It’s six degrees of separation for books. Created by Emma Chapman and Annabel Smith. Check out the rules if you want to play along.

We begin with Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things. Apparently it’s a very different book to her first one, Eat, Pray, Love. Which is good, because Eat was self-indulgent twaddle.

Another book that is supposedly quite different to previous work is Judy Blume’s latest, In the Unlikely Event.

I was busting to start In the Unlikely Event however some early reviews suggested that it requires a little concentration to keep track of the characters – at the time I was in the middle of a similar book (in fact, I had to keep notes as I read…) – The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett, so Blume has been put on hold for another few weeks.

The Versions of Us examines alternate paths life takes, hinging on one decision – much like in Lionel Shriver’s The Post-Birthday World.

The game of snooker features in The Post-Birthday World. Let me explain the next rather tenuous link – I was reminded of Post-Birthday yesterday, when blogger Savidge Reads, was asking for recommendations for ‘sports books’. Someone suggested Post-Birthday, snooker being a ‘sport’. So, on the theme of sports, my next link is to Craig Silvey’s Jasper Jones – the story features a scene at a cricket match, which is possibly the most exciting thing I’ve ever read about cricket.

There are many similarities between Jasper Jones and Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet (setting, themes, Australian male authors) – if you haven’t read Cloudstreet, please do, it’s a ripper.

And my final link, based simply on stories centered around the inhabitants of a single street, is Disraeli Avenue by Caroline Smailes.