Woo hoo, it’s spring here down under, and in my street we have yellow wattles and daffodils blooming, plus pink prunus trees and white Manchurian pears. Bright spots in difficult times, and it does the heart good. However, I’m not here to talk about that but for this months Six Degrees of Separation meme.  As always, if you don’t know this meme and how it works, please check out meme host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

Once again, the starting book is one I haven’t read, though unlike last month’s, I have heard of the author. The book is American author Curtis Sittenfeld’s Rodham. According to GoodReads it “imagines a deeply compelling what-might-have-been: What if Hillary Rodham hadn’t married Bill Clinton?” However, this is not where I’m going to go.

I said that I have heard of Curtis Sittenfeld, and the reason is because of her involvement in The Austen Project, her contribution being Eligible, a retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and prejudice. My first link is from this to another retelling of Pride and prejudice, Jo Baker’s Longbourn (my review).

Longbourn was, I discovered, one of many books presented in England’s BBC4’s Books at Bedtime program. I was surprised to discover that another book broadcast on this program was our own (I mean Australia’s own) Elizabeth Harrower’s In certain circles (my review). How great is that!

And now, just to mix it up a bit, I’m going to link on circles and the fact that the circle is a symbol of infinity. This brought me to John Banville’s The infinities (my review). 

Two main characters in The infinities can be described as infinite, meaning, in part, that they are immortal – the gods Hermes and Zeus. Gods aren’t the only things that are immortal. Cells can be too, as I learnt in Rebecca Skloot’s fascinating, heartrending, The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks (my review).

The story of African-American Henrietta Lacks’ cells should be a good one. After all, her cells have gone on to produce some significant medical advances. However, the way the cells were taken and used is a story of both ingrained medical arrogance and ongoing racism whereby the human behind these cells and her family were continually ignored and discounted. A closer-to-home book about the experience of racism is Maxine Beneba Clarke’s The hate race (my review).

Maxine Beneba Clarke’s heritage is mixed, her mother being Guyanese and her father Jamaican (Caribbean). Indigenous Australian author Tony Birch, like many of us, has mixed heritage. He claims a Barbadian (Caribbean) convict amongst his ancestry! I can’t resist making that my last link, though I could also link on the fact that Birch’s writing deals with racism. His most recent novel, The white girl (my review), deals very specifically with racism in contemporary rural and urban Australia.

I’ve been very narrow in my travels this month, staying in English-speaking countries, and keeping (mostly) to the last 100 years. I’ve returned to my usual gender breakdown – two men and four women. I started with what has been described as a “what if” imaginary novel, but I ended, unfortunately, with a novel that is far too real.

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

I am so glad to see that two thirds of winter is officially over. It’s been a horrible year, for all of us really, so a bit of warmth and spring rebirth (here down under) would be very welcome, eh? Meanwhile, I’ll entertain myself with things like the Six Degrees of Separation meme.  If you don’t know this meme and how it works, please check out meme host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

August’s starting book is yet another I haven’t read. Indeed, not only have I not read it, I’ve never heard of it or its author, which is not surprising because, as far as I can tell, it’s a sort of critique of how capitalist forces are driving us all more and more to perform, produce, to be forever doing something, or, as one GoodReads reviewer wrote, on “on how the attention economy and hustle culture is affecting our lives”. The book is Jennifer Odell’s How to do nothing: Resisting the attention economy.

Now, I’m going to break with my usual practice and start with a book I’ve read but not reviewed on my blog, because this book is the. perfect. book. about. doing. nothing. What’s more, it was published in 1936, so this idea is not new, folks! The book is Munro Leaf’s now classic children’s book, The story of Ferdinand. Why don’t you take a moment to stop and smell the flowers before you read on!

My next link is a bit of a leap, because it’s not about a bull, nor about doing nothing, and nor is it set in Spain, but it is about a BIG animal, a mammoth in fact. Yes, my next link is to my most recent review, Chris Flynn’s Mammoth (my review).

Tracy Chevalier’s Remarkable creatures (my review) is an obvious next link, because it is about fossils, albeit not narrated by fossils. However, it is historical fiction about the early nineteenth century fossil collector, Mary Anning who lived in Lyme. I didn’t love the book, but I must say that the story it told – the historical truth contained within it – has stayed with me.

Keeping with the nature theme, and a coastal setting, I’m going to take us to  William Lane’s The salamanders (my review), part of which is set on the New South Wales coast. While this book is not about fossils, salamander fossils do date back to the Middle Jurassic period in England (and Kyrgyzstan), which is, of course, part of the broader Jurassic period to which Mary Anning’s finds belong.

The story of The salamanders is founded in an artist’s colony, and all the relationships and dysfunctions that such groups can generate. In a very loose link, I’m taking us to David Mitchell’s The thousand autumns of Jacob de Zoet (my review) which concerns a different sort of colony, this one a colony of traders and their slaves on Dejima Island, Nagasaki, Japan. The traders work for the Dutch East India Company, and, as you can imagine, relationships are challenging.

Another book which deals with European trading in the East Asian region – this time by Britain’s East India Company – is Amitav Ghosh’s River of smoke (my review), the second book in his Ibis trilogy. It is set mostly in Canton in the late 1830s, and explores the lead up to the first Opium War. Hmm, are we back to smelling flowers?

So, a much more travelled chain than usual this month, with visits all over the world, but particularly to  Spain, America, England, Japan and China – as well as Australia. Unusually, too, almost all of this month’s authors are men. What was I thinking?

Now the usual: Have you read How to do nothing? And, regardless, what would you link to? 

My time is tight right now and my mind distracted, but I did want to continue Six Degrees, which as you know is a meme currently run by Kate, and you can read all the rules on her blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

Her June selection is Sally Rooney’s Normal people, which I have not, once again, read. I am going to keep it brief.

So, here goes:

Normal people

Call me

to take

Two steps forward.

But,

Everywhere I look,

I see

Signs preceding the end of the world.

Maybe tomorrow?

Regardless,

Yours truly,

The still deceived.

(Links on titles are to my posts.)

How nice it would be if our recent experience of cooperation (here in Australia, anyhow) did encourage us to take two steps forward into a new way of being and doing and relating.

And now my usual questions. Have you read Normal people? And, regardless, what would you link to? 

I do love the sound of 2020. It has a lovely ring to it. It’s also the year that Father Gums will turn 100. However, that will be May. Right now, it’s time to kick off the first Six Degrees of Separation meme of the year. This meme for those of you who don’t know it is explained in detail on our meme host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

I’m starting this year the same as I did last year, that is, with Kate choosing a book I haven’t read. Indeed I haven’t even heard of Taylor Jenkin’s Reid book, Daisy Jones and the Six, which is a novel about the rise and fall of a fictional 1970s rock band.

For my first link, I’m sticking with the theme of rock music, and choosing Nigel Featherstone’s novella, The beach volcano (my review). However, Featherstone’s novel, while featuring a successful rock musician – Canning aka Mick Dark – is not so much about Canning’s musical career as his return home after a long absence for his father’s 80th birthday, intent on getting answers to some longstanding family secrets and, thus, resolve underlying conflicts.

Featherstone’s Canning returns home because he wants to improve his relationship with his family, and father. Not so for Édouard Péricourt in Pierre Lemaître’s The great swindle (my review). Severely wounded in World War 1, and the son of a dominating father, he flat refuses to return home to resolve those unresolved conflicts!

And here, sticking, unusually for me, with content, I’m going to link on something a bit tenuous. Édouard Péricourt was so disfigured in the war that he wears increasingly bizarre but often beautiful masks rather than let people see his face. Masks feature in Julian Davies’ novel Crow mellow (my review), but via a masked ball that takes place in a country house/bush retreat where artists are staying with their patrons and admirers.

Crow mellow belongs, then, to a sub-genre known as country house novels. While you couldn’t call my next link a country house, exactly, but the characters in Charlotte Wood’s The natural way of things (my review) are all stuck together in a sort of labour camp in the country somewhere. No masked-ball fun there!

The natural way of things won the Stella Prize in 2016. The 2015 winner was a sort of country house novel too, Emily Bitto’s The strays (my review) which is about an artist’s colony in Victoria, inspired by the Reeds and their Heide group. Yes, I know I’m stretching the country house friendship a bit, but why not?

So, where to from here? How about another book which was inspired by artists, albeit of a different type? Dominic Smith’s The electric hotel (my review) was inspired by the silent film pioneers of the early twentieth century. Its protagonist, Claude Ballard, is fictional, like Bitto’s Trenthams, but it does directly reference real artists as well, such as the Lumière Brothers and Thomas Edison.

So, a different sort of chain for me because all the main links are content-related (with an additional link between Wood and Bitto on the Stella Prize.) Interestingly, I’ve realised that most of the books deal with artists of some sort – painters, musicians, filmmakers, and mask-makers. Four of my six authors are male, which is not common for me, and all of my linked authors, except Pierre Lemaître, are Australian (albeit Smith now lives in the USA). Oh, and all are set post 1900.

And now, my usual questions: Have you read Daisy Jones and the Six? And, regardless, what would you link to? 

And so we come to the last Six Degrees of Separation meme of the year, and Kate has chosen a special book (for me anyhow) as our starting book. However, first, I need to tell you that if you are new to blogging, and don’t know what this meme is about, please check host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

Last month’s starting book, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s adventures in Wonderland, is of course a classic. This month’s would have been a classic I’m sure, if only the author had managed to finish it. The book is Sanditon (my review) and it was written – well, 11 chapters anyhow – by Jane Austen. Kate chose it, as you probably know, because Andrew Davies’ television adaptation (of his version of the completed story) is currently being broadcast. Of course I have read it, more than once …. making five the number of starting books I’ve read this year.

For my first link, I’m choosing Thea Astley’s Drylands (my review) which might sound surprising, though, like Austen’s book it is set in a small (non-urban) community. However, the reason I’m linking to it is not that, but because Drylands was Astley’s last novel (albeit she managed to finish hers before she died.)

Now, Drylands has an unusual form. It is a novel, really, but it can read like a collection of short stories, which are written by someone called Janet. Another novel that can also be described as a collection of short stories, though not quite as tricksy in form as Astley’s, is Tara June Winch’s Swallow the air (my review). Coincidentally, it is a debut novel (as opposed to Astley’s swan song one!)

And here I’m going to change tack and move from Australia to France. Tara June Winch now lives in France, and has for some years. An Australian author who sells very well in France is, in fact, local Canberra writer, Karen Viggers. Her novel, The orchardist’s daughter (my review), has, like her previous novels, been translated into French. Its title is Le Bruissement des feuilles, which is, in English, The rustle of leaves. Hmm… I could link to another book published with a different title overseas, but we’re going to (sort of) stay in France …

… and link to a book by an Australian writer (another Canberran in fact) that was drafted at a writer’s retreat in France and published by the people, La Muse, who are behind that retreat. The author is John Clanchy and his book, Sisters (my review).

So far I’ve been a bit nationalistic in my French links, so next I’m linking to a book by – an English writer! Did I trick you there? However, it is about French people, Caroline Moorhead’s biography Dancing to the precipice: The life of Lucie De La Tour Du Pin, Eyewitness to an era (my review), which is set before, during and after the French Revolution.

And finally, because of course I had to do it, a book actually written in France by a French writer. I’ve read a handful of French writers since I started blogging, so the choice was a bit of a challenge. However, given the flamboyance of some of the French aristocracy covered by Moorehead in her book, I thought perhaps Pierre LeMaitre’s novel,The great swindle (my review), with its damaged but flamboyant character, Édouard Péricourt, would be the best match. (These last two books could also be linked by the fact that I probably wouldn’t have read them had they not been chosen by my reading group!)

So, we started in England with Austen, before moving to Australia. We then dallied a little longer in Australia, but with French connections, before finally landing in France. We have covered over two centuries in our travels, and have, as often seems to be the case with my Six Degrees, met four women and two men authors.

And now, my usual questions: Have you read Sanditon? And, regardless, what would you link to?