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? 

First Chapter: Cygnet by Season Butler

 

 First Chapter/First paragraph/Tuesday Intros is hosted by Yvonne@ Socrates Book Reviews. Post the first paragraph (or 2) of a book you are reading or plan to read soon.

Cygnet

Cygnet by Season Butler, June 25, 2018, Harper

A 17-year-old young woman comes of age in a community of the elderly, rejecting the promise of youth, on an isolated island off New Hampshire

First paragraph:

I open my eyes to the churning of the waves outside. It doesn't rest, so I don't sleep well either. I really should be used to it by now. At least it's sunny. I try to use the thought to power my move out of bed and into my clothes and off to Mrs. Tyburn's house for work. To be honest, I preferred it last week when it rained every day. Rain in big wet slaps, the kind of rain you only get on islands, out to sea. On dark mornings there's a reason why it's hard to get up, an actual weight in the air to to fight, something real to run from, to hide your face from.... 

 Would you read on?

Sunday Salon: Historical, YA, Thriller, Contemporary Fiction

New book arrivals:

The Song of the Jade Lily

The Song of the Jade Lily by Kirsty Manning, May 14, 2019, William Morrow Paperbacks
Genre: historical and contemporary fiction
Setting: Vienna, Shanghai, Australia

I'm enjoying reading this novel about a Jewish family escaping from Nazi occupied Austria, traveling to Shanghai, China as refugees. We follow young Romy and her parents in Shanghai, moving back and forth in time to when Romy has her own family and grandchildren in Australia after leaving China at the end of WWII. And we see Romy's granddaughter Alexandra, trying to find her way in the present, 2016, through her family's wartime history. 

The Great Pretenders

The Great Pretenders by Laura Kalpakian, Publication April 16, 2019, Berkley Books
Setting: Hollywood in the 1950s
Roxanne forges a career unique for women in the 1950s, becoming an agent for hungry young screenwriters. When she sells a script by a blacklisted writer under the name of a willing front man, more exiled writers seek her help. 

Cygnet

Cygnet by Season Butler, June 25, 2018, Harper
Genre: coming-of-age tale
A 17-year-old young woman comes of age in a community of the elderly rejecting the promise of youth.

Setting: an isolated island off New Hampshire populated by a community of the elderly

All of Us With Wings

All of Us With Wings by Michelle Ruiz Keil, Soho Press

YA fantasy debut about love, found family, and healing is an ode to post-punk San Francisco through the eyes of a Mexican-American girl

The Snakes

The Snakes by Sadie Jones, June 25, 2019, Harper
Genre: contemporary fiction
Bea and Dan, recently married,  visit Bea’s dropout brother Alex at the hotel he runs in Burgundy, France. Disturbingly, they find him all alone and the ramshackle hotel deserted, apart from the nest of snakes in the attic.

The Perfect Fraud

The Perfect Fraud by Ellen LaCorte, June 18, 2019, Harper
Genre: contemporary fiction
Claire works in the family business and calls herself a psychic, but she doesn’t really have “the gift” and hasn’t for a long time. She’s a fraud. When she meets Rena and Rena's disturbed daughter, events collide.

Which of the above books would you read first? Why?

Memes: The Sunday Post  hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer,  Stacking the Shelves, and It's Monday, What Are You Reading? by Book Date., and Mailbox Monday.