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 beach read – Sandwich by Catherine Newman. I had mixed feelings about Sandwich but I loved Newman’s debut, We All Want Impossible Things, which as it happens, I read two summers ago while lying on the beach.
I was reminded of Impossible Things when I read Air & Love by Or Rosenboim (it was the similar covers).
Air & Love is a culinary memoir, following the movement of generations of a family through Uzbekistan and Latvia to Israel. Checking what I’ve read from Latvia, it’s just one book – Soviet Milk by Nora Ikstena.
The mother in Soviet Milk struggles to work at the level she feels she has capacity for, bound by the Soviet systems she lived under. It reminded me of The Chancellor by Kati Marton which is the biography of Angela Merkel. Merkel also took the road less travelled in terms of her career.
I picked up The Chancellor because of a Nonfiction November recommendation. As always, November brings a bunch of additions to the TBR stack, and this year The Wave by Susan Casey has caught my eye.
Because I am always a sucker for books about water, I could link The Wave to a whole bunch of books, but the most obvious is Sonali Deraniyagala’s devastating memoir, Wave.
Started with a beach read, got political, and ended back with the sea. Where will other chains go? Link up below or post your link in the comments section.
Next month (January 4, 2025), we’ll start with the 2024 Booker winner, Orbital by Samantha Harvey.
