It’s time for #6Degrees – join in! Link up!
Are you over Shakespearean celebrations yet? Sorry if you are because we begin this month’s #6Degrees chain with one of his most well-known plays, Romeo and Juliet.
Like many, I studied Romeo and Juliet at school. I also studied a modern version of the age-old story, Across the Barricades by Joan Lingard.
Across the Barricades is a teen love story set during a tumultuous political time in one city – the Troubles in Belfast. Similar is Red Love by Maxim Leo – it’s a story about love, set in Berlin before the Wall came down.
From Red Love and the Berlin of decades ago, I hop to a contemporary story set in the same city – A Guide to Berlin by Gail Jones.
A Guide to Berlin made the Stella Prize 2016 longlist, as did The Women’s Pages by Debra Adelaide. Coincidentally, both books used literature as the central theme – Jones used the work of Vladimir Nabokov and The Women’s Pages tells the story of a woman and her experience reading Wuthering Heights.
Wuthering Heights was featured on last week’s episode of the ABC’s The Book Club, as was Dominic Smith’s The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, which happens to be my book group’s next read.
From my high school literature studies, to Belfast and Berlin, and back again to literature – I wonder where other chains will lead?
Next month (July 2nd, 2016) the chain will begin with Salman Rushdie’s prize winning novel, Midnight’s Children*.
*as picked by Jenny. Any suggestions for starter books are appreciated.
