Sunday, March 07, 2021

Six Degrees of Separation: Phosphorescence to Hot Six

 Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best.  The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links.  I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.



This month the starting point is a book called Phosphoresence by Julia Baird. Actually it's full title is Phosphorence: On Awe, Wonder and Thing That Sustain You When the World Goes Dark. It does sound interesting, even if it isn't my normal type of book. It was, however, quite a tricky title to start a chain with.




In the end I started thinking about what does the word phosphoresence mean, which lead me to the word glow. I was sure that years ago I had a book by a YA author that was called that but I couldn't find any reference to it anywhere so maybe I was misremembering. Instead I continued to ponder those two words and that lead me to think about things that glow (or at least they are represented that way in cartoons and movies). This is turn led me to the idea of nuclear power which uses uranium which in one form is known as yellowcake which leads me to the book of the same name by Margo Lanagan! Phew! That was quite a lot of thinking to get me to that first link.




Margo Lanagan also wrote a book about selkies, creatures from Scottish myth, called either Sea Hearts or The Brides of Roll Rock Island depending on where it was published. This is a book I have used before in Six Degrees and the book I was thinking of linking too next is the same one I used last time, so I had to take a different turn.




One of my favourite  fairy tale retellers in Kate Forsyth and I have picked her book The Beast's Garden which is a fairytale retelling of Beauty and the Beast, set in Nazi Germany. 




A book that I read last year, set in the immediate aftermath of WWII in Germany was Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook by Celia Rees. Obviously there was plenty of food mentioned in this one!




The book I am currently reading is called A New York Secret by Ella Carey which features a young woman who is vyiing to become a chef in a New York restaurant during WWII, and again features lots of food. My review of this book will be up later this week.




From here I took an unexpected turn!  One of the characters in A New York Secret is called Tom Morelli, and so I couldn't go past the Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich. One of the two main male characters in this series is a cop called Joe Morelli. Now the Stephanie Plum books start with a book called One for the Money and continued through to Twisted Twenty-Six before she stopped using the numbers to name the books.  I stopped reading at Notorious Nineteen. It seems only right to choose Hot Six for this meme.



Next month's starting point is going to be Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart.




19 comments:

  1. I want to read that Cold War Cookbook, and the New York Secret also sounds great (I adore culinary fiction)!

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    1. A good culinary fiction novel is always a pleasure to read.

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  2. Nicely done!

    Have a great reading week

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  3. I always think this is such a fun and serendipitous exercise. I've now added Phosphorescence to my wish list. And look where it took you. Perfect place to stop.

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    1. It is always a lot of fun Deb! And it does take you to interesting places, and sometimes it even surprises yourself. It certainly did for me this month.

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  4. The Forsyth, Rees, and Carey books look right up my alley! Am I the only one who noticed the similarities between the Miss Graham and NY Secret covers? When I worked at Penguin, we had a cover art meeting every Thursday and the editor would conceptualize the cover she or he wanted, the publisher and the sales department would opine, and the art director would get a lot of conflicting advice. Then he would show us what he was working on and we would all criticize like mad. It was rare we said anything nice to the poor guy and I don't recall if we were exceptionally hard to please or if he was weak at his job. I remember being very surprised to learn that the romance covers were not created freeform but needed models. However, you could see patterns like back of heroine with partial face shown, as here.

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    1. This is definitely a cover trend right now!

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  5. I have only read one other by Forsythe and I did like it. Lately I have been writing titles down I want to read instead of overloading the library holds. They always seem to come in all at once. Bummer.

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    1. I need to catch up on my Forsyth reading! I am a couple behind now!

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  6. Hi Marg! Hope you are doing well! So nice to see you on Six Degrees again!

    I've never heard of Margo Langan, but it does sound as if she's a good author.

    I still want to read Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook and I remember looking for it last year after you've mentioned it, but it wasn't available in SA. Hopefully soon!

    Take care of yourself and have a wonderful week ahead!

    Elza Reads

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    1. I'm not sure if Margo Lanagan is even writing anymore. I hope she is because she is a very talented author.

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  7. Yes, Phosphoresence was a difficult starting point this month but I think you've done a good job with your chain. I haven't read that Kate Forsyth book but I loved Bitter Greens.

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    1. Bitter Greens was my first and still my favourite Helen!

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  8. A New York Secret looks so good. I have to check that one out. Hope you have a great week!

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    1. You too Yvonne! Thanks for commenting.

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  9. I am impressed by your connections! I love seeing what people come up with. I am interested in some of those books. So thanks for sharing.

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