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 Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. This book was one of my book group’s selections earlier this year and I didn’t read it. That’s notable because I almost always read the book. The last one I didn’t read was Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (we did that in 2003 and my excuse was I’d just had a baby and couldn’t focus on 900+ pages).
My husband rarely reads for leisure, however, he has been meaning to read Shantaram for more than a decade. In fact, he takes it on every holiday with the intention to start. It has become a running joke when we are packing –
Me: Have you got your bathers, your fishing gear and Shantaram?
Him: Yep, all packed.
Last holiday, Shantaram came with us, as well as The Arsonist by Chloe Hooper. My husband picked up the Hooper and read it in one day (Shantaram remained untouched). The Arsonist focuses on the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. Alice Bishop’s A Constant Hum is a fictional take on those same fires.
I’m obsessed with the cover of A Constant Hum. The designer, Imogen Stubbs, recently won an award for her cover for The Art of Taxidermy by Sharon Kernot.
Kernot’s book is about taxidermy and a girl whose mother has died. I couldn’t think of any other books I’ve read about taxidermy but there are plenty about mothers dying – the first book that popped to mind was Lost and Found by Brooke Davis, whose real life experience of her mother dying prompted the novel.
‘Lost’ links me to The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante, the final instalment in the Neapolitan series.
I started in Moscow and ended in Naples – where will other chains go? Link up below or post your link in the comments section.
Next month (October 5, 2019), we’ll begin with a book that everyone’s talking about – Three Women by Lisa Taddeo.
