Six Degrees of Separation: I Want Everything to Dear Mrs Bird

 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 and A Good Book and a Cup of Tea hosted at Boondock Ramblings.

This month the starting point in Dominic Amerena’s novel about authors and publishing, I Want Everything. I must confess I found this book a bit difficult to find links from, which isn't normal for me. I tried a couple of different option but couldn't make them work through to the end. This was my third attempt. 

I love reading books set in places that I know. For example, I Want Everything is set in Melbourne and so I am choosing the last book I read set in Melbourne which is The Butterfly Women by Madeleine Cleary (my review). This book tells the story of women living in goldrush Melbourne and working in a fancy brothel.

Another book with a goldrush connection which I read years ago was Mr Chen's Emporium by Deborah O'Brien. (my review) 

There aren't that many books with the word emporium in the title. I have read a number of books by Jojo Moyes but haven't yet read The Peacock Emporium, despite having owned it for years.

I have read and loved The Peacock Summer by Hannah Richell

It feels as though I end up with bird related books pretty regularly so was looking through my list of books read for one that I haven't used before too many times which lead me to Liar Bird by Lisa Walker

And sticking to the bird theme I am finishing the chain with Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce, which is a book I currently have out of the library.

Using that library link I could now go in multiple directions but that's it for this month!

Next month, the starting point is We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson


Will you be joining us?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books where a house is a character

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Books that Include/Feature [insert your favorite theme or plot device here] (for example: unreliable narrators, coming of age, darkness vs. light, time travel, metafiction, a specific romantic trope, good vs. evil. cliffhangers, flashbacks, plot twists, red herrings, loose ends, stories within stories, meet cutes, symbolism, etc.) (submitted by Alice @ The Wallflower Digest)

I have chosen to do books where a house is almost one of the characters

Recently I read Happily Ever After where a woman goes to work in Templewood House and steps straight into a gothic novel. I had already decided to do this topic ever before I read this book but it seemed like a good opportunity to share a passage. This is the section early on in the book where Andi is being given a tour of the house.

We mounted an enormous staircase, carved in twiddly dark wood, curving like an impressive eyebrow over the hallway and up onto a galleried landing which branched off in various directions. "This is the most haunted part of the house," Hugo said, leading me off to the right along an upstairs corridor. Occasional glances through the huge windows told me that this wing of the house looked out over the gardens.

"I'm sorry?" As I spoke, the sun went behind a cloud and the wonderful roseate light died to leave us staring down a wood-panelled box into a murky dimness which was giving off a distinct smell of damp plaster. 

"Oh yes. Whole place is riddled with ghosts of course, but this is the worst bit." Complacently Hugo set out, touching closed doors and naming as he went. "My room, the Green Room, Scarlet Room..." We rounded the end of the corridor and set out along another, which branched around to the left.

"Hang on, hang on, can we go back to the "ghost" thing please?" I'd stopped moving now, frozen into immobility on the landing. "The house is haunted?"

"Oh yes". Hugo sounded completely blase about the walking corpse potential. "Dreadfully, I'm afraid." Then he smiled. "No need for you to worry, though. Stay in your room after dark, don't go wandering around - it's all perfectly all right."

And then later when Andi asks what kind of ghosts

"And then there's the noises, footsteps and so on, occasional ghastly scream, that sort of thing, all very standard in a house this old. There's a ghost horse in the old stable block, but that's mostly disused now, and we haven't heard him for ages, and sometime something moans in the Morning room. I'll show you that in a bit."

Happily Ever After by Jane Lovering - I had to include this one seeing as I quoted from it above! Every chapter in this book has the name of a famous house from literature which is a fun feature! (my review)

Discovery of Witches series by Deborah Harkness - I am sure that the aunt's house is a bit magical! (my review)

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier - "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." What an opening line!

Inheritance by Nora Roberts - There were a few different books I could have chosen but this it the most recent one I read.

Thornwood House by Anna Romer - This is a gothic story with an Australian setting. (my review)

The House of Light and Shadows by Lauren Westwood - This was a recent read which features a house that is slowly revealing it's secrets (my review)

The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley - Never miss an opportunity to share a Kearsley book in these posts (link to joint review at Historical Tapestry)

The Peacock Summer by Hannah Richell - Another house with secrets to be revealed!

Casa Paradiso by Francesca Scanacapra - This is a bit different in that the book tells the story of Casa Paradiso through a series of stories about the various owners. It covers several hundred years. (my review)

The Girl who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen - I feel like I could have chosen any number of SAA's books, but this one features wallpaper that changes according to your mood and baking! (joint review)

Can you think of any other books where the house is almost a character?

Six Degrees of Separation: The Anniversary to Equal Rites

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 The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop, which was longlisted for the Stella Prize this year.

My starting point is last year's winner of the same prize, Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran

Another book with the word cinnamon in the title is Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown

A book that I read recently about the famous Gunpowder Plot is The Secrets of Crestwell Hall by Alexandra Walsh

I love a good book which features the house as almost a character. Another book where that happened for me was Peacock Summer by Hannah Richell

A book by another Hannah that is the very opposite of summer is Burial Rites by Hannah Kent..

And that title gives me the opportunity to finish with a Terry Pratchett book, Equal Rites.

Next month our starting point is Butter by Asako Yuzuki. I am very excited by this choice. I had requested it from the library but wasn't able to go pick it up! I am not sure that I will get to read it before June but it will be a good reminder to me to request it again.

Will you be joining us?

Six Degrees of Separation: The Good Earth to Burial Rites

 

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 is a little different from normal as we need to start with the book we finished with last month, which for me was The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck.

I had quite a few ideas of places to start this month, but the one I chose to go with was The Lost Pearl by Emily Madden, because of the name Pearl.

The Lost Pearl is partially set in Hawaii, so I have chosen to use Hawaii by James Michener, a book I read many, many years ago as my next choice.

For my next link I chose another James Michener book which is Texas.

When I think of colonial Texas, I think of Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

Using a type of bird as my prompt I am choosing The Peacock Summer by Hannah Richell

And then finally, a book by another Hannah which is Burial Rites by Hannah Kent.

Next month's starting point is Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller. Where will your Six Degrees of Separation take you?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I've Loved But Haven't Reviewed

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's topic is Books I Loved but Never Reviewed.

Once upon a time I used to review everything, and then I had a few years where I didn't  review anything, and now I am reviewing some things. What this  basically means is that this week's topic is easy to find books for. I just have to refer to my handy-dandy spreadsheet and look for 5 star reads and there's my list. I am, however, a bit stingy with 5/5 gradings so this is a mix of 4.5 and 5 star reads

The Flat Share by Beth O'Leary - I read and loved this last year. From memory, I read it while on a plane going....somewhere and it was a perfect plane book!

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman - I listened to this on audio and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Peacock Summer by Hannah Richell - This was another audio book that I thoroughly enjoyed. This was also my first Hannah Richell book. I am waiting for this year's book to come into the library so I can enjoy that, unless I end up listening to it first of course.

In Falling Snow by Mary-Ann McColl - I had forgotten about this book until I saw it's name on the list. This is a WWI novel about a young woman who finds herself working in a hospital in France. It is a dual timeline where Iris is looking back at her life.

The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta - In a way it is a bit of a travesty that I have never reviewed this book. I mean, I have listened to it four times now and rated it as a 5/5 read three of those four times. This is 100% a comfort listen.

Something to Talk About by Rachael Johns - This is the sequel to Talk of the Town, which I also read this year. Rachael Johns is one of the authors who I still read when I wasn't really reading.

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See - I have read many Lisa See books over the years, usually featuring Chinese characters. This time, the book is about the divers of the Korean island and Jeju and it was totally fascinating.

The Gilded Hour by Sara Donati - I have been a fan of Sara Donati's writing for years. This book skips forward a couple of generations from where the Into the Wilderness series finished and features two lady doctors in 1880s New York. I really must read the next book.

The Lost Man by Jane Harper - I have enjoyed all the books by Jane Harper, and I am really looking forward to her new book which is out next month!

The Quarantine Station by Michelle Montebello - This was another enjoyable read. This book is another dual timeline, this time with the historic section being on the quarantine station in Sydney in 1918.

Have you read any of these books?

Six Degrees of Separation: What I Loved to A Guide to the Birds of East Africa

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.

The starting point this month is What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt, a book I don't recall hearing about let alone reading. When I was thinking about what my strategy was going to be in relation to this book, it was almost as though I then thought, "and how exactly can I make this even harder for myself", and a plan was hatched.

My starting point was to think about what Siri Hustvedt's background was, and it turns out that she is an American author, whose family background is Norwegian, so then I thought about what other books I had read either by a Norwegian author or set in Norway, and the first one that came to mind was The Storm Sister by Lucinda Riley, which is the second book in the Seven Sisters series. A lot of the action in this book took place in Norway so this was my first step.

Where I complicated it for myself was then I decided that my links for this month would be based on the books in the Seven Sisters series. I could have done just the books in the series - there's an obvious link - but that would be a bit boring right. So my twist was that my selections will be based on the settings in each of the books from this point on.

The first book in the series is The Seven Series. In the historical part of the novel, we learn the story of how the Christ the Redeemer statue was created. A lot of the book was set in Brazil, but there were significant portions of the book that were set in Paris as the statue was being designed. The only book that I can think of that I have read that was set in Brazil was State of Wonder by Ann Patchett.

The second book in the series is The Storm Sister, which was my link to What I Loved in the first place. This book is set primarily in Norway and looking at the history of Edvart Grieg, the man who composed the music for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt.

The third book in the Seven Sisters series is The Shadow Sister. This time, the historical section of the book focuses on a young woman who is friends with Beatrix Potter. The modern part of the book focuses on an antique book and life in the country. The characters are looking for a hidden family treasure which reminded me of The Peacock Summer by Hannah Richell where an old house hasn't given up it's secrets yet.

The fourth book in the series is The Pearl Sister which has a significant section of it's story set in the far north of Western Australia. I thought I would choose a contemporary novel - The Girl in Steel-Capped Boots by Loretta Hill. This was one of the early rural romances I read, and I think it would easily stand up to a reread. I certainly have good memories of this one.

The fifth book is the one that I am listening to on audio at the moment - The Moon Sister. This time the author is exploring the history around flamenco dancing in Spain. For another historical fiction novel set in Spain I have chosen The Last Queen by C W Gortner about Juana, the sister of Catherine of Aragon, who married into the powerful Hapsburg family.

The latest book in the series, the sixth, is The Sun Sister. I haven't read it yet, but I understand that it is set in Africa, so for my final choice I am revisiting a lovely book that I read many years ago, A Guide to the Birds of East Africa by Nicholas Drayson. This was such a delightful read which I thoroughly enjoyed but I had forgotten all about!

I have taken us on a journey around the world from Norway to Kenya using the books in the Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Riley as the compass.

Next month's starting point is How to Do Nothing by Jenny ODell. Maybe I will keep it a bit simpler next month, but maybe not. We'll see.

Where has your six degrees taken you this month?