Category: Books

It’s been a while.  Six months, I see.  I’m a bit rusty. Attempts to fill the space in between have amounted to naught so – having ended on a six degrees in September, with autumn beckoning and the dark difficult winter ahead – I’ll pick up as if I’ve never been away with another six degrees.  I note in my September preamble that I gave warning of a darker chain than usual.  A portent perhaps?  But if so, I give notice now that this next chain is light and bright and filled with good things.  Spring is calling, and on its back flies hope of easier times for everyone.

Six Degrees has come around very quickly as always, with very little to see on A Corner of Cornwall between this chain and the previous one.  Hopefully I’ll get some non-book related posts up this month!  Meanwhile, Six Degrees of Separation is organised by Kate and the background can be found here.  After a hesitant start I found my stride.  The finished chain is darker than usual for me.  A reflection of the changing seasons perhaps? Maybe I’m preparing for those dark autumnal reads…

Can this Booker-shortlisted novella really live up to expectations?  When Fiction Fan and I decided to publish our thoughts about this little book on the same day, no one seemed to have a bad word to say about it and what’s more, everyone seemed to respond to it with real affection.  Winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1980, presented as the genuine much-loved English classic, the risk of disappointment seemed alarmingly high.  I need not have worried.  Reading A Month in the Country was a joy.

There are warning signs: I have too much else going on which suggests I may disappear for a while.  But my six degrees chain was put together a while back so perhaps I’ll let it leapfrog to the front of the queue.  Six Degrees of Separation is organised by Kate and the background can be found here.

I was so careful.  I gave myself a list of 8 titles without committing to any.  But my fate was sealed in a single sentence:

“Even I ought to be able to write one Jazz Age post in June…”

Sadly, Jazz Age June has come and gone and we’re past the midpoint of the next month.  But Jazz Age July has a certain ring to it and if Laurie and Fanda will permit it, I have a post or more to contribute on the basis that late is better than never.

It’s July and we must be roughly mid-way through the time allotted to the 20/15/10 Books of Summer.  Those weeks seemed endless at the beginning, where have they gone already?  Not that I haven’t been reading; I’m enjoying an unexpectedly rich period of reading at the moment.  There will be no problem in reading my 10 books.  As usual, the challenge lies in writing about them, particularly as most of them seem to demand a post to themselves.  But picking up this weekly meme again is a way of ticking off a couple of books at least, and keeping tabs on my reading in general.

WWW Wednesday is currently hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.  Each week there are three questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Six Degrees has come around already.  It only seems a week or so ago that I was making the chain for June but that’s because I was late in June.  Remarkably, I am on time for July!

Six Degrees of Separation is organised by Kate and the background can be found here.

For the last couple of months I have created a chain for Kate’s Six Degrees of Separation but not managed to post it.  There is a risk of another month passing in the same manner.  So without further ado, here is my chain for June.  The background to Six Degrees can be found here.

I was careful to avoid reading anyone else’s chain before mine was complete and as usual, I marvelled at the variety and the creativity of the contributors.  Mine had no intentional themes, though it does circle around quite neatly which is always satisfying. Continue reading “Six Degrees of Separation: from Normal People to …”