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? 

It is the first Saturday of the month again, which means it’s Six Degrees of Separation meme time. For those of you who don’t know what that is, please check our host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest. It all starts with Kate setting a starting book.

This month’s is a classic – the sort of book in fact which defines classic given its timelessness as a much loved book. It is, of course, given the post title, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s adventures in Wonderland. And of course I have read it, though so so long ago that I really don’t recollect the actual time I read it because it’s one of those books that enters one’s consciousness isn’t it?

For my first link, I’m going to do something that might shock those of you who know the book, because I’m linking to Charlotte Wood’s dystopian novel, The natural way of things (my review). There is a clear link, though, and it is this – in both novels, a woman (in the first case) or women (in the second) suddenly find themselves in incomprehensible worlds. Unfortunately, though, in Wood’s novel, they end up eating rabbits! Hmm …

Now, not everyone approves of eating rabbits (or any animals for that matter). For Wood’s characters it was a matter of them or the rabbits, and they chose themselves. However, to be balanced about this, because, you know, we are supposed to be balanced here in Australia, my next link is to David Brooks’ animal rights reflection-cum-memoir, The grass library (my review).

The main animals in Brooks’ book are rescue sheep – two at first, then another, and finally a fourth. Sheep that desperately needed rescuing, because they are being mysteriously attacked, appear in Evie Wyld’s Miles Franklin award winning book, All the birds, singing (my review).

Birds of all sorts feature in All the birds, singing, as they also do in Carrie Tiffany’s Stella prize winning novel, Mateship with birds (my review). The main birds she features are a family of kookaburras, but there are also owls, magpies, wrens, and more.

For Indigenous Australians, birds have many meanings and values, one of which is as messengers. We were introduced to this, practically, during our Arnhem Land trip last year, but birds-as-messengers feature in Tony Birch’s latest novel, The white girl (my review). “A morning doesn’t pass without one of them speaking to me”, says Odette. I love this.

And now, because all my links to this point have involved animals, I am going to stick with animals. However, for this last link, I’m going for a double shot and am linking on indigenous author too. The book is I saw we saw written and illustrated by the Yolngu students of Nhulunbuy Primary School (my review). The book features many animals that are part of these children’s lives – including birds, like eagles, chickens, seagulls and kingfishers, but other animals too, like whales, dogs and crocodiles.

So, for this month’s meme I’ve done two things I’ve not done before (as far as I remember anyhow): every link involves animals in some way, and we haven’t left Australia. It’s not the way I intended it to be when I started, but that’s the fun of this meme. You never know where you might take yourself!

Finally, before we leave the birds, let me put in a plug for the Australian Bird of the Year poll being run by The Guardian (and sent to me by M-R of MRSMRS blog.) If you love birds and want to take part in the fun, give it a go. The first round closes on 8 November. Regardless of whether you vote, do check out the poll for the often entertaining bird descriptions, such as this for the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo:

Gregarious, brash and not averse to a little mischief, is there another bird that better embodies the Aussie larrikin spirit? Shame about your timber decking, though.

And now, my usual questions: Have you read Alice’s adventures in Wonderland (or is this a silly question)? And, regardless, what would you link to? 

It is the first Saturday of the month again, which means it’s time to do the Six Degrees of Separation meme. If you are new to blogging and don’t know what that is, please check our host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest

It all starts, of course with Kate setting our starting book, and this month’s is – well, back to usual after a record run – that is, back to a book I’ve not read. Kate described it as a book everyone is taking about, Lisa Taddao’s Three women. I initially commented that maybe everyone is, but I’m not one of them. However, on reading a bit about it at GoodReads, I realise that I have heard the author interviewed. Her name and title just hadn’t clicked.

So, Lisa Taddao’s Three women, for those of you who don’t know, is a non-fiction book in which the author spent nearly ten years researching the sex lives of three American women. It is, says the GoodReads blurb, “the deepest nonfiction portrait of desire ever written.” This year I read an historical fiction work in which a woman’s desire – or, at least society’s attitudes to/assumptions regarding her desire – resulted in her execution. The book is Janet Lee’s The killing of Louisa (my review).

Another historical fiction work inspired by the story of a real Australian woman who was sent to gaol, this time for performing abortions, is Eleanor Limprecht’s Long Bay (my review). We do know that her character did the crime she did time for, but of course, her story was not as straightforward as those who imprisoned her would believe, and many of us would argue that she and her mother-in-law were performing a needed service, not a crime, albeit was also lucrative.

Since we are talking questionable or unjust imprisonments, I’m moving next to a highly questionable and unjust one, that of Australian journalist Peter Greste who was arrested in Egypt in 2013 for “spreading false news, belonging to a terrorist organisation and operating without a permit”. He spent over a year in prison there before his release was effected. While he was in gaol, a letter-writing campaign was organised to keep his spirits up (to which Ma Gums contributed). The book Prison post: Letters of support for Peter Greste contains a selection of those letters.

I think that’s enough of prisons for a while – though in my next book one of the characters was, in fact, close to being sent to military prison so perhaps this is a double link1 The book is Nigel Featherstone’s Bodies of men (my review). Much of it is set in Egypt during World War 2.

And now, just because I can, I’m going to take the easy path and link on title, so my next book is Hilary Mantel’s Bring up the bodies (my review), the second in her (expected) Cromwell trilogy. It was published in 2012, just three years after the first in the series, Wolf Hall (2009). When, oh when, we have all been asking, is the third one coming? Well, it has finally been announced I believe, and we should see The mirror and the light in 2020.

Another trilogy that was published over almost as long a time-frame is Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead trilogy, which started with Gilead (my review) in 2004, and ended with Lila in 2014. I know, it’s not quite the same sort of trilogy as Mantel’s. In fact some call them a “suite” of novels, and others call them “companion novels”, but there are three of them and they are generally described as a trilogy so, you know, all’s fair in love, war and six degrees.

I think I’ve done it! I’ve taken a book everyone is talking about, and created a chain that is probably a bit odd, but it makes sense to me. It includes a more than usual number of historical fiction novels, so most of our travels have been to past centuries. However, we have again travelled the world from the starting book’s America to Australia to Egypt to England and back to America. I’m not sure what John Ames would think about women’s desire, but he was a thoughtful, humane man and would, I think, wish them well!

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

It is the first Saturday of the month again, which means it’s time to do the Six Degrees of Separation meme. If you are new to blogging and don’t know what that is, please check our host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The main point is, though, that Kate sets our starting book, and this month’s is – hallelujah, again – a book I’ve read and reviewed, Amor Towles’ A gentleman in Moscow.

Now, A gentleman in Moscow is set, almost completely, in Moscow’s famous Hotel Metropol. How many people live in hotels? I sense that it was more common in the past than it is now, but maybe I’m naive? Anyhow, the book I’m reading now (so no review yet) is Dominic Smith’s The electric hotel. My first link, however, is not to this fictional Electric Hotel, as you might have expected, but to the real Knickerbocker Hotel in Los Angeles, in which the main character, the now elderly Claude Ballard, is living at the start of the novel.

Claude Ballard, our gentleman in Los Angeles, is a film director, albeit a fictional one from the silent era, but it just so happens that my last read was the memoir of a contemporary Australian film director, Jocelyn Moorhouse, so it’s to her book, Unconditional love: A memoir of filmmaking and motherhood (my review) that I’m linking next.

Jocelyn Moorhouse’s husband, PJ Hogan, is also a film director, and two of his most famous films are Muriel’s wedding and My best friend’s wedding. A now classic novel, but one I only read recently, starts with a wedding, Mary McCarthy’s The group (my review), so that’s my next link.

The group, as I’ve said, starts with a wedding, but it ends, logically I suppose, with a funeral. A book that starts with a funeral – and this has its own logic – is Carmel Bird’s Family skeleton (my review).

But, enough of weddings and funerals. My next link is on something simple – the author’s name. Later this month I will be heading to Japan (my fourth visit). An early western visitor to Japan was the intrepid Englishwoman Isabella Bird whose 1879 travel book, Unbeaten tracks in Japan I’ve quoted from (although I haven’t yet finished it.)

I like reading Japanese literature, though I haven’t read a lot since blogging. However, I did recently read a contemporary novel, Sayaka Murata’s Convenience store woman (my review), which explores some of the challenges faced by people who dare to be – or, simply are – different, in modern Japan.

Hmm, this chain is more hodge-podge that mine usually are. For a start, it includes two books I have started but not yet finished. Also, we have traversed the world far more energetically than we often do, starting in Moscow, then going to Los Angeles, and then Australia. We then popped back to the USA, this time the east coast, before returning to Australia, and then ending up in Japan. Oh, and we started in a grand hotel and ended in a convenience store. I’ll leave you to ponder what that means!

And now, my usual questions: Have you read A gentleman in Moscow? And, regardless, what would you link to? 

Here it is, the first Saturday of the month again, which means of course, Six Degrees of Separation, that meme which, as you are sure to know, is hosted by Kate. The rules are on her blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

And the first rule, of course, is that Kate sets our starting book. Well, how funny this month’s is for me, because Kate chose to surprise us with a wild card, the wild card being that we all start with the last linked book from our last Six Degrees post. Besides this meaning that I’ve not read two staring books this year, it’s a perfect choice for me because my last book was Catherine McKinnon’s Storyland. It could conceivably link to every novel written. Im spoiled for choice. However, I’m tempted to “write” another story as I did last time … hmm, more than tempted in fact, so I will.

Once upon a time in Storyland,

there was a Fish-hair woman

who decided enough was enough, and that it was time to visit The Dyehouse.

But there, a lurking Snake made her forget all about her hair.

What Beasts, she cried!

And so, with nary a beat, our fish-hair woman, that Fish girl,

Fled back to Ghost River, where she remains to this day.

(Links on titles are to my posts – and you will note that at least this time I didn’t cheat, but did the proper number!)

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I promise I won’t do this again – at least not in the near future. Indeed, I wouldn’t have done it this month if the starting book had been something different, but Storyland was just too delicious to pass up doing this way. Forgive me?

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

Well, I’ve found the solution to breaking my record of not having read one Six Degrees starting book this year: suggest a book to Kate and hope she likes it! I did, and she did, and so it is that I have read this month’s starting book, Maurice Sendak’s picture book classic, Where the wild things are. I figured it might help a few other people too who have found themselves embarrassed, month after month, like me. Haha!

I plan to have a little fun with this one, but first the formalities. The Six Degrees of Separation meme is currently run by Kate, and you can read all the rules on her blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

So, here goes (on the assumption that you all know the story):

Where is Max?

Well, he went

Into the woods

of the Midnight empire,

where he went Troppo with all his wild friends.

They danced around the Cold sassy tree,

and created a rumpus throwing Big rough stones.

But, in truth, in a Nutshell shall we say,

Where they really were all the time was –

Storyland.

(Links on titles are to my posts.)

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(Those of you who can count will have noticed that I’ve cheated. There are 7 books in my chain. But, I couldn’t bear to leave any out, so I gave myself recommender’s licence and kept them all. Anyone care to take me on?!)

If not, let’s move on to my usual questions. Have you read Where the wild things are? And, regardless, what would you link to? 

And still it continues, and by this I mean my unbroken record this year of not having read the Six Degrees of Separation meme starting book. Who is to blame for this parlous state of affairs? Not me, of course – haha – but our meme leader Kate! I forgive her, though, and direct you to her blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest – for the meme’s rules. Fortunately, you can trust that I’ve read my selections in the chain.

So, this month’s starting book is Will Eaves’ Murmur. Not only have I not read it, but I had never heard of it. It is apparently inspired by the life of the mathematician Alan Turing, who among other things was instrumentally involved in Britain’s cypher-breaking work at Bletchley Park during World War 2.

It’s a bit of a stretch, perhaps, but from here I’m going to link to Lesley Lebkowicz’s historical fiction verse novel, The Petrov poems (my review). It tells the story of the Petrovs, who were Russian spies operating in Canberra during the earlier years of the Cold War. Early in his career, Vladimir Petrov was a cypher clerk!

My next link moves to form, not content. It’s Ali Cobby Eckermann’s verse novel, Ruby Moonlight (my review), which is, in fact, another historical fiction work, though not based on “real people. It’s about an Aboriginal teenage girl, Ruby Moonlight, whose family is massacred by white settlers, and who, in her lonely wanderings, meets another lonely person, Miner Jack.

Ruby Moonlight’s subtitle is “a novel of the impact of colonisation in mid-north South Australia around 1880”. Another novel about the impact of colonisation, but this one set in Africa, is the modern classic, Chinua Achebe’s Things fall apart (my review). It’s rather different from Eckermann’s book, but it also offers a thoughtful rather than simplistic exploration of how colonialism can play out.

Chinua Achebe is Nigerian – though he wrote in English. Another Nigerian writer I’ve reviewed here, and who also writes in English, is Sefi Atta with her novel A bit of difference (my review). It is set in England, though, and its subject matter is very different. Its protagonist is an accountant at an international charitable foundation. Her job is to audit the organisations that receive its grants.

Grants provide the link to my next novel, Toni Jordan’s chick lit novel, Fall girl (my review). It’s about a young woman con artist trying to extract grant money from a young man representing his wealthy family’s trust. (Though, as is the way of cons, all is not as it seems.)

Now, if you are a reader who keeps an eye on the publishing environment, you’ve probably seen the discussions in recent years about book covers featuring women’s backs or headless women (of which Fall girl, in fact, has both). I’ve reviewed a couple of other novels featuring the backs of women, but I also have one featuring a man’s back, so rather than perpetuate anonymous women, I’m choosing the man! Hence, I give you Amor Towles’ A gentleman in Moscow (my review)!

I had fun with this challenge, partly because it took me a little more time than usual to get it going. However, I love that we’ve been to England, Australia, Nigeria and Russia. Four of my six writers are women – not unusual for my chain – and three are writers of colour, which pleases me.

Have you read Murmur? Would you recommend it, and, regardless, what would you link to?