Six degrees of Separation - June 22

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.

The staring point this month is ‘Sorrow and Bliss’ by Meg Mason, which I haven’t read but after seeing some of the reviews, I’ll be adding to it to my TBR. It’s about a woman called Martha who is living with an undiagnosed mental illness, and how this affects not just her but her loved ones.

Someone who also suffers from depression is Sinead O’Connor, who recounts her life in her terrific memoir ‘Rememberings’. She also suffered more heartbreak this year when her son committed suicide and my heart breaks for her, such a strong woman who has endured a lot of suffering in her life. Another type of depression…..

….is the Great Depression, which is when ‘The Saints of Swallow Hill’ by Donna Everhart takes place, set amongst the turpentine camps of North Carolina and Georgia. An entertaining work of historical fiction that I suspect will become popular with book clubs. From Georgia to….

‘Station Eleven’ by Emily St John Mandel where the Georgian flu has decimated 99% of the population, resulting in small groups of survivors banding together to eke out some sort of existence. The travelling orchestra are one of these bands that roam the wasteland, bringing music and Shakespeare to the people left, in a book that has some real moments of beauty. The message is that survival by itself is not enough live for. Survivors in the US to…

‘The survivors, Jane Harpers Tasmanian beach town thriller that as usual with this author keeps you guessing right up to the end. A young woman dies in the surf in the first few pages and you suspect absolutely everyone right up to the final few pages. Beaches was something I thought of this morning as I was reading a Sally Rooney conversation with Patricia Lockwood, and it reminded me…

…of a quote from ‘No one is talking about this’ by the same author,

‘Her heart had been replaced by what happens to a bunch of seagulls when a dog comes running down the beach’

and a lot of the startling imagery in Lockwoods book reminded me of that from Mandel’s mentioned earlier. And now that I have mentioned seagulls….

…..I have to mention a co-ordinated attack on a Cornish pastie in Taylor Winn’s story of redemption through nature, ‘The salt path.’ It’s that time of year in seaside towns when it becomes important to protect your snacks from the the brazen seabirds.

That’s it for another month.