animals, we have, yes, a passenger pigeon. (Indeed Carmel Bird commented on my Stratton-Porter post because she was writing this story around the same time!)

With a title like this, I had many options for my final link, and I’ve gone with an obvious one, that is, a book with the word “love” in the title. However, it too is a dual link because it is also a collection (well, an anthology) of short stories, and it takes us around the world, as does Bird with her various extinct creatures. The book is Love on the road 2015, edited by Sam Tranum and Lois Kapila (my review). As I wrote in my post, this collection takes us from Iran to the Philippines, from Zimbabwe to Costa Rica, from New Zealand to the USA – and we see love in all sorts of guises.

So, we stayed mostly in Australia, ostensibly, but in fact two books let us and our imaginations take flight to all parts of the world.

Picture Credit: Gene Stratton-Porter (Uploaded to Wikipedia, by gspmemorial; used under CC-BY-SA-4.0)

Now, the usual: have you read The anniversary and, regardless, what would you link to?

I am back in the land of the Wurundjeri Wandoon people of the Greater Kulin Nation, that is, in my part of Melbourne, because not only was it Easter last weekend, but we wanted to take my Californian friend on a road trip through some of New South Wales and Victoria. We saw some great sights, but right now it’s time to get onto the meme … If you don’t know how the #SixDegrees meme works, please check host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. This month she set a fun challenge: we had to choose a travel guide from our bookshelves! What fun. I chose the Rough guide to Japan, and – woo hoo – I found an image on GoodReads of the cover of my 2011 edition. That wasn’t our first visit to Japan, as we’d been twice before, but that was when we bought the guide, because … well read on …

I decided not to go the obvious route – a book by a Japanese writer – because who wants to go the obvious route? Instead, I’m linking on Kindle books. The Rough guide to Japan was the second book I bought for my Kindle, thinking that an eTravelGuide would be so much easier to manage. Well, yes – and no – but that’s for another day. Meanwhile, the first eBook I bought was Jane Austen’s Sense and sensibility (one of my posts)! Yes, I already had a couple of copies of it, but you can never have too much Austen, and, anyhow, because I know it well, it was a good book on which to test using eReaders. Wouldn’t you say?

Sticking with the Kindle theme – and a bit of personal history – the third book I bought for my Kindle was another classic, Horace Walpole’s The castle of Otranto (my review), because, also in 2011, my Jane Austen group decided to discuss a Gothic novel of our choice. (This image is not my Kindle edition.)

OK, I’ve probably bored you enough now with my Kindle history, so my next link is on Gothic novels. I’m choosing a Australian gothic novel, Louis Nowra’s Into that forest (my review), which is set in the late 19th century, and tells the story of two young girls who find themselves lost in the bush (forest), and are taken in by a Tasmanian Tiger.

They are, in other words, feral children. My next link is another Australian book about feral children, Eva Hornung’s Dog boy (my review), which is about a boy taken in by a dog – but in Moscow, would you believe!

And now I’m going to do one of those nice, clear, obvious links that MR will like because it’s on a word in the title, dog! My link is to Louis de Bernieres’ Red dog (my post on the book and movie) which was inspired by the story of a real dog which roamed the Pilbara region of Western Australia through the 1970s.

Finally, because we had to go there, and legend has it – at least in the film – that Red Dog did, we are going to end in Japan. I haven’t reviewed as much Japanese literature on my blog as I would like, despite its being a favourite of mine, but the first work of fiction I posted on here was Haruki Murakami’s short story collection, Blind willow, sleeping woman (my post) so that is my final link.

I do hope you enjoyed this month’s journey, because I had fun putting it together – and for once we did come full circle.

Now, (sort of) the usual: Do you have a favourite travel guide on your shelves? And, if so, what would you link to? If not, then I’d love you to comment on whatever takes your fancy!

Last #SixDegrees I was in the land of the Wurundjeri Wandoon people of the Greater Kulin Nation, that is in my part of Melbourne, but this month, I’m home in Ngunnawal/Ngambri country. Where will I be next month? Time will tell – and do you care? So let’s get to the meme. If you don’t know how this #SixDegrees meme works, please check host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. And this month it is, of course, one I haven’t read. I’m told, however, that it’s well worth my considering, so that I’ll do. It’s Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake.

Now, I had several goes at this meme, but they didn’t lead to where I wanted to end, so, I decided to do one of my #SixDegrees poems. Here goes (with links on titles going to my posts on those books):

Tom Lake*
was discussing Question 7
with Elizabeth Finch,
when Chinongwa cried out,
What if Things fall apart?
Never fear, they replied, there’s a Crossing to safety
in the Valley of Grace.

With thanks to Ann Patchett, Richard Flanagan, Julian Barnes, Lucy Mushita, Chinua Achebe, Wallace Stegner and the inspirational and much-loved Marion Halligan. Her funeral was held yesterday, and I wanted to end this #Six Degrees on this beautiful book by her – after sharing some books that ask big questions.

* And yes, I know Tom Lake is not a person, but for my purposes “he” is. It’s called artistic licence!

We’ve travelled far this month – to North America, Britain, Africa, and Australia – and I’m 50:50 on author gender. How good is that?

Now, the usual: Have you read Tom Lake? And, regardless, what would you link to?

I am back in the land of the Wurundjeri Wandoon people of the Greater Kulin Nation, which means I’m back in my part of Melbourne for our family’s annual February birthday season. (Three have their birthdays between the 3rd and 9th, inclusive.) It all starts today, that means, but I did have time to prepare my Six Degrees in advance. If you don’t know how this meme works, please check host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. Every now and then she mixes it up and doesn’t set a specific book. This month is one of those, with our assignment being to make our starting book the one we ended our January links on or the last one we read in January. Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead is the last book I completed in January – for my reading group on Tuesday 29th – though I didn’t post my review until the first of February.

When I started reading Demon Copperhead I was immediately reminded of JD Vance’s memoir Hillbilly elegy. That’s an obvious link given Vance also grew up as a “poor hillbilly”. However, I was also reminded of another novel about a boy growing up poor with an addicted mother, albeit an alcoholic in this case. That book is Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain (my review) so that’s my first link. Shuggie is a very different boy, but he captured my heart just as Demon Copperhead did.

Both Demon Copperhead and Shuggie Bain are titled for their protagonists, who grow up during the course of the book. Another novel I read which is named for a young protagonist who grows up during the book is Gwendolyn Brooks’ Maud Martha (my review). All three of these young characters have much to contend with in their young lives. But now, we are moving on from characters to …

Form. Maud Martha is a novella told through vignettes from the titular character’s life. Another book I’ve read which tells the story of a family through vignettes is Western Australian author Laurie Steed’s You belong here (my review). Maud Martha covers around two decades in 100 pages, while You belong here covers around four decades in two hundred and fifty pages.

The back cover blurb of Steed’s novel describes it as having “all the dysfunction of an Anne Tyler novel, but with a distinctly Australian feel.” I’ve read and thoroughly enjoyed a few Anne Tyler novels over the years, but only one since I started blogging, so that’s my next link, Anne Tyler’s Redhead by the side of the road (my review).

Tyler’s protagonist, Micah Mortimer, is a routine-driven character who has trouble forming deep relationships with people. Another routine-driven character who doesn’t find romance, in particular, easy is Don Tillman in Graeme Simsion’s popular Rosie series, so it’s to the first in this series, The Rosie project (my review), that I’m linking next.

For my final link, we are staying in Australia, and I’m using one of those more tricksy links, namely the birth year of the authors. Susan Johnson, whose Life in seven mistakes (my review) I’m making my last link, was born the same year as Simsion. Like many of the books this month its subject matter is problematical families. Such, though, is the common stuff of fiction, eh?

We haven’t travelled far this month, spending most of it in the USA or Australia – with one little foray to Scotland. We’ve also stayed within the last century. I’ll see if I can be more exciting next month.

Now, the usual: Have you read Demon Copperhead? And, regardless, what would you link to?

After taking a break from Six Degrees in December, I’m back at the beginning of 2024 to take part in this fun meme again. I hope you have all had a good holiday season and are ready for another year of good reading and discussing all things books. One different way of looking at books is through this meme. If you don’t know how this meme works, please check host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. And, of course, we start the year with a book I haven’t read, though I have heard plenty about it, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. GoodReads describes it as follows: “two friends–often in love, but never lovers–come together as creative partners in the world of video game design”.

I don’t remember reading any books about video games, but I have read quite a few about friends. However, I am not going in that direction either because, quite serendipitously, my Californian friend shared in her letter this week the current “top ten checked out books in the NY public library system”. Number 2 was Zevin’s novel, but it was number 1 that caught my eye, as it’s a book I’ve read, Bonnie Garmus’ Lessons in chemistry (my review). How could I not make that my first link?

For my next link I’m going with an obvious option – this is for you MR! – and linking on a word in the title. The word is “chemistry”, and the book is Peter Carey’s The chemistry of tears (my review). I commenced my review of that book by saying that when I think of Peter Carey, I often also think of Margaret Atwood, because both have quite varied oeuvres. Both take risks, trying new forms, voices and genres.

So, you won’t be surprised that my next link is to Margaret Atwood, and to the last work of hers I reviewed. This was The Labrador fiasco (my review), a short story I read for Buried in Print’s annual MARM event. It’s a story-within-a-story told in the voice of a son visiting his aging parents. But, I’m not linking on these ideas.

My edition of The Labrador fiasco was a little book, a Bloomsbury Quid. The first Bloomsbury Quid I reviewed for this blog was Nadine Gordimer’s Harald, Claudia and their son Duncan (my review). I could, though, have linked on the fact that both Atwood’s book and Gordimer’s feature parents and a son, albeit Atwood’s book is about a positive relationship while in Gordimer’s the son has committed a violent crime.

This leads us to my next link which is also a story (this one a novel) about a parent dealing with a son who has committed a violent act, Margaret Merrilees’ The first week (my review). In Merrilees’ story there is just the mother dealing with the aftermath, but, interestingly, in both stories there is also a race element.

For my final link, I’m sticking with parents coping with a problematic child, but in this case it’s a daughter who has been having an affair with a much older married man and who now appears to have run away. The book is Joan London’s The good parents (my review) and it deals, not just with parenting, but with the many choices we make in our lives, and their impacts.

I realised by the time I got to the end of my links that all six feature parents and children. In Lessons in chemistry, the main relationship is between mother and daughter, and The chemistry of tears hangs on a special gift commissioned by a father for his consumptive son. The rest you know from my notes on the links. We have travelled widely this month, though it may not be obvious here – from the USA to England and Germany, then to Canada and South Africa, finally ending up in Australia.

Now, the usual: Have you read Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow? And, regardless, what would you link to?