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 Beach Read by Emily Henry. I was tempted to go with books with alternate endings (because the UK and US editions of Beach Read have different endings), but instead stuck with the reason I picked it – because it’s beach reading time in Australia 🙂 So, my link is to Sunbathing by Isobel Beech.
Sunbathing is a novel about grieving (and although grief-lit isn’t usually beach reading, it is what I have been reading on the beach this week).
Another novel about grieving that also sounds beachy is Kokomo by Victoria Hannan.
In my summer reading stack I have Hannan’s second novel, Marshmallow. The story focuses on a group of friends dealing with an event that unites them.
Ceridwen Dovey’s novel, Life After Truth, is also about a group of friends bonded by a particular event.
The characters in Life After Truth are based on real people who studied at Harvard at the same time as Dovey. A similar alumni story (real-life used for fiction) is that of Donna Tartt’s time at Bennington College, so the next link is to The Secret History.
The characters in The Secret History are studying the ‘classics’, as are those in Julian Barnes’s latest novel, Elizabeth Finch.
I turned grief-lit into campus-lit. Where will other chains go? Link up below or post your link in the comments section.
Next month (February 4, 2023), we’ll start with the book that topped the most ‘Best Books of 2022’ lists – Trust by Hernan Diaz.
