Welcome to #6Degrees.
Annabel Smith and Emma Chapman began the 6 Degrees of Separation meme in 2014 (and I took over in 2016).
The meme was inspired by Hungarian writer and poet Frigyes Karinthy. In his 1929 short story, Chains, Karinthy coined the phrase ‘six degrees of separation’. The phrase was popularised by a 1990 play written by John Guare, which was later made into a film starring Stockard Channing. Since then, the idea that everyone in the world is separated from everyone else by just six links has been explored in many ways, from ‘six degress of Kevin Bacon‘ to the science of connections. And now it’s a meme for readers.
So, to the meme. On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.
Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge.
A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the ones next to them in the chain.
How to Join the Meme
Each person’s chain will look completely different. It doesn’t matter what the connection is or where it takes you – just take us on the journey with you. Don’t worry if you haven’t read the first book either: you can always find ways to link it based on your expectations/ideas about it.
Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the Linky section (or comments) of each month’s post. If you don’t have a blog, you can share your chain in the comments section. You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees
Here’s a list of past #6Degrees chains:
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld
1984 by George Orwell
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healy
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind
Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby
Room by Emma Donoghue
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
Shopgirl by Steve Martin
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Wild Swans by Jung Chang
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
It by Stephen King
No.1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Where Am I Now? by Mara Wilson
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
The Arsonist by Chloe Hooper
How to be Both by Ali Smith
The Dry by Jane Harper
Murmur by Will Eaves
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Sanditon by Jane Austen
Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar
Stasiland by Anna Funder
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Normal People by Sally Rooney
What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt
How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
I Am Charlotte Simms by Tom Wolfe
Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret by Judy Blume
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Redhead By the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
Phosphorescence by Julia Baird
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary
The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld
Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss
Postcards From the Edge by Carrie Fisher
Second Place by Rachel Cusk
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
Our Wives Under the Seaby Julia Armfield
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
Wintering by Katherine May
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan
Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller
The Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
Beach Read by Emily Henry
Trust by Hernan Diaz
Passages by Gail Sheehy
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
Hydra by Adriane Howell
Friendaholic by Elizabeth Day
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
Wifedom by Anna Funder
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Western Lane by Chetna Maroo
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
The Joy of Wild Swimming by Lonely Planet
Next month (May 4, 2024), we’ll start with The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop.