Six Degrees of Separation or Around the World in Six Books

This month's 6 Degrees of Separation begins with Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang. Which is odd because I was sure this month was the month for Pride and Prejudice. I'd even done some pre-planning. It turns out that I completely missed August. I have no idea why or what happened or where I was on the first Saturday. 

You might already know that Annabel Smith and Emma Chapman began the 6 Degrees of Separation meme in 2014 and now it is managed (is that the right word?) by Kate at Books are my favourite and best. The idea is that Kate nominates a book and, on the first Saturday of the month, participants reveal chains of six books that all connect in some way. If you are curious to see where other people's reading leads them, Kate's blog is a good place to begin. But I owe my introduction to Whispering Gums, another very good place to start.

So Wild Swans it is.

First published in 1991, Wild Swans provides the biographies of Chang's mother and grandmother, followed by her own autobiography. I've never read it but there is a copy on the bookshelf behind the front door waiting to be read ... one day. I thought of travelling down the Chinese history route but I've decided to go with another book about three generations of women.

Georgia Blain's The Museum of Words is my first choice - I finished reading it last night. It's Blain's last book, a wonderful, thoughtful, heartbreaking reflection on life, illness, aging, growing, reading, writing, teaching, learning. Written as she knew she was dying of brain cancer, it is also the story of her mother, Anne Deveson, who has been brought to her knees by Alzheimers; Georgia's friend and mentor, the writer Rosie Scott, who is diagnosed with brain cancer shortly before Georgia; and Georgia's daughter, Odessa. If that sounds bleak, it's not. It's a beautiful celebration of living and remembering and mothering. 

On my to-be-read pile is another book about parents and children, Richard Ford's Between Them: Remembering My Parents. I think, though, I may need to leave a little space between Richard and Georgia. 

Let's skip quickly on, then, another author reflecting on family history. Ann Patchett's This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. This collection of essays is the place to go to if you want Ann's writing guidance (beginning with "sit down at your desk everyday"), are curious to learn how she became a bookseller, or what it's like to go on a book tour.

Ann makes a cameo appearance in Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic, a generous, comforting, inspiring book about creativity and how to make it part of your life. I recommend it to everyone who is feeling stuck in the day-to-day of life. 

I had the opportunity to recommend Big Magic to Maggie Alderson (fan girl moment) who was recently at the Canberra Writers Festival. This is all the link I need to recommend The Scent of You. It's the story of a troubled marriage but also of a gorgeous family. Along the way, you'll learn a lot about the history of perfume, which is more fascinating than I would have guessed. One to read when you need some joy in your life.

The combination of perfume and history reminds me of Paris: The Secret History by Andrew Hussey. This is the best book on the history of one of my favourite cities I've ever read (well, it may be the only history of Paris I've read). And with that we've travelled from China through Australia and the US to England and France. Around the world in six books.

Until next month - assuming I remember - when it's a book I read perhaps 25  years ago: Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel.

 

 

Six Degrees of Separation - From Picnic at Hanging Rock to The Hate Race

The edition in my TBR pile

This month's 6 Degrees of Separation begins with Picnic at Hanging Rock, which celebrates 50 years of publication this year. I suspect it has been continuously in print since it was 'launched' by Sir Robert Menzies in Melbourne in October 1967. It's been years since I read it but it's on my reading calendar this year (I know, the reading calendar is struggling because I'm tempted by other books).

Annabel Smith and Emma Chapman began the 6 Degrees of Separation meme in 2014 and now it is managed (is that the right word?) by Kate at Books are my favourite and best. The idea is that Kate nominates a book and, on the first Saturday of the month, participants reveal chains of six books that all connect in some way. 

Back to Picnic at Hanging Rock - as Whispering Gums says, there are just so many ways you could go. Lost girls, girls named Miranda, rural Victoria, Australian Gothic. I'm choosing to follow the author, Joan Lindsay. Joan was married to Daryl who, as well as running the National Gallery of Victoria for many years, was the brother of Norman.

Norman Lindsay leads me to The Magic Pudding. I managed to avoid The Magic Pudding when I was a child but I did read it to my boy when he was little. It turned out to do a good job of putting us both to sleep. But who can understand Australian politics without understanding the frequent references to 'magic puddings'?

Magic leads me to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling. Well, where else could I go since Harry has just turned 20. I nearly missed the whole Harry Potter thing - being 30 when the first book appeared. But Harry has been a big part of my shared reading and viewing life with my boy so I won't hear any words against him.

I've enjoyed reading JK Rowling post-Harry, especially her Cormoran Strike series which she publishes under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith. So my next choice is the first Strike novel, The Cuckoo's Calling. If you enjoy Rebus - and love London - I recommend it.

So I could run with pseudonyms (curiously, Joan Lindsay published her first novel under a pseudonym) or London but I'm going to continue with the crime theme, this time set in Paris. This week (at 4am in the morning) I finished reading Cara Black's new novel in her Aimee Leduc series, Murder in Saint-Germain. Black's heroine is a private investigator, with a penchant for second-hand designer clothes, a dog named Miles Davis, and a pink Vespa. Each mystery is set in a different part of Paris. They are also very political.

Politics - and crime too - leads me to another recent read: Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railway. The story of Cora's journey from slavery to freedom is a confronting read. There were times when I really wanted to look away but Cora's journey across America is compelling and Whitehead's imaginative telling helped me to understand why race continues to be so contentious in the United States.

The Hate Race by Maxine Beneba Clarke is the last book on the list today. It's about growing up black, but non-Indigenous, in Australia in the 1980s. It's about the way racism is embedded in our communities, in our schools, the way we don't often see it or the damage that it does. If you haven't read it, do. It made me think deeply about the ways in which my own behaviour is racist - as Oscar Hammerstein wrote, 'you have to be carefully taught'.

From an elite Australian girls school to the western suburbs of Sydney, from an elite Australian artistic family to the cotton fields of the American south, we've been on quite a journey, with a little magic thrown in for good measure.

Next month: Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.