It’s time for #6degrees. Start at the same place as other wonderful readers, add six books, and see where you end up!
This month we begin with a book that generated a lot of debate when it was published in 1990 – The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf. My friends were discussing it over pots of beer at The Clyde in Carlton, while we should have been at lectures…
The Beauty Myth stated that as the social power of women increased, so did the pressure to adhere to unrealistic standards of physical beauty. Indicating that we’ve hardly progressed since The Beauty Myth was published, is Dara-Lyn Weiss’s memoir, The Heavy – it chronicles the diet and exercise regime she put her seven-year-old daughter on (and then made public with an article in Vogue). It’s horrifying stuff.
Kids and diets? I loved Pretty Ugly by Kirker Butler, a novel about a nine-year-old who quietly goes about sabotaging her own career as a beauty pageant star by eating cookies while she’s supposed to be on the treadmill.
I usually conclude my book reviews with a recipe – anything that is mentioned in the book will do. I signed off my Pretty Ugly review with a recipe for chewy chocolate chip cookies. Likewise, I paired Matthew Weiner’s novel, Heather, the Totality, with cookies (of the Freckle and chocolate chunk variety).
Author Matthew Weiner is most famous for writing the Mad Men TV series. There’s a lot of reading done by characters in the series – who doesn’t love this picture of Don busy on the beach with Dante Alighieri’s The Inferno?
The Inferno details the nine circles of hell, which links (based on title alone) to The Circle by Dave Eggers.
The Circle is a fictitious story about a powerful internet company and its influence over the lives of its employees. Similar, but ‘more real’, is Ben Mezrich’s account of the beginning of Facebook, The Accidental Billionaires.
From diets and cookies to Don Draper and hell – certainly not what I expected when I started my chain!
Where will other chains lead? Link up below or post your link in the comments section.
Next month (April 7, 2018), we’ll begin with Arthur Golden’s bestseller, Memoirs of A Geisha.
Very different from my chain Kate, and you have no books I’ve read, but I love it. I have though read next month’s book which might result in my leaving Australia for more exotic locales than the USA and England! Here’s my link https://whisperinggums.com/2018/03/03/six-degrees-of-separation-from-the-beauty-myth-to/
I’m finding this month’s chains to be particularly interesting in how differently our links are. I loved your link to The Inferno based on books seen in a television show. Having studied that text at uni, it could easily have been another book I mentioned in my chain this month.
Gotta love that Kirker Butler. Wonder how her adult life is going.
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The Heavy sounds truly disturbing! https://kathryngossow.net/2018/03/03/from-beauty-myth-to-femme-fatales/
Pretty Ugly sounds like a neat antidote to The Heavy. I loved those shots of Don reading in Mad Men! You’ve made me want to watchi it all over again and log them. Next winter’s project, maybe.
Love how you got Mad Men in! Great links. I must read the Eggers book.
She put her 7 year old on a diet? some people should never be a parent
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My chain surprised me too, in where it led me – though your chain is way more original! I’m liking the cookies – maybe more than the sound of some of those books 😉
Your chain is very different from mine too. I love the fact that the nine-year old sabotaged the diet by eating cookies!
Love your chain – and, yes, different than mine. The cover you presented for The Beauty Myth is rather creepy. Woman in a box – symbolic, right?
This is Muse & Views Bookclub 11th participation in the Six Degrees of Separation meme. From The Beauty of Myth to No Great Mischief. Shirley did a super job on this one! https://bookclub9.blogspot.ca/2018/03/six-degrees-of-separation-from-beauty.html
interesting! mine is here: https://wordsandpeace.com/2018/03/03/six-degrees-of-separation-from-beauty-to-truth/
Such an interesting chain! I especially love the Mad Men connection!
What a great chain! I love the way you linked Matthew Weiner with The Inferno. My chain went in a very different direction this month.
Lol. I love that cookies were so heavily involved in your chain. 😉
Just getting my priorities right. 😬
🤣
Very interesting! I’m looking forward to reading everyone else’s chain, too.
Link to mine: http://betweenlifeanddreaming.blogspot.com/2018/03/six-degrees-of-separation-march-2018.html
The link to my Six Degrees contribution:
https://beckylindroos.wordpress.com/012011-2/6-degrees-of-separation-the-myth-of-beauty-to/
I couldn’t leave a comment on your blog but was intrigued by your mention that Buddha in the Attic is the only book that made you bawl – I love a good cry over a book, so need to add this to the list!
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The Beauty Myth has been in my TBR forever – I never seem to prioritise NF books. I really should get to it. The scene with Don Draper reading Dante is one of my favourite ever in Mad Men 🙂
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I like the comment above by madamebibliophie, I never seem to get to non-fiction books. In fact most of the ones I have to read are my husband’s since he reads both non-fiction and fiction about equally.
This is only my second Six Degrees of Separation and I am enjoying see the connections, that I find and others find. Thanks so much for hosting this.
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What a fun chain, Kate! And having watched only a couple of episodes of Mad Men, I’d not realized there is a lot of reading in it. I’ll be the lookout now. 🙂
P.S. I keep forgetting to add my link – I think many bloggers must, because I’ve seen a LOT of these posts every month for the last few.
The Circle was a totally out of my comfort zone book that I devoured. I still haven’t seen Mad Men but since I grew up in that era I recall a lot of it.
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This has to be one of the hardest chains – it took me several attempts and a few dead ends to come up with my links. https://bookertalk.com/2018/03/08/beauty-myth/
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Somehow I got from beauty to the occupation of Greece during the Second World War. https://thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2018/03/27/six-degrees-of-separation-from-the-beauty-myth-to-captain-corellis-mandolin/
Love how you connected each book. I just recently did a six degrees of separation. Had lots of fun! ♥️