Six Degrees of Separation: Sunflowers to Daughter of Fortune

 

 

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 the book that we finished with last month. This means that my starting point is Sunflowers by Sheramy Brundrick. Sunflowers is about the life of Vincent Van Gogh. 

Over the years I have read a number of books about art history, but I think for the purposes of this exercise I am going to choose Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant, which is set during the Renaissance.

I saw Sarah Dunant speak at Melbourne Writers Festival a few years ago. Someone who I saw at MWF last year was Pip Williams, so for my next book I am choosing The Book Binder of Jericho which was one of my 5/5 reads last year.

My first 5/5 read for this year was a book called The Naturalist of Amsterdam by Melissa Hamilton. This is the story of a young woman who works for her mother which is a famous naturalist. Their travels take them as far a field as Suriname.

This book reminded me a bit of A Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert.

And it also reminded me of The Botanist's Daughter by Katye Nunn which I listened to last year but apparently neglected to record it on either of my spreadsheets or Goodreads, so it took me a little while to find the title.

 Part of The Botanist's Daughter was set in Chile, so my final link had to be a book that was also partially set in the same country which is Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende. I could also have linked through the word daughter as well!

The starting point next month is Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. Will you be joining us?

Reading Reflections: June 2020

Here we are...half way through the year already! How did that happen?

June was not a bad reading month for me. A bit of historical fiction, a bit of contemporary fiction, some Australian authors, some not.

Here's what I read:

The Palace of Tears by Julian Leatherdale - 4.5/5

This is the first book I read by Julian Leatherdale, who was an Australian author. The book was inspired by a hotel in the Blue Mountains just outside Sydney. I thoroughly enjoyed this one and am definitely intending to read the other two books that were published before he unfortunately passed away earlier this year.

Normal People by Sally Rooney - 4/5

I had so many thoughts about this book, and then the TV series which I also watched this month, and yet I haven't written any of them down yet. I actually listened to this one on audio which I think helped because I didn't have to notice that the speech marks were missing. A brief summary of my thoughts - what makes this literature instead of young adult fiction?

The Silk House by Katye Nunn - 4/5

This is the first book I have read by Katye Nunn but it won't be the last. I did a joint review of this one with Bree from All the Books I Can Read. You can read our thoughts here.

Aria's Travelling Bookshop by Rebecca Raisin - 3.5/5

Books, food and France. What more can you want?

Henrietta's War by Joyce Dennys 4.5/5

If I had to pick a best book of the month it would be this one. The irony is that this book has been on my bookshelf for more than 10 years, and in the end I only picked it up because I featured it as part of a Top Ten list. This book is a series of letters that were published during WWII and were then put together in a collection. The writer is writing to her childhood friend who is off fighting the war and she shares a series of anecdotes about life in her small village.

The House on Boundary Street by Tea Cooper 3.5/5

Part of the reason I mentioned the hotel when I talked about the Julian Leatherdale's book is because the same hotel is mentioned in this book. I do have a review half written on this book. Just need to finish it. I did enjoy some of the information about Sydney in the 1920s.

The New Beginnings Coffee Club by SamanthaTonge 4.5/5

This was my middle of the night read last week. It was also my first book by this British author. My library doesn't seem to have any more but I will be keeping my out for her books going forward.

I am linking my post up to the Monthly Wrap up which is hosted at Feed Your Fiction Addiction

Joint review: The Silk House by Katye Nunn

Bree from All the Books I Can Read and I have been discussing books and life for a very long time now! Every now and again we happen to read the same book at a similar time and so we take the opportunity to do a discussion post.

My thoughts are in purple and Bree's are in black

M: Katye Nunn is an author I haven’t read before. I meant to because I am sure I would like her books. She writes dual history time lines which is something that we both like a lot, with a touch of darkness. Have you read this author before, and if so, how did this compare to her previous books?

B: I have read 2 of her books before - The Botanist’s Daughter and The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durant, both of which I absolutely love and recommend highly (I’m pretty sure you’d like them both!). So I was very excited to read this, Kayte Nunn has definitely become a must read author for me. And I did really enjoy this, probably almost as much as I did her two others, which were both strong 5-star reads for me.

For me, dual time-lines sometimes result in favouring one over the other, and wanting the story to skip back to that particular timeline. Did you find that here?

M: I have a natural tendency to lean towards the past in any dual time line, and that was definitely the case here. In effect there are two stories in the past in this book. Initially they are separate storylines until they converge together. The first storyline feature a young woman by the name of Rowan Caswell who has moved from her village to come to the home of the silk merchant, Patrick Hollander. She is to be the maid in the house, but it isn’t too long before her talent for healing draws the attention of others living in the house. But this isn’t a time in history that you want to be known for this kind of talent. How did you feel about Rowan’s introduction into the story?


B: I found Rowan’s introduction to the story intriguing. She was a capable, brave young woman, who was somewhat forced into her circumstances due to several factors. Her successful gaining of a position seems relatively beneficial for someone in her place at first - she’s safe, warm, fed and although she works hard, she’s taken care of within the household. However it doesn’t take long to notice that the mood of the house has ebbs and flows and things are not always what they seem, which eventually ties in with the second of the historical narratives. I also really enjoyed the element of healing that was incorporated into the story and the ways in which this was regarded suspiciously at times in the past {mostly by men}.

How did you find the dynamics in the ‘Silk House’ during the time of Rowan’s employment?

M: It was definitely an interesting house. One thing that we haven’t mentioned about Rowan has a distinctive appearance (white blonde hair and a scar on her face which in that time and place already marked her out as different) so from the first moment she entered the house she was distrusted, especially by the other servant girl in the house, Alice. Thank goodness, the cook took a liking to Rowan and because otherwise I can’t imagine that it would have been a very pleasant place to live and work.

The master of the house, Patrick Hollander, was something of a wheeler dealer, someone for whom appearances mattered much more than insignificant things like ethics or morals whether it be in his business or his private life. More than happy to do things get the town’s first piano delivered, maybe not so happy to actually pay for it. His wife, Caroline, was long suffering, believing that the one thing that could keep her husband’s affection was a baby, something she has struggled with for many years.As you can tell, I didn’t find much in the way of redeeming qualities in Patrick, which brings us to the other part of the historical story. In the course of his business travels, Patrick hears about a young woman, Mary Louise Stephenson, who is trying to break into the very male dominated world of designing the patterns that are then woven into silks which in turn are made into the beautiful clothes for the well to do.

I found the details regarding the designs and the weaving of the silk fascinating. Was there anything that surprised you in this part of the story.

B: Patrick was certainly a representation of a man who had ideas of grandeur but little to no idea, he had big schemes but seemed to lack the work ethic and business know how to make these things come together. He certainly had opportunity - but wasn’t able to capitalise on this and the household reflected their uncertain incomes. Regarding Mary Louise Stephenson, I have to admit at first, I wasn’t quite sure where that portion of the story was going. She and her sister are in quite an impoverished state and at first Patrick seems like the answer to so many of their prayers. Mary Louise’s designs seem stunning with very unique ideas - and also a bit intriguing, with the reaction that various people have with them. This is a very superstitious and suspicious time of history, with women being accused of being witches and the like, which is actually a danger that Rowan, with her knowledge of healing, has to be very careful about. But as for surprising me…...well, when these two stories in the past finally met up, I think everything after that felt like it was quite unexpected!

Back to the present….what did you think of the prestigious school, admitting female students for the first time in its illustrious multi-century (or however long it was) history?


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Head over to Bree's blog to see the answer to this question and the rest of our discussion.

This week...

I'm reading....

After finishing Normal People last week, I decided that it was time to tackle one of the big books that I had sitting in my Audible account, and so started The Moon Sister by Lucinda Riley. This is the fifth book in the Seven Sisters series and comes in at a sizeable 20 hours listening time so it will keep me listening for a while. I have seen people mention that they adjust the speed and listen to audiobooks at say 1.5 times normal speed. Maybe I should try that with this book? Does anyone do that?

Other than that I am still reading The Silk House by Katye Nunn and that's it. I have chosen the next book off my shelf but haven't started it yet. Maybe tomorrow.

I'm watching...

I am very pleased to say that I actually finished some things this week! 

I finally watched the last episode of Outlander. I had the last episode sitting there for several weeks but every time I thought about watching it I didn't because I wasn't in the right headspace to watch what I knew was going to be a gruelling episode, and it was. Now, like everyone else, I wait for the net series..

On the opposite end of the scale to gruelling is The Great which was completely over the top, completely bonkers show, but we thoroughly enjoyed it! The performance of Nicholas Hoult was amazing with the range from over-sexed, over privileged king who could do whatever he pleased (Huzzah!) but who had an almost childlike need to be loved. I was curious to see that one of the main forces behind The Great was an Australian screenwriter,  and that his wife was playing one of the key characters. What The Great is not is historically accurate in any ways, but it does tell you that in the opening titles where it says "an occasionally true story" so as long as you take it in that vein and don't expect historical accuracy it will be fine.

One of the music artists I have reacquainted myself with during this period of social isolation is Garth Brooks. Back in the early 90s I was a big fan and used to listen to those early albums over and over again, but I felt like I kind of lost track of his music. I have been watching some of the shows he is doing on Facebook and was reminded of how good he was. This weekend I watched the new documentary Garth Brooks: The Road I'm On which was really interesting, and reminded me that part of the reason I lost track was that he retired for so long. Needless to say, I have already told the husband that the next time he comes to Australia we are going to go and see him perform!

In life

I have noticed that there is a notice on Blogger telling us that we have to swap to the new Blogger before the end of the month. Mostly it is okay, although I don't like the way that it deals with placeholder posts. As soon as I had a post that I needed on a specific day I used to change the schedule date and it would sit there as a placeholder in the right date order. I haven't yet figured out how to do that in the new Blogger. It appears as though it saves it in the order of the last time you edited a post which doesn't really work. For now I've had to come up with a Google sheet to save the dates so that I can make sure I don't miss anything. It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing. And it turns out adding new labels is a bit challenging too.

The big news for this weekend for us (other than it being my birthday) was that it was bathroom reno weekend. It was a long weekend here so we took Friday off to make it a four day weekend. On Friday my husband started ripping out the old bathroom, and then slowly did everything to start putting it all back together again. It can't be finished yet because a couple of items that you wouldn't normally have to special order weren't in stock at the hardware store so once those things come in it will be finished off, but I am happy with how it looks right now. Here is the before and the final progress photo. Note the beautiful green bench top that is now a thing of the past. Once it is totally finished I will share another picture.

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday
Weekend Cooking

Six Degrees of Separation

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

This week...

I'm reading....

I mentioned last week that I was just starting Palace of Tears by Julian Leatherdale. It is a big book so I haven't finished it yet, but I am making good progress. This is a dual timeline novel - you know I am a sucker for those books! I did find myself contemplating how many male authors there are out there in historical fiction land writing dual timeline books? Do you know of any others?

I also started reading The Silk House by Australian author Katye Nunn which is another multiple timeline book. I really meant to read her last book but I never got around to it even though it sounded great. I already know that I will be going back to read her previous books even based on the small part of this book I have read.

I finished listening to The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan this week. When it came time to pick my next audiobook I had multiple options but the ones that I was thinking about choosing were all really long. I therefore decided to look at the books that I have had in my Audible library and realised that Normal People by Sally Rooney was there. It only goes for just over 7 hours, and it is also the starting point for this month's Six Degrees of Separation meme so I decided to go with that as my choice.

What did surprise me was that it has the same narrator who read (or should I say performed?) The Good Turn. These are very different style of books so that was a bit of a surprise and took a little while to get used to. The other thing that I was reminded of is that I find it much more confronting listening to sex scenes than I reading them. I can read very explicit books no problems, but I get a bit a bit flustered listening to them. Weird, I know.

I was super excited to hear that later in the year there is going to be a new Virgin River book from Robyn Carr. I loved the Virgin River series and have read them a couple of times, but her other books haven't done it as much for me. And I enjoyed the Virgin River series on Netflix as well. It's probably smart to built on the success of the series with a new book now.

I'm watching...

We didn't really watch anything new this week that I haven't mentioned in previous posts.

In life...

It's the first day of winter! Do you know what that means? Time to break out a new toothbrush. The first day of a new season is always my prompt to change toothbrushes. Am I the only one who does this?

With our restrictions slowly being relaxed, this weekend we decided to get out of the house. On Saturday we were and had lunch with a couple of friends. They are the people who we caught up with most during social isolation so it was really good to catch up with them face to face. I did have to laugh. We took two jigsaws to her and she unexpectedly gave me four books in return. That's how it's supposed to work isn't it?

It is a bit strange to be seeing people face to face again. We have been inside for so long that I found the idea of going out to socialise a bit daunting, and I could almost have talked myself out of going, but it was fine once I got there. The other thing was that was the first time I put earrings and makeup on in weeks!

We do love the panorama setting on our phone camera

On Sunday we decided to head down the coast about an hour or so ago and we invited one of my husband's work friend to meet us there. It wasn't too cold and the sun was out so it was nice to get down to the beach, get some fresh air. We also got to eat some delicious fish and chips. We had something called charcoal prawns. I have no idea how they cooked them but they were delicious.

Other than that, this is the weekend before we do our bathroom renovation so we've been spending a serious amount of money at the hardware store. Now we just have to hope that the choices of accent tiles and things like that all come together. There is a small issue in that a couple of the bigger items we need had to be ordered in so they might not be here in time for next weekend but we will do what we can.

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Opening Lines
Book Review: The Railway Girls by Maisie Thomas
Alphabet 2020: I is for Me! Me! Me!
Weeking Cooking: May Bakes
Reading Reflections: May 2020

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