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.

I don’t always get the first book on the chain read in time so it’s great this month to have already done so. I discovered ‘Wintering’ by Kate during the great lockdown of 2021, which was tough both mentally and emotionally for all of us. This book was a great comfort to me as it allowed me to turn this period around from a period of despair to look at it as a period of restoration and rest. I’ve probably recommended this book to other people more than any other since, and I’m glad to have it on my shelf. It’s a wise and compassionate book, and there’s one moving scene in particular that stuck out for me on swimming in the sea, that reminded me of another book…

….and that was ‘I am an Island’ by Tamsin Calidas, who finds herself suffering from crippling loneliness and mental anguish on a remote Scottish island. She starts to find her way back by tuning into the rhythms of nature, in particular the habit of cold water swimming, building inner resilience and somehow finding the courage to go on. Finding the strength to go on is something very much in evidence in my next choice….

‘Ghosts of the tsunami - Death and life in Japan’s disaster zone’ by Richard Lloyd Parry, a devastating account of the 2011 disaster which claimed 18,500 souls. Part of the focus of the book is on the loss of 74 children at the Okawa Primary School, an unbearable loss for the community. Grief turns to anger, as the parents demand to know what the school did to protect their children. Staying with Japan, I thought of a part in this book….

The lonely century - How to find connection in a world that’s pulling apart, by Noreen Hertz , about the impact of loneliness on society and how it will approach epidemic levels as we live longer. It’s a fascinating book which talks about how Neo liberalism continues to hollow out society, and looks at how different groups and peoples deal with loneliness. One of those is Japan, and how in nursing homes they have been used not just as domestic helps but as therapy robots to help with loneliness. Of course a robot as a companion leads me onto…..

Klara and the sun by Kazoo Ishiguro, a dystopian novel about a girl called Josie and her artificial friend Klara, a robot powered by the sun. I had such high hopes for this novel but I ultimately found it dispiriting - it just felt a bit flat. It was on the shortlist for the 2021 booker prize, as was….

No one is talking about this by Patricia Lockwood which had a freshness and vigour to it that made it a joy to read. There was such a lyricism to the prose and I found the second half of the book to be incredibly moving, whilst the first part is funny, knowing and fragmented, about how the internet has shaped our brains. The book features the loss of a child, which leads me to….

Lincoln in the bardo by George Saunders which also features the death of a child, this time the son of President Lincoln, Willie. It’s also not unlike Patricia Lockwood’s book with it’s lyricism and unconventional style.

That’s it for another month!