Woo hoo! A New Year at last after what has really been a doozy for us all, in one way or another. So glad to see the back of it. I hope you all had a lovely Christmas wherever you were and however you were able to spend it. Now though to that thing that stayed with us unchanged all through 2020, come hail or shine, come fire or covid, and that thing of course is our 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.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. This month, she’s chosen a book was one of many readers’ loved books last year – Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet! I haven’t read it – but what’s new? I wouldn’t be averse to reading it, I must say, because its topic of Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, who died in his youth, sounds intriguing.

There are various directions I could go in, but I’ve chosen a pretty obvious one, a book that, like Hamnet, is historical fiction breathing life into a marginal historical figure. The book is Craig Cormick and Harold Ludwick’s On a barbarous coast (my review), and the figure, James Mario Magra. Magra was a midshipman on the Endeavour and is believed to have authored an anonymous journal about that journey. Cormick drew from that journal for his characterisation of Magra.

Staying with the coastal theme – but shifting time (to the contemporary not colonial era), setting (to southern Victoria, not Far North Queensland), and genres (to crime not historical fiction) – I’m linking to Dorothy Johnston’s Through a camel’s eye (my review). This novel introduces Constable Chris Blackie, meaning that …

… Through a camel’s eye is the first of Johnston’s latest series, her Sea-change Mysteries. I’m not, as you know, a big reader of series, but in 2020 I did read the first in another series, Steven Carroll’s The lost life (my review), which starts his Eliot Quartet series.

I’m being a bit cheeky with my next link because I’m taking us to a literary app, rather than a book, The waste land app for TS Eliot’s poem cycle of the same name (my review). This was an exciting foray into the possibilities of using apps for the reading and study of literature, but I’m not sure it has taken off. It was, I’d say, expensive to produce and may just not have got the market size they needed. A shame. (The pic here is of a book edition of the poem, not of the app!)

The Wasteland app contains many academics, writers and actors reading, critiquing and reflecting on this major poem. One of those involved was the English novelist Jeanette Winterson, so it’s to her book Oranges are not the only fruit (my review) that I am linking next.

Jeanette Winterson has quite a bit in common with our Francesca Rendle-Short, but the most relevant to my link here is that both were raised by mothers who were religious zealots. Oranges are not the only fruit is a semi-autobiographical novel, while Bite your tongue (my review) is a sort of hybrid fiction/memoir, but both cover protagonist-daughters’ struggles against highly restrictive maternal upbringings.

Coincidentally, we’ve somehow ended up on a topic – religion and God – relevant to last month’s starting book, Judy Blume’s Are you there God? It’s me Margaret.

So, this month, half of my books are by men and half by women. We haven’t travelled far, staying in Australia except for a trip in the middle to England, but we have traversed a couple of centuries. I do like how we started with the starting book’s lovely cool blue cover and ended with Rendle-Short’s fiery one. I hope that’s not telling us something about the year to come!

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

And so, suddenly, it’s December and the last Six Degrees post of the year. What will 2021 bring. This time last year we could never have imagined what 2020 was going to be for us. I hope we don’t have another one like it again, but … it’s not over yet isn it? Anyhow, on to this month’s Six Degrees of Separation meme.  But first, if you don’t know this meme and how it works, please check out meme host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. This month, she’s chosen a book that’s celebrating its 50th birthday this year – Judy Blume’s Are you there God? It’s me Margaret! I haven’t read it, though I know that Judy Blume is a huge favourite with young adults, or was, in those early days of her writing when YA was a relatively new genre.

What to do? I could go with another book celebrating its 50th anniversary, or a YA novel, but I’m going to look at questions, specifically How, What, When, Where, Why and Who, though many of my titles aren’t actually questions. They just start with a word that often starts a question. Sorry, but you’ll have to live with that, and that the links are simply from one of these words to the next! (BTW See notesinthemargin’s last six degrees post on questions in titles.)

So, HOW. Melissa Lucashenko’s essay (not Richard Llewellyn’s novel), “How green was my valley?” (my review) appeared in Griffith Review’s Hot Air issue. It’s an excellent essay that talks about climate change, indigenous Australian culture, and the possibilities of connection between Indigenous and settler Australians to save our country.

WHAT. For “what” I go to a favourite writer whom I haven’t read for a while, Haruki Murakami. I love memoirs that aren’t quite memoirs, and Murakami’s What I talk about when I talk about running (my review) is such a book. It purports to be about his running, but you learn a lot more besides.

WHEN. My next book is another memoir, but a traditional one this time, white Zimbabwean writer Peter Godwin’s When a crocodile eats the sun (my review). It’s a tough book about a tough place, Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.

WHERE. This was my biggest challenge, as I’ve not reviewed any book starting with “where”. I nearly cheated and used Helen Garner’s EveryWHERE I look, but then remembered that I had suggested to Kate that we start a Six Degrees chain with Maurice Sendak’s Where the wild things are, so, why not get more mileage out of that! Otherwise, I could have used Delia Owens’ Where the crawdads sing, which my reading group has scheduled for next year.

WHY. One reason for not “cheating” with Helen Garner’s Everywhere I look, was that my “why” link was going to be Garner. It’s her powerful Walkely-award-winning essay, “Why she broke: the woman, her children and the lake” (my review). It appeared in The monthly in 2017, and is an interesting companion piece to her earlier longform work, This house of grief. (It doesn’t appear in Yellow notebook, which I’ve used here for its pic of Garner!)

WHO. Like my “How” choice, my “who” title is a real question, though the import of the question is possibly obscure. I’m talking Hartman Wallis’ Who said what, exactly? (my review). It’s a cheeky and challenging book, but, given this month’s starting book, I must share this line from one of the book’s poems:

‘Think about it God is dead …

Hmm … what would Judy Blume’s Margaret say?

So, exactly reversing my usual Six degrees posts, four of my six links here are by men. However, like last month, we have travelled a bit, to Australia, Japan, Africa and the USA. We have also considered, one way or another, quite a few questions, and have, somehow, returned to God. Seems like a good point on which to close this year’s Six degrees. Thanks, Kate, for another enjoyable set of starting books. All being well, I’ll be back in 2021.

Now, the usual: Have you read Are you there God? It’s me Margaret!? And, regardless, what would you link to?

Two months into spring here down under, and we are enjoying a wetter spring than usual. I don’t love rain, but my has it resulted in lovely spring blossoms, and we do need our dams to be filled – which they are! Now though, onto today’s business, this month’s 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.

And the first rule, of course, is that Kate sets our starting book, and this month, as she did a year or so ago, she told us to start this month’s chain with last linked book from our last Six Degrees post, which, woo-hoo, means another starting book I’ve read!

So, the book I ended last month’s chain with was Louise Erdrich’s The bingo palace (my review), which is inspired by the fact that gambling is a major source of income for many Native American communities, a way in which they can support themselves (albeit also comes with problems).

Another community for which gambling can operate as a survival mechanism are the Koreans in Japan who run most of the Pachinko parlours in that country. This story is covered in Min Jin Lee’s originally named Pachinko (my review).

Richard Lloyd Parry’s The people who eat darkness (my review) is a non-fiction true crime work which explores the problematic position of Koreans in Japan, one which can have, as here, dire consequences.

For my next link, I’m moving from setting and subject (though am staying in Asia), to another book I read for the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize shadow jury, Yan Lianke’s Dream of Ding Village (my review).

Finally, we land in Australia, with Courtney Collins‘ historical novel The burial (my review), which was inspired inspired by the life of Jessie Hickman, an Australian woman bushranger. That, however, is not the link – obviously. The link is that both novels have dead child narrators, though Collins’ is a very young baby.

For my final link, I’m sticking with “wild” Australia, but this time with a book written at the time it is set, John Lang’s The forger’s wife (my review). It deals with the rough and tumble of life in the colony, and of course, that includes bushrangers!

As frequently happens with my Six degrees posts, four of my six links are books by women. However, we have travelled a bit this time – from America to Japan to South Korea and thence China, before finally landing in Australia. The authors have been diverse too, though the two books set in Japan were not by Japanese writers! Go figure, as they say!

Now, the usual: Have you read The bingo palace? And, regardless, what would you link to?