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 Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy. It was on the Stella Prize 2026 longlist. I haven’t read it but I have read others on the list, including Lucy Nelson’s excellent collection, Wait Here.
Nelson’s collection is focused on women who ‘…will never be mothers’. Another book that made the Stella longlist (in 2017) and was also about not being a mother was Julia Leigh’s memoir, Avalanche.
Based on the ‘a lot of snow’ vibe, my next link is to The Ice Storm by Rick Moody. I enjoyed the book but I loved Ang Lee’s film adaptation. There are some upcoming adaptations that I’m really looking forward to, including The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.
My memory of The Corrections was that it was a ‘family epic’. Another Jonathan that writes ‘family epics’, is Jonathan Safran Foer, and I loved his book, Here I Am.
There’s a wonderful, memorable old dog in Here I Am, as there is in Charlotte Wood’s The Weekend.
I went from wild weather to old dogs – where will other chains go? Link up below or post your link in the comments section.
Next month (June 6, 2026), we’ll start with a book by Austrian* author Stefan Zweig – The Post-Office Girl.
*this is in honour of Eurovision being held in Vienna.
