Six degrees of Separation - December 2022

First Friday of the month, so time for #6degrees of separation, hosted by Kate over at Books are my favourite and best. Each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six others to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the titles on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.

This month it starts with a book that I have read - The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. It’s about a childless couple in 1920’s Alaska who are dealing with grief when they receive an unexpected gift. I remember reading this book back in 2013 as a pick for our book club. Myself and a friend had set up the bookclub back in 2012, and it is still going strong. In fact, this year is the ten year anniversary - so not bad going. And that’s the link, to the first book we read back then….

Half blood blues by Esi Edugyan which is about a American jazz singer who goes missing after the fall of Paris in the 1940’s. The singers name is Hieronymus Falk, a first name he shares with the LA detective who appears in…..

‘The Dark Hours’ by Micheal Connelly, although in fairness I could have picked any book out of this wonderful crime series starring Harry ‘Hieronymus’ Bosch. The dutch artist of the same name is famous for his paintings of hellscapes, which reminded me of a book I read a few years ago……

‘A small corner of hell - despatches from Chechnya’ a haunting book about the horrors of war by Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist, critical of the Russian governments policies in Chechnya, who was later murdered in 2006. An incredibly brave woman, the book is about the horrors unleashed by Putin on the civilian population. Putin/Russia and its ambitions are featured in….

‘Prisoners of geography’ by Tim Marshall, a fascinating work about geopolitics and the fault lines between countries. The arctic is one of the areas that is already being fought over for its resources by the worlds superpowers. A book about the arctic I read and enjoyed was….

‘Dark Matter’ by Michelle Paver, a spooky tale about a polar expedition. Which brings me to….

‘Wintering’ by Katherine May, a book I constantly recommend to people at this time of year about the power of rest and retreat to heal. And a nice way to tie up the wintry theme of the first book.