Six Degrees of Separation: The Four Dutchmen to Case Histories

 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 is a wildcard to begin the year so we start with the book that we finished last month’s chain with, which means I am starting with The Four Dutchmen by W Somerset Maughan. My instant thought was to o with a Dutch connection but I actually did a whole Dutch chain a couple of months ago so had to give it some more thought.

I very nearly still went with a Dutch related book for my first link but instead I am going in a completely different route. My first choice this month is The Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. This is a book featuring dragons in a romantasy setting.

My next selection is also a book with dragons but this time the setting is real history, with a twist. Temeraire by Naomi Novik is set against the background of the Napoleonic Wars! This book was also published under the title His Majesty's Dragon. (my review)

From here, I had a decision to make. One choice would have taken me down the path of books published with different titles, but in the end I have chosen to focus on the word dragons, even though there was no sign of actual dragons in the book. My next selection is Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman which is one of a trilogy of books which tells the history of Welsh royalty

The book that I have read most recently that was set in Wales is Christmas at Hollybush Farm by Jo Thomas. (my review)

The most recent book that I read which was a Christmassy book was One December Morning by Emma Davies. (my review)

A book that was mentioned in that book was Case Histories by Kate Atkinson. (my review)

So there's my Six Degrees of Separation which has dragons and no dragons, a bit of time in Wales and some Christmas fun. 

Next month, the starting point is Flashlight by Helen Choi, a book that I am currently trying, and struggling, to read.

Will you be joining us?

Spell the Month in Books - April

Reviews From the Stacks

Welcome to the April edition of Spell the Month in Books which is hosted at Reviews From the Stacks. The link party opens on the first Saturday of the month, but I won't be posting until after that as I already have other things scheduled every Saturday and for the first two Sundays of the month.

The idea is that you use the title of books to spell the month name. There is also a theme each month, with the theme for April being animals on the cover. 

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - I couldn't go past this children's classic which includes talking hares, grinning cats and so much more!

The Restaurant in Pelican Crossing by Maggie Christensen - Whilst I might be cheating with this one, this is the first book in a series set in a small Australian coastal town called  in Pelican Crossing, and the word pelican appears in the title of every one of them

Rescue my Heart by Jill Shalvis - It's been many years since I read Jill Shalvis, but I do recall enjoying her trilogy called Animal Magnetism, which is set in and around an animal shelter 

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros - Does a dragon count as an animal?

Lion in the Valley by Elizabeth Peters - This is the fourth book in the excellent Amelia Peabody series set in Victorian Egypt. 

There's no set theme for May. Maybe I will have to come up with my own! Or maybe I will just keep it simple next month. We'll see when we get closer to the time!

I am sharing this post with Sunday Salon hosted by Readerbuzz.

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the First Half of 2025

 Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the First Half of 2025

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry (April) - I expect to see this on quite a few lists today!

Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros (January) - Speaking of books I expect to see on lots of lists!

Kate and Frida by Kim Fay (March) - I enjoyed Love & Saffron when I read it a couple of years ago so looking forward to this one!

Midnight in Paris by Gillian Harvey  (January) - Over the last 18 months, Gillian Harvey has become one of my must read authors so I am looking forward to this one.

The Bad Bridesmaid by Rachael Johns (January) - Rachael Johns has long been an autobuy author for me. I read the connected book to this one, The Other Bridget, in one sitting late last year. I expect to love this one just as much!

The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris by Evie Woods (March) - The description for this book could be written just for me - Paris, Baking, a bit of magic

The Many Future of Maddy Hart by Laura Pearson - The Beforelife of Eliza Valentine was one of my favourite reads of 2024. I then read The Last List of Mabel Beaumont and loved it! I have high expectations for this one.

The Jam Maker by Mary-Lou Stephens (January)- Another food based historical novel set in Tasmania!

The Paris Bookshop for the Broken-Hearted by Rebecca Raisin (February) - I love the way that Rebecca Raisin writes about books, food, and Paris!

Three Juliets by Minnie Darke (April) - I loved The Lost Love Letter by Minnie Darke. I have since read With Love from Wish & Co and listened to the Audible short stories she has written. I am very excited a new book from her.

Do you have any of these books on your list this week?

Top Ten Tuesday: Best books of 2024

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Best Books I Read in 2024

The first three are easy! These are the three books that I rated as 5/5 reads.

The Secret Ingredient by Sue Heath - I knew from the first couple of pages I was going to love this book! And I did! (my review)

The Naturalist of Amsterdam by Melissa Ashley - This was my very first read of 2024 and I loved it! (my review)

The Beforelife of Eliza Valentine by Laura Pearson- This book is the book that I recommended to the most people this year. I loved the whole concept! I also gave 4.5/5 to another book from this author. Can't wait to read her next book which I have waiting for me to read soon. (my review)

After that, it gets a bit harder as I had 15 books that I rated as 4.5/5 but I can only choose 7 more, so here goes!

The Other Bridget by Rachael Johns - This was a big book, and I read it in a day! Can't remember when I last did that! (My review)

A Wedding in the Sun by Leonie Mack - Given that I had two books by Leonie Mack that I gave 4.5/5, I had to have at least one of her books in the top ten today. (My review)

Funny Story by Emily Henry - Emily Henry is consistently good!

An Astronomer in Love by Antoine Laurain - I read several books by this author this year so it is only right that he is on this list. (My review)

Summer at Santorini Bookshop by Rebecca Raisin - I love the way that Rebecca Raisin writes about food, books, places! (My review)

Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See - I pretty much always enjoy Lisa See's books! This was no exception!

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros - I gave this a 4.5 just because of the fact that I could not put it down! I am looking forward to reading the next book in this series when it comes out!

Are any of these books on your favourite list?

Top Ten Tuesday: Trick or Treat

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's is a Halloween freebie, so we can post whatever we like, presumably at least Halloween related. However, I haven't been reading anything particularly Halloweeny recently as I am all about the feel good reads at the moment,

Bearing that in mind, my post this week is called Trick or Treat, and the books will all start with the letters of those words.

TRICK

These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer 

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

Cracklescape by Margot Lanagan

Kitchen by Banana Yashimoto

TREAT

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Exit Strategy by Kelley Armstrong

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

The Tolstoy Estate by Steven Conte

We don't really do Halloween but I can say it anyway......   

Happy Halloween!

This week.....

I'm reading

I mentioned last week that I started to read Welcome to the Hyanum-Dong Bookstore by Hwang Bo-Reum. I am still reading this book. I am not really sure why it hasn't really grabbed my attention as there is a lot to like, but it is a slow read for me.

I also started reading my next review book, Daughters of Tuscany by Siobhan Daiko. I like it, but it does feel a bit like other books I have read.

I am feeling a bit unsettled when it comes to books. I also started The Readers Room by Antoine Laurain. This is probably the one that has caught my attention the most but if I do have some due dates that I need to be conscious of.

When I finished my last audiobook I declared that I would be listening to something fluffier next. Whilst that was my intention, I am not sure I was completely successful. It might just be a different version of intense. I started listening to Sidelines by Karen Viggers which is the next Rachael Johns' Book Club choice. I must confess it wouldn't normally be something that I would choose to read but that's book clubs for you, right?

Speaking of book clubs we had our face-to-face,  read-on-a-theme book club meeting on Saturday. I was called an overachiever because I read 3 and a half books that met the theme, which was translated books. Whilst I am sure that I will have no issue finding a book to meet the next theme which is Scotland, I doubt I will be reading that many books next month.


I'm watching


This week I started watching Series 2 of Stuff the British Stole. I watched all of series 1 a couple of weeks ago and found it fascinating. I will definitely finish this series in the upcoming week.

I also started watching the TV series adaptation of Women in Black. I have a few episodes to catch up on now.

I will also be spending some time over the coming weeks watching Tour de France!

On Saturday night we went to the movies to see The Movie Teller, which is being shown as part of the Spanish Film Festival. It's actually a Chilean movie, which tells the story of a family who live in a remote part of the country where the father worked in the saltpetre mines. The family loves the cinema and each week they go together. When the father has an accident they can no longer attend and so they send just one of the kids to the cinema and they have to come home and recount the movie. In addition, the movie tells the story of what happened in Chilean history from the 1960s to the 1980s. It is really in the movie part that this story shines. I am definitely glad that we got to see it.

Here's the trailer:

Life

Last week, Bree from All the Books I Can Read went to see Rebecca Yarros at Melbourne Town Hall where she talked about all things Fourth Wing and Iron Flame . When we arrived the queue to get in went half way around the block which means that there were several thousand people in the crowd! As you would expect this was a younger audience than there was when I went to see Bonnie Garmus but we certainly weren't the oldest in the crowd by a long way.

Rebecca Yarros was a lot of fun to listen to. I suspect she is asked very similar questions at each event as her answers did seem well practiced. There were also lots of things that she couldn't talk about, especially in relation to the TV adaptation which is being done by Amazon. Having said that, I left the event having smiled and laughed, so you can't ask for much more than that! And of course, I am definitely looking forward to the next book

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books Being Released During the Second Half of 2024.

Weekend Cooking: 5 Ingredient Mediterranean by Jamie Oliver

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

Top Ten Tuesday: New to Me Authors I Discovered in 2023

 

I read 38 new to me authors last year. Now, I could do a Top Ten Tuesday post with 38 different books, but I decided to narrow it down a bit by only including the new to me authors who I graded as either 4.5 or 5 out of 5 reads.

Here we go:

Erin Littekin - The Lost Daughters of Ukraine was so good. I am definitely intending to go back and read her debut novel! (my review)

Pip Williams - The Book Binder of Jericho - I haven't read Dictionary of Lost Words yet but I need to get onto it as we are going to go and see the play at the end of February.

Anthea Hodgson - My first book by this author was The War Nurses. I also listened to The Drifter which was great too. 

Jane Lovering - I read The Recipe for Happiness. Lucky for me there is quite a backlist available from this author (my review)

Durian Sukegawa - Sweet Bean Paste was so good! (my review)

Lauren Westwood - I loved The Little Paris Toyshop so much. (my review)

Bonnie Garmus - I was a bit late to the party when it comes to reading Lessons in Chemistry. I am supposed to be going to hear her talk soon too. Must check when that is. (review)

Rebecca Yarros - I really enjoyed Fourth Wing, and have since read Iron Flame. I am curious to read more but all of the other books she has written look completely different from these two books.

Kim Fay - Really enjoyed Love and Saffron by this author (my review)

Juliet Greenwood - The Last Train from Paris was really good and I will be trying to read more from this author's backlist as well. (my review)

Have you read any of these authors?

This Week....

I'm reading

I didn't get a huge amount of reading done this week so I am still reading Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros and listening to At the Foot of the Cherry Tree by Alli Parker.

I also started reading The Austrian Bride by Helen Parusel which I need to finish ready to review later this week.

It was book club this weekend. Our book club is a read on a theme book club and the next theme is "outside your comfort zone" so I need to think of something to read! I did think about going to a second hand bookstore but we will see. 

I'm watching

We finished watching the third season of Starstruck this week. Time to find another new series. Pretty sure we will find something.

We did go to the movies this weekend and saw Next Goal Wins which is the new Taika Waitita film which tells the story of the American Samoa soccer team. They had the worst ever result in World Cup qualifying history when they lost to Australia 31-0 back in 2001. Fast forward a couple of years and they needed a new coach and this movie is that story. It is a very Taika movie with his kind of humour but it was a lot of fun.

We also watched a very old South African nature film called Animals are Beautiful Peoplel. It was made in 1974 by the same person who made the film The Gods Must Be Crazy. It was a lot of fun, although very dated!

We also started watching season 2 of Muster Dogs, which is an Australian series which features a litter of puppies which are bred to be working dogs. The dogs are sent to various trainers and then come together at the end to see which is the best dog/trainer. We loved season 1 and we are excited to watch more over the coming weeks. Here's a trailer

The thing I spent the most time watching was actually a 3x3 Super Premier basketball event from Sendai Japan because my son was competing in it!

Life

We booked a cruise to South Korea  and Japan for the cherry blossoms in March 2025 - only 430 sleeps to go

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Most anticipated books releasing in the first 6 months of this year

Weekend Cooking: Vale Bill Granger

Sunday Salon: Historical Fiction Reading Challenge December and 2023 statistics

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

This Week

I'm reading

I finished both of the books that I was reading last week on 1 and 2 January so at one point this year I was on track to read 365 books for the year, but now I am back to a normal reading schedule.

I am currently reading Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros, the second book in The Empyrean series. I have been sucked straight back into that world and can't wait to read more!

I am still listening to At the Foot of the Cherry Tree by Alli Parker on audiobook

I'm watching

This week we finally watched the  All the Things We Cannot See, based on the book by Anthony Doerr. My husband I both really enjoyed the adaptation. It definitely bought back memories from when we visited St Malo when we were in France last year. It feels a bit weird to say last year still doesn't it!

We also started watching season 3 of Starstruck, which is an English comedy about a New Zealander living in London who meets a movie star! We really enjoyed the first two series so I am expecting to enjoy this one too.

Life

It's our anniversary today! 7 years!! Last year we went to dinner at the Eiffel Tower, so that was always going to be a hard celebration to live up to, but we gave it a good crack. We had a staycation here in Melbourne. We went to see the BBC Earth Experience, which is where you get to travel around the world whilst watching all the amazing animals and scenery.

On Saturday night we went to dinner and then we went to Circus 1903, which was amazing! This is a stage show of an old style circus, complete with acrobats, strong men, contortionists, heaps of audience participation, and not to mention amazing elephant puppets. Here's a video to give you a taste of what we saw.

On Sunday we started the day with a swim in the infinity pool at the hotel, and then we went to lunch at at a fancy buffet. The food was amazing, especially the seafood.

 

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Best of 2023

Signing up for more challenges

Weekend Cooking: What I Baked (In My Kitchen) in December

Six Degrees of Separation: Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow to Sunflowers

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

Top Ten Tuesday: Best of 2023

 

 

 

 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Favourite Books of 2023.

I read four books that I rated 5/5 stars and they were 

The Lost Daughters of Ukraine by Erin Littekin - I hadn't read any WWII fiction set in the Ukraine before (my review)

The Book Binders of Jericho by Pip Williams - I went to hear Pip Williams speak at Melbourne Writers Festival this year which prompted me to read this book. I still need to read Dictionary of Lost Words, hopefully before I go see the play in a couple of months.

Dreaming in French by Vanessa McCausland - I loved this book so much! Haunting and evocative. (my review)

The Little Paris Toyshop by Lauren Westwood - I read this as part of a blog tour and I was blown away by it! (my review)

In exciting news, I have already read my first 5 star read for 2024!!

Here are just some of the books I rated 4.5/5 in 2023

The War Nurse by Anthea Hodgson - I was lucky enough to hear Anthea Hodgson talk about this book at the book club retreat I went to earlier this year.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus - I was a bit late to the party on this one, but I loved it. I just finished watching the TV adaptation too. (My review)

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros - I expect to see this on quite a few lists this week!

The Martian by Andy Weir - After watching bits of the movie approximately 2,735,478 times I finally got around to reading/listening to this book. And it was good!!

The Last Train from Paris by Juliet Greenwood - I really need to read more of this author's books now. (my review)

Without Further Ado by Jessica Dettmann - When I read this book I felt like I really need to go and watch the Emma Thompson/Kenneth Brannagh version of Much Ado About Nothing. I still must do that!

This list is a bit of a mix of Australian and non-Australian authors, books I read for fun and for blog tours, some I reviewed and some I didn't and different genres!

Are any of these books on your list this week?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books on my Summer 2023-2024 to read list

 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the them

e is Books on My Winter 2023/24 to-Read List but it is summer here so this is my summer to read list.

The Vintage Village Bakeoff by Judy Leigh - This is for a review. Apparently it was supposed to be last week but I wrote next week's date down instead.

The Other Bridget by Rachael Johns - I am a big fan of Rachael Johns so of course this is on my list!

The Chocolate Factory by Mary-Lou Stephens - I enjoyed this author's debut novel The Last of the Apple Blossom so I am looking forward to this one!

The Secrets of Crestwell Hall by Alexandra Walsh - Another review copy!

The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang - I am always up for a new Kate Quinn novel.

The Secret Ingredient by Sue Heath - This will be a future Weekend Cooking post.

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells - the fourth Murderbot book! I have already started this one.

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett - My now traditional re-listen to this book!

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros - I am pretty sure this won't be the only time this book appears on TTT posts.

Before Your Memory Fades by Toshikazzu Kawaguchi - I will be listening to this for the Japanese Literature Challenge

Do you have any of these books on your TBR list?