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.
