It’s time for #6Degrees and truly, it’s easy to play (no rules, just bookish fun) – join in!
This month’s chain begins with Nick Hornby’s memoir (or love letter to soccer), Fever Pitch.
I read Fever Pitch when I was at uni and it was my introduction to ‘lad-lit’. At around the same time I read He Died with a Felafel in His Hand by Australian author John Birmingham. It’s also a memoir (about living in share houses in Brisbane).
Felafel leads me to Skippy Dies by Paul Murray – because Skippy dies with a doughnut in his mouth.
Mario was my favourite character in Skippy Dies – so much talk, so little action (on account of his mere 14 years). I suspect Mario wants to grow up to be Eric, from The Deep Whatsis by Peter Mattei.
The drug-and-alcohol fueled Deep Whatsis made for exhausting reading, as it did in Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis.
Imperial Bedrooms includes one of the most repulsive, graphic scenes I’ve ever read in a fictitious book. I actually had to put the book down. Which reminds me of most of Easton Ellis’s notorious 1991 best-seller, American Psycho.
Remember how American Psycho was sealed in plastic and only available from behind the counter at the book shop? As was Madonna’s coffee-table book, Sex? So very nineties.
It feels a bit wrong to have started with Nick Hornby’s sentimental soccer memories and to be finishing with smutty Easton Ellis and Madonna but that’s #6Degrees. I wonder where other chains will lead?
Next month (April 1, 2017), the chain will begin with Emma Donoghue’s bestseller, Room.
That’s quite some chain – I would never have thought Fever Pitch would lead to Sex, ever!
Nor did I when I began!
Haha, loved your chain Kate, particularly to wrapped books! Here is mine. https://whisperinggums.com/2017/03/04/six-degrees-of-separation-from-fever-pitch-to-please-look-after-mom/
I don’t believe it but I haven’t read Room either. You’re probably starting to wonder if I’ve read anything. Anyhow, I’m sure it will get my juices going.
Yes, the wrapped books could have gone in all sorts of directions…!
Feel free to make a suggestion for the starting book 😉
Ooh, now you’ve done it. Then again I rather like the surprise.
I remember reading American Psycho on a plane and, one I got to the really disturbing bits, being worried that everyone would think I was some sort of deviant for considering it appropriate holiday reading!
Here’s my 6 Degrees: https://wildeonmyside.wordpress.com/2017/03/04/6-degrees-of-separation-from-fever-pitch-to-my-boots-keep-walking-back-to-you/
Yes, probably an interesting choice for the plane 😀
Thanks for joining in.
Damn! I ended up working today & forgot all about this.
I’ll sleep on it and plan something for tomorrow. I’ve haven’t read this starting book, but I have seen the movie…which may lead me to my first link…hmmmm.
Mr Books has the Madonna book tucked away somewhere 🙂
I do like that Mr Books has a copy of Sex… wrapper still on? Probably not! I never actually owned a copy but I do remember a friend buying it (it was big bucks in those days) and all of us studying every picture. It probably seems tame today but when it was published it really pushed the boundaries.
Will look forward to your chain.
My chain 🙂
http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com.au/2017/03/6degrees-march-2017.html
The wrapper definitely came off!!
I haven’t read any of the books on your chain – but I love your links, so inventive! My chain is of course nothing like yours.
And hence the joy of #6Degrees 🙂
Your chain reminds me that I must read Skippy Dies. I seem to remember that my copy of American Psycho was unburdened by a wrapper!
Could I make a suggestion for you to consider in the future – Shopgirl by Steve Martin.
Maybe your copy of American Psycho is a few years younger than mine, when everything was a bit more relaxed!
Re: Shopgirl – consider it done and stay tuned 🙂
I’ve ordered a copy of Shopgirl off the back of this comment. Not that I’m scared of trying to link books I’ve not read or anything…
Okay, two bloggers who have posted chains but no link –
1. http://annabookbel.net/the-six-degrees-of-separation-meme-fever-pitch
2. https://bookertalk.com/2017/03/04/football/
Leave them a lovely comment!
He Died with a Felafel in His Hand has to be the most odd book title I have come across in many years……I do like how these chains take us in very odd directions. Your’s went to graphic sex and mine went to a coal mining disaster! https://bookertalk.com/2017/03/04/football/
I didn’t set out with a graphic sex angle in mind… 😀
I’ve never read Bret Easton Ellis and I know I never will after your comment! I’m way too squeamish. I was a bookseller when Sex came out. We had a copy for the staff room which fell to bits within hours.
I think I’ve read a bit of Easton Ellis because he’s a writer of my generation. I do like to be challenged with my reading (not always, but sometimes) and EE pushes the boundaries for me. That said, Imperial Bedrooms tipped me over the edge and I’m not sure I’ll read anything new he publishes.
Re: Sex – was it a copy that all staff also claimed that they ‘hadn’t looked at yet’?!
No chance of that! We’d all been spotted looking at it. Talk about hype, although it did help the profits along.
I love all your links in this chain, but especially the one between He Died With a Felafel in His Hand and Skippy Dies.
Must admit, I was pretty pleased with the cleverness of that link 😉
You definitely should be. It deserves a spot on the list of best links.
The link led me to the dark side of sport, Night Games by Anna Krien. Then to Anna Karenina, and I finished on war novels by Tolstoy and Hemingway. .
Excellent first link. Which reminds me that I must track down my copy of Night Games. I started it (was a few chapters in) and then my husband hijacked the book – as he never reads for leisure I let him have the book… and then he lent it to someone else… and it came back to our house but I’d moved on to other books and somehow never found my way back to it.
Haha – waht a unique chain! I’m traumatised at discovering that Skippy Dies though… kangaroos should never eat doughnuts… 😉
Thanks so much for hosting this! This was my first time participating, and I had a lot of fun building my very random chain. I haven’t read any of the books in your chain, but I’m curious now (except for the graphic scenes, because I get squicked out earily). Thanks!
http://printcess.net/2017/03/04/6-degrees-separation-fever-pitch.html
That was fun. I just discovered this meme via Brona’s Books. My #6Degrees – ending up at Death Comes for the Archbishop: http://100greatestnovelsofalltimequest.blogspot.com/2017/03/6degrees-fever-pitch-to-death-comes-for.html
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Ellis can be hard to stomach, I vaguely remember reading imperial bedrooms awhile ago, and having to take ‘breaks’ from it as well!
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