Six Degrees of Separation: All Fours to War and Peace

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's starting point is All Fours by Miranda July which is nominated for 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Nominated or not, it's a book that I am really not interested in reading based on the things I have heard about it!

My first link is based on the number 4 and takes me to The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde. This is the second book in the Nursery Crimes series, which I seem to have enjoyed a lot when I read it 19 years ago (my review)

My next choice used the word bear as the link and is The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden. This is a book that I started on audio years ago and have never quite finished. One day.

This time, I am using the nightingale as connected to The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. This is a book that I also listened to on audio but the difference is that I did finish it! 

Next, I am using the word nightingale as my connection to The Rose of Sebastopol by Katherine McMahon. How does that work you might wonder? Well, this book tells the story of a young woman who went to the Crimea to work alongside Florence Nightingale. (my review)

This week I have been reading The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn, which is partially set in and around Sebastopol during WWII.

And next, we make a leap to War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. The connection on this one is probably a bit obscure but I chose it because one of the characters in The Diamond Eye carries a copy of War and Peace around with him on the battlefield. This also acted as a reminder that I am a bit behind on my chapter a day readalong!

I am pretty sure that there is no way that I can link All Fours to War and Peace to come full circle! Another time!

Next month, the starting point is 2025 Stella Prize winner, Michelle de Kretser’s , Theory & Practice.

Will you be joining us?

Top Ten Tuesday: Book Covers That Feel Like Winter

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the topic is Book Covers That Feel Like Summer (Submitted by Ellie @ Curiosity Killed the Bookworm). Now we are right in the middle of winter so I thought I would choose wintery books instead.

However, I only recently did a Six Degrees of Separation with all winter titles so I am going to try to not use any of those books this time.

As I composed my list I did have a sudden realisation that most of my winter covers are very snowy, and yet that is not what winter looks like for us at all! There is snow a couple of hours away from us but it is very unusual for us to actually get snow at my house!

So, here are my winter, but not my winter, books.

The Christmas Party and Midnight in the Snow by Karen Swan - Karen Swan has been publishing one summer book and one winter book so I could possibly have just done a heap of her books but lets do some other authors as well.

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden - Russian fairy tales are intrinsically wintery to me!

The Tolstoy Estate by Steven Conte - Another Russian setting, this time during winter in WWII. Such a great book!

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent - Moving away from Russia, this book is set in Iceland. My memories of this book are that it is very wintery and bleak.

In Falling Snow by Mary-Rose MacColl - I loved this book when I read it a number of years ago.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik - Another fairy tale retelling, this time Polish. This book is so wintery!

Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole - This cover is possibly closer to what our winter looks like...maybe.

The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys - Pretty sure the main river in Melbourne has never frozen so much that you could host ice fairs on it!

Caressed by Ice by Nalini Singh - This is a bit of a genre departure for me these days but back in the day I used to read quite a bit of paranormal romance.

So there are my wintery books, without using a single one with the word winter in the title!

This Week I...

I'm reading

I finished reading Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe by Heather Webb this week and I thoroughly enjoyed it! It reminded me a lot of Sarah Addison Allen's books with a really easy reading style, a touch of magical realism, delicious food and so much more. I have another book from this author on my Kindle which I will be reading soon, and I have plans for a Weekend Cooking post about this one. 

I then started reading Battle Royale by New Zealand author Lucy Parker as several people I know have been waiting impatiently for this book. I clearly haven't been paying attention as this is my first Lucy Parker book but I already know it will not be my last. I am enjoying it a lot. The premise is that two rival bakers can't stand each other, but then they become judges on a Great British Bake Off style TV baking show. If I had more Weekend Cooking slots this would also make a good post too.

Finally, I went for a walk this week, and so it seemed like a good chance to start a new audio book. I have been meaning to read Katherine Arden's The Bear and the Nightingale for the longest time. I am not sure how much listening time I will have so this could be a mistake, but we'll see right.

I'm Watching...

We continue to watch Attack on Titan with my son, but other than that we also finally watched the first season of Ted Lasso. What a great show! We thoroughly enjoyed it, and I can't wait to watch the second series.

Life

We did have a first meeting of a brand new bookclub on the weekend. The plan originally would have been to meet in person but given that are still in strict lockdown that wasn't possible so it had to be on Zoom. My friend and I have been talking about starting a book group for the longest time but we couldn't convince many of our real life friends so other than the fact that we know each other, everyone else is going to be a stranger.  I know someone who is a member of a read-on-a-theme bookclub and I really like the sound of it. I was therefore pleased when the other members who attended agreed that they are happy with this. Our first theme is Spring, and I already have several ideas for books that might fit that theme.

I was excited to see that Readers Imbibing Peril (RIP) is back this year. This is the 16th year it has been on which is quite amazing when you think about it. Once again this year the focus is on social media rather than blogging, but there will be some fun events

What is RIP? It's a chance to dip into anything that might be Mystery, Suspense,Thriller, Dark Fantasy, Gothic, Horror or Supernatural and is time to fit in with Fall in the Northern hemisphere and ends at Halloween. This year, in addition to activity on Instagram, Twitter etc, there is also a Discord group and there is going to be a group read of The Sundial by Shirley Jackson, who I have never read. It should be fine. Check out more details on Instagram 

Posts from last week

Music A-Z: M

Weekend Cooking: Joint review: Nadiya Bakes by Nadiya Hussain

I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date