Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best. The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links. I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.
The starting point this month is the book that we finished with last month. This means that my starting point is Sunflowers by Sheramy Brundrick. Sunflowers is about the life of Vincent Van Gogh.
Over the years I have read a number of books about art history, but I think for the purposes of this exercise I am going to choose Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant, which is set during the Renaissance.
I saw Sarah Dunant speak at Melbourne Writers Festival a few years ago. Someone who I saw at MWF last year was Pip Williams, so for my next book I am choosing The Book Binder of Jericho which was one of my 5/5 reads last year.
My first 5/5 read for this year was a book called The Naturalist of Amsterdam by Melissa Hamilton. This is the story of a young woman who works for her mother which is a famous naturalist. Their travels take them as far a field as Suriname.
This book reminded me a bit of A Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert.
And it also reminded me of The Botanist's Daughter by Katye Nunn which I listened to last year but apparently neglected to record it on either of my spreadsheets or Goodreads, so it took me a little while to find the title.
Part of The Botanist's Daughter was set in Chile, so my final link had to be a book that was also partially set in the same country which is Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende. I could also have linked through the word daughter as well!
The starting point next month is Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. Will you be joining us?
A good chain! I am in the middle (really closer to the beginning) of a different book by Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words. However, I had to return it to the library because I was too busy at work to finish it. It seemed promising although not sufficiently to keep me up all night!
ReplyDeleteI am going to see the play of The Dictionary of Lost Words at the end of this month. I am looking forward to it.
DeleteThese chains are always fun. Lots of books I hadn't heard of, as always.
ReplyDeleteThey are fun to do too Mark!
DeleteWhat a lovely chain! Your Pip Williams book getting 5/5 just reminds me I really need to get to her Dictionary of Lost Words.
ReplyDeleteSo do I Davida!!
DeleteI enjoy the chains with books you have enjoyed, especially the ones that haven't gotten a lot of press. A jazz improvisation...
ReplyDeleteThere are a couple that are probably not that well known Deb!
DeleteSo many pretty covers here! I enjoyed reading how you connected each of these books. I read Birth of Venus my first year of blogging, I believe. How long ago that was! I remember enjoying it quite a bit. Thank you for sharing! Have a great week, Marg!
ReplyDeleteI loved Birth of Venus but yes, I read it many, many years ago!
DeleteI have a book out on Van Gogh at the moment, but it's nonfiction, I'm going to take a look see if the library has the novel you read. I also have The Book Binder of Jericho to read which I will get around to this year. I like your links.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by!
DeleteFun connections!
ReplyDeletehttps://wordsandpeace.com/2024/02/03/six-degrees-of-separation-from-elephants-to-crime/
Thanks Emma!
DeleteLooks like a fun meme. All the covers are pretty, too.
ReplyDeleteIt is a fun meme for sure Rachel.
DeleteI see three books I would like to follow up on here: The Naturalist of Amsterdam, and the two books with connections to Chile, The Botanist's Daughter and Daughter of Fortune.
ReplyDeleteThey were all good! The first two are by Australian authors so not sure how easy they will be to find!
Deletegreat chain and great list of books (adding them to my TBR now).. definitely need to get to at least one Pip Williams book soon.. My post is here
ReplyDeleteI need to read more Pip Williams!
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