Six Degrees of Separation: Nature, Relationships, Food

 

Books Are My Favourite and Best hosts Six Degrees of Separation, and this month starts with Phosphorescence.  Add six books that link together in some way, and see where you end up.

 Julia Baird’s part-memoir-part-essay-collection, Phosphorescence, focuses partly on the awe of nature, of water and the ocean, and of long-term relationships.  

This book led me to The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa. It celebrates long term relationships and love of nature, the ocean, and of all creatures, in particular, cats.

The next link is 

Cygnet

In Cygnet by Season Butler, June 25, 2018, Harper, a book set on a beautiful island off the coast of New Hampshire, nature and the ocean are prominent, and relationships are paramount to survival.

The next link is to 

We Two Alone by Jack Wang, September 1, 2020, stories where a relationship thrives or falters in the midst of harsher realities. 

This links to a memoir on family relationships and their importance

Savage Feast, February 26th 2019, Harper

Thinking of food leads me to a book of short stories, 

Bread and Salt: Stories by Valerie Miner, September 5, 2020

Short stories lead to another collection, this one dealing with nature:

Sandlands by Rosie Thornton, October 28, 2016. Book description:
This beautifully written short story collection is inspired by coastal England.

What books are you linking to this month's Six Degrees of Separation prompt? 

Sunday Salon: No More Thrillers for a Month

 Maybe my last thriller for a month or so....I've decided to concentrate on nonfiction books and more literary novels, moving away from psych thrillers and mysteries for a time. It's Lent and I have to give us something I really, really like! But maybe I'll be surprised and enjoy other genres for a change. 

In the Name of Truth is the 8th in a series of 9 crime novels, so far, by Viveca Sten, set in the Swedish archipelago and the island of Sandhamn. I have one more to read, the 4th,  before the next book comes out later this year. She has signed a contract for three more Sandhamn books, till 2023! 

Books I intend to read during the next month:

Savage Feast, February 26th 2019, Harper

Genre: family memoir

The Invisible History of the Human Race by Christine Kenneally, October 9, 2014, Viking
How the history of the human race shapes us as individuals

Genre: nonfiction, history

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver,  October 16, 2018, Harper
Genre: literary fiction

Bread and Salt: Stories by Valerie Miner, September 5, 2020, Whitepoint Press

Climb: Leaving Safe and Finding Strength on 100 Summits in Japan by 

Susan Spann, January 2020, Prometheus Books

Genre: travel memoir 

 

Alexander von Humboldt: How the Most Famous Scientist of the Romantic Age Found the Soul of Nature

by 

Maren Meinhardt

Genre: natural history, biography

The Lost Boys of Montauk by Amanda M. Fairbanks, May 2021, Gallery Books

Genre: memoirs and biography, non fiction

Copy courtesy of Netgalley

What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon

Bread and Salt: Stories by Valerie Miner - Book Beginning

 

Bread and Salt: Stories by Valerie Miner, September 5, 2020, Whitepoint Press

The characters in these stories live and travel in Tunisia, India, Indonesia, Italy, Turkey, France, and the United States and consider their individual agency in both local and global contexts. (publisher)

Book beginning:

Il Piccolo Tesoro 

I'm stepping into an expresso bar, fragrant with strong coffee and sweet cornetti, when my attention is drawn uphill by a weathered pink and green sign offering a vacancy at Il Piccolo Tesoro. The small treasure. I'm not greedy. The adjective appeals as much as the noun promises. 

I chose this Ligurian village in the sensible way, by spreading a map of Italy across my kitchen table in Toronto, closing my eyes and pushing a pushpin into destiny.

Page 56:

But when he got transferred up the coast, she couldn't bear commuting 100 miles down to the city, cutting him out of her days like that. ("Quiet as the Moon")

Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader