It’s the last month of winter, and I can’t wait for it to be over. It’s been colder than usual here (though not as cold as some of your experience in winter I realise). However, I do like the Six Degrees meme, so let’s get straight to it. If you don’t know how this #SixDegrees meme works, please check Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. This month, it’s another winning book, Yael van der Wouden‘s The Safekeep which won the 2025 Women’s Prize. It’s about Isa, a recluse, who lives alone, until her brother asks that his girlfriend Eva stay with her for the summer. Isa is initially repulsed by Eva, but slowly a romantic relationship develops between them.

Another novel in which two strangers end up sharing a house – albeit for a different reason – and are initially antagonistic towards each other is Sigrid Nunez’s The vulnerables (my review). I considered making the next link to Michelle de Kretser’s Theory & practice, because both novels reference Virginia Woolf, and both Nunez and de Kretser aspired in their novels to create a new form of writing. However, as de Kretser’s book was last month’s starting novel, I decided to think again and so …

My next link is to Carmel Bird’s short story collection, Love letter to Lola (my review). The link might surprise you – a macaw. In Nunez’s novel it’s Eureka, a miniature macaw, which the two inadvertent housemates are responsible for pet-sitting. In Carmel Bird’s titular short story, it’s a Spix’s Macaw writing sadly to his lost mate.

Now that was a difficult link for you all to have guessed – sorry MR – so my the next one is more obivous. It’s on the title. My next link is Jay Griffiths’ A love letter to a stray moon (my review), a book I reviewed much earlier in my blogging days. It’s a first person novel in the voice of Frida Kahlo. I did consider another novel in the voice of an artist, but then …

decided to keep it simple before I get a bit tricksy again. It’s another title link, this time to Elizabeth Jolley’s My father’s moon (my review). The first of a trilogy, it’s a work of autofiction, I guess we’d say now, though I don’t think I used the term then.

And now back to trickier links. It’s to Helen Garner’s Yellow notebook: Diaries, Volume 1, 1978-1987 (my review), the link being that Helen Garner was a big admirer of Jolley and wrote about her several times in this first volume of her diaries.

Another writer Garner admired and mentions in this diary is Jane Austen. She specifically mentions Mansfield Park, writing, “Mansfield Park. She never tells you anything about the appearance of her characters. As if they were moral forces. I love it”. It’s therefore to Mansfield Park (one of my posts) that I must link. I am not surprised that Garner likes Jolley and Austen. After all, I like all three! They have a wit about them, and are all wonderful observers of human nature, albeit from different perspectives more often than not.

All of my selections this month are by women, which was not intentional. It’s just how it fell out. The writers are all English, American or Australian, but their subject matter spreads a little more widely to encompass, for example, Mexico and Brazil, the home of the Spix’s macaw. One of the novels is written in and set pre-20th century, but the rest are set in the 20th or 21st centuries.

Have you read The safekeep and, regardless, what would you link to?

Well, I am back down south, experiencing a colder than average start to the winter, which I do NOT like. However, I do like the Six Degrees meme, so let’s get straight to it. If you don’t know how this #SixDegrees meme works, please check Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. This month, for the first time this year, it’s one I’ve read, Michelle de Kretser’s Theory & practice (my review). It won the 2025 Stella Prize, and has been shortlisted for this year’s Miles Franklin Award, which are both significant literary awards in Australia. Fundamentally about “the messiness of life, it also challenges us with its form, which mixes fiction, essay and memoir in a way that also nods a little to autofiction.

Another novel with an interesting, though not quite so innovative, form, and which could also be said to deal with the messiness of life is Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge (my review). Here, the form is connected short stories. In some stories, protagonist Olive is front and centre, but in others she makes a cameo appearance or is only briefly referenced, which makes the novel almost as much about place and community as it is about Olive.

My next link is is to a novel that is also named for its protagonist, and that happens to be about some very messy lives too, Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain (my review), although the focus is a dysfunctional family rather than a wide community.

All the books I’ve named to date have been award-winners – de Kretser won the Stella, Strout the Pulitzer and Stuart the Booker. So, perhaps my next link should also be to a prize-winner, but of a different prize again. How about Japan’s best known prize, the Akutagawa Prize? The winner I am choosing is also named for its protagonist, but not by her name. I’m talking Sayaka Murata’s Convenience store woman (my review). It explores a sort of dysfunction but one that stems from society’s expectations of what is “normal” behaviour.

So, let’s look at normality. In my post on Damon Galgut’s The promise, I referenced its epigraph in which Fellini reports being asked, “‘Why is it that in your movies, there is not even one normal person?’”, and I suggest that this challenges us to consider what is normal. I believe Galgut, with his motley cast of characters wants readers to understand “normality” as a broad church. But, of course, the novel, set in post-Apartheid South Africa, is about much more than that. (Oh and The promise is a Booker Prizewinner.)

So now I’m going to leave award-winners but stay in post-Apartheid South Africa with Karen Jennings’ novel Crooked seeds (my review). It is about a challenging, self-pitying white character who can’t see beyond her own miseries, but who also seems to represent white, privileged South Africans who see themselves as victims in the post-Apartheid world. I described the novel as “a personal story with a political heart”. Crooked seeds is not an awardwinner, but it was longlisted for The Women’s Prize.

And now, to conclude, I’m going to remain in post-apartheid South Africa, but with a book written by an Australian, Irma Gold’s Shift (my review). I could also call this “a personal story with a political heart”. However, here, while our protagonist is a white Australian male, the setting is in the black South African community of Kliptown in Soweto. Shift explores how this community is surviving, or not, in a political environment in which the post-Apartheid promises of freedom have not eventuated – at least not yet. Will they ever? Shift has not won any awards, but was only published this year. I hope to see it on next year’s award lists.

So, all of this month’s books have contemporary (or near future) settings, but around the world – Australia, Scotland, Japan and South Africa. Four of the authors are women. I’m not sure I can link back to the opening book except that both authors are Australian writers, and both do explore in some way the relationship between art and life.

Have you read Theory & practice and, regardless, what would you link to?

Well, this Six Degrees I am in the wilds of north Queensland, somewhere in Cape York. I scheduled this two weeks ago, as I was expecting reception to be poor. I hope to visit your chains, but if I don’t for a few days, you will know why! Now, let’s just get going … but first, if you don’t know how the #SixDegrees meme works, please check Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. This month again, it’s a book I haven’t read, Miranda July’s latest novel, All fours, which has been listed for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. It tells of a semifamous artist who plans to drive cross-country, from LA to New York, but who twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, exits the freeway, checks into a nondescript motel, and starts a new life.

My first thought was to link to Anne Tyler’s Ladder of years about a married woman who ups and leaves, on a whim, and starts a new life. But I’ve not reviewed it on my blog, so think again! How about another novel about a woman who goes on a life-changing journey, Glenda Guest’s, A week in the life of Cassandra Aberline (my review). Cassandra has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and she needs to return to her past home to resolve some unrevealed issue.

My next link is draws on the journey theme – that also has a health-related aspect – Raynor Winn’s memoir, The salt path (my review), which sees a newly homeless couple, one with a newly diagnosed degenerative disease taking on England’s South West Coast Path. It’s not only an inspiring story, but it contains some gorgeous nature writing.

Another memoir that draws on nature in a way that brings spiritual renewal to the memoirist, is Helen McDonald’s H is for hawk (my review). Both Raynor and Moth Winn, and Helen Macdonald suffer sudden loss – for Raynor and Moth it’s their home and Moth’s health, while for Helen it’s her beloved father.

This is an obvious link, but I’m sticking with grief memoir for my fourth link. We are, however, returning to Australia, and the grief is for a daughter who died of a known disease, not a father who died suddenly. The book is Marion Halligan’s Words for Lucy (my review).

And now, I hope this is not cold-hearted, but we are moving from a memoir about a daughter’s death, to a novel which starts with a family gathering for the wedding of a daughter, Myfanwy Jones’ Cool water (my review). I am pleased to include this book in my chain because it is set in Far North Queensland, though somewhat south of where I am right now.

My final link is a nice, easy one – the last name of the author. The book is Gail Jones’ Salonika burning (my review) which is an historical novel set in World War 1 and was inspired by the lives of four real people, including Miles Franklin. Perhaps I could argue that it takes us back to Kate’s starting book because some of these characters set off from home with one plan and ended up doing something quite different.

Oh dear, none of this month’s books are by men, but two are by non-Australian writers, albeit both of those are English. Not much DEI (though that’s not the term we use in Australia, I have to say) here this month I’m afraid. I must rectify that for next month.

Have you read All fours and, regardless, what would you link to?

Well, unusually, this Six Degrees crept up on me! So, it will be a quick one as it’s election day here in Australia, and I have things to do, places to be, and events to watch. Now, let’s just get going … but first, if you don’t know how the #SixDegrees meme works, please check Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. This month again, it’s a book I would like to read, Emily Maguire’s latest novel, Rapture, a work of historical fiction inspired by the Pope Joan myth. I have attended conversations about this book (here and here), and I have given it away as a gift, but I’ve not yet read it.

There are so many ways in which I could link this book, but I’m going to take the easy route and link it to the book it was featured with in the second conversation I attended, Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard devotional (my review). The session was titled “get thee to a nunnery”, and referenced the fact that both books are set in religious communities.

My next link is another sort of setting, a geographical place. Both Charlotte Wood’s novel, and the one I am linking to, Nigel Featherstone’s My heart is a little wild thing (my review) are set on the Monaro just south of where I live – a dry and rocky but also golden with vast skies. It’s also about a protagonist who needs to get away to resolve some inner turmoil.

My next is a strange link, but I’m going to do it! A novel that deals a lot with inner turmoil is Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park though I don’t focus heavily on that in my post (my third volume post). However, Fanny Price spends much of her time observing and thinking about the values and behaviours going on around her. Her turmoil is not so much a modern questioning of herself, as of finding a way to be in a world where she is an outsider and of coping with a love that she thinks may never be returned.

Hmm, I’ve just realised that while my main link was interior, Mansfield Park is also a place – an estate in fact. My next link is to another place which is an estate, Steven Conte’s The Tolstoy Estate (my review), which is set in late 1941, and tells of a German army medical unit which established and ran a hospital in Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy’s estate, near Tula, south of Moscow. 

When you are on a good thing stick to it, so my next link is also on place, Moscow, and that most enjoyable (though controversial in my reading group) novel, Amor Towles’ A gentleman in Moscow (my review). It is a warm-hearted novel set in a grand hotel, the Metropole, and tells of an aristocrat who is confined there for decades by the reigning communist revolutionaries. How does he survive?

I could link to Dominic Smith’s The electric hotel, but I’ve done that segue before, so where to next? I think we’ll stay in Moscow, and go to Eva Hornung’s Dog boy (my review) about a 4-year-old feral (or wild) child who, having been left alone in a Moscow apartment for days, sets out on his own and is adopted by a dog, Mamochka. The novel tells of his life with the dogs and what happens when, four years later, he is found by two scientists/doctors working in a children’s rehabilitation centre. In a way, there’s a second link with Towles’ novel because our young boy, like Towles’ gentleman, lives a confined life for much of the book.

And you know, there could be a link back to Rapture, because there we have a woman living as a man, while in Hornung we have a boy living, essentially, as a dog. Do you buy that link? Anyhow, three of my six books are by men; and four are by Australian writers. I have focused heavily on place in my links, but many of the books are also about protagonists living in extremis in one way or another.

And, have you read Rapture and, regardless, what would you link to?

And so the year rolls on. It’s the first Saturday in April, so here I am again with another Six Degrees. It’s autumn here and we are starting to feel the change in the air. Time to get out my cool weather wardrobe again, more’s the pity! Now, I’ll get onto it … but first, if you don’t know how the #SixDegrees meme works, please check Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. This month, it’s a book I would like to read, Salman Rushdie’s memoir, Knife, in which he shares his experience of a traumatic knife attack, some thirty years after that fatwa that was ordered against him. It’s “a reminder”, says GoodReads, “of literature’s capacity to make sense of the unthinkable, an intimate and life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art—and finding the strength to stand up again”.

I have reviewed a Rushdie novel here, but instead of linking there, I’m choosing a poetry collection in which the poet shares her experience of a traumatic event, and of recovering from it. The poet is Susan Varga, and her traumatic event was a stroke. Her collection is titled Rupture (my review). I could also have linked on the fact that both books have stark, dramatic single word titles.

Susan Varga writes of a poet’s devastation of losing “sounds, words, sentences”. However, as I wrote in my post, it is not a bitter book, which reminded me a little of Dorothy Porter’s poetry collection, The bee hut (my review). It was the last book she wrote before she died of breast cancer at 54, and the final poem, written just two and a half weeks before she died, expresses gratitude for her “luck”.

Porter was a poet, and for her bees were a metaphor, said her partner, for “danger amid the sweetness and beauty”. I’m linking, however, to a book by someone who was fascinated by real bees, Bill McKibben’s memoir Oil and honey (my review). This book is subtitled “the education of an unlikely activist”, and is about his two main passions, one being bees, honey and good farming practice, and the other being oil, or the fossil fuel industry, and how to stop its impact on the climate. The book is both a memoir, and a manifesto about McKibben’s coming out as an environmental activist.

So, I am linking next to a novel about an eco-warrior/environmental activist, Donna M. Cameron’s The rewilding (my review). It’s a thriller by genre, but as I wrote in my review it’s about values, about the lines you draw, about the life you choose to live, and about what that means personally and politically.

Eco-warrior Nia is one of the protagonists of Cameron’s novel, but it opens with a young man, Jagger, sitting in his office deciding to do something that will lose him his flashy fiancée Lola. Just before I read Cameron, I read Willa Cather’s short story “The bookkeeper’s wife” (my review). It commences with a young man, Percy Bixby, sitting in his office deciding to do something in order to keep his flashy fiancée Stella, so it’s to Willa Cather than I am linking next.

Finally, to close this chain, I’m following two young men pondering problems in their offices to a novel with office in its title, Jane Rawson’s A wrong turn at the Office of Unmade Lists (my review). This novel is partly a time-travel book, and the office appears in the GAP between two worlds. But what makes this book an extra good link for today’s chain is that it’s also a climate change book, which links it back nicely to McKibben’s and Cameron’s books. I’m not sure, however, that I can link it back to Knife.

So, four of my six books are by Australian writers; three are about climate change and activism; and two are by poets. Oh, and four of my six are by women, which is the case in my chains more often than not.

And, have you read Knife and, regardless, what would you link to?

It’s the first Saturday in March so here we are again at Six Degrees time. My favourite season of autumn – except that it leads to winter – has officially started. It’s sunny, warm and the leaves are just starting to turn. I hope the weather is lovely wherever you are. Now, I’ll get onto it … but first, if you don’t know how the #SixDegrees meme works, please check Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. This month, it’s a book I wish I’d read – as it’s by an Irish writer and won the 2023 Booker Prize, Paul Lynch’s Prophet song – but of course I haven’t. GoodReads starts its description with, “A fearless portrait of a society on the brink as a mother faces a terrible choice”. On the Booker Prize website, there’s a reading guide for the book, which includes this question:

‘You need to relax, the GNSB are not the Stasi, they are just applying a little pressure, that is all,’ Larry tells Eilish at an early point in the story (page 28). Where does the irony lie in this statement with references to the Stasi, the secret police force of East Germany? And to what extent do you think the characters cling to the belief that a country as civilised as theirs could never descend into such a terrifying situation?

Well! Having considered a number of ways to go, I decided that here was the link for me, the Stasi! So, I am linking to Anna Funder’s nonfiction book, Stasiland (my review), for which she interviewed several Stasi men, as well as other East Germans who suffered at Stasi hands. It’s an unforgettable book.

And, it won the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2004, now the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, which, according to the website, “rewards excellence in non-fiction writing, bringing the best in intelligent reflection on the world to new readers”. Twenty years after Funder, in 2024, the winner was Richard Flanagan’s Question 7 (my review), which I described in my post as “a humane book, a book about who we are and how we are, about what we do to each other and why”

But, subject matter is not my link. Instead, I’m linking from Flanagan’s book about a question to a book whose title is a question, Hartmann Wallis’ Who said what, exactly (my review), though I admit there’s no question mark on the cover. Hartmann Wallis is one of the pseudonyms used by painter, printmaker and writer, Robin Wallace-Crabbe. Wikipedia says he uses this pseudonym to muse on subjects like “art, love/lust, loneliness and animals; usually with a tone of disdain regarding cruelty toward animals and our fellow man”. This is worthy of a link, but so is the fact that his book was illustrated by Phil Day. I have reviewed a few books where Day’s hand has been, including his own, A chink in the daisy chain.

However, I was surprised and delighted to notice that Phil Day is acknowledged as the artist of the beautiful rabbit on the cover of Melanie Cheng’s The burrow (my review). I assume it’s the same Phil Day – I’ve not been able to confirm it – and am making him, and The burrow, my link.

Now, I must move away from Australian authors as I shouldn’t be completely parochial, as good as our authors are! So, my next link is to another book in which a mother grieves for a child, albeit the child is 11, not a baby as in The burrow. The book is Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet (my review).

And finally, ok, I’m sorry, but I’m going to do it, I am returning to my first author, Anna Funder and her book Wifedom (my review), which does in non-fiction, what O’Farrell does in fiction, which is to bring into the light, the forgotten wife of a famous, much-lauded writer, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, wife of George Orwell.

So, five of my six books are by Australian writers, but their subject matter and settings roam widely and across some big questions. Four of my six books are by women. I guess there is a loose link back from last book to Prophet song, in that Lynch’s book is dystopian as are some of Orwell’s works.

And, have you read Prophet song and, regardless, what would you link to?