Six Degrees of Separation: Communication

Six Degrees of Separation Meme,  hosted by Books Are My Favorite and Best, are held the first Saturday each month. Start at the same place as other wonderful readers, add six books, and see where you end up. 

This month begins with a work of autobiographical fiction, Postcards From the Edge by Carrie Fisher. To this I'm adding and linking the following six books.

Postcards from the Edge by Carrie Fisher is supposedly autobiographical, though it's written as a novel. 

Postcards from Nam I haven't read as yet, but it's evidently on my shelves! 

A fictional Vietnamese lawyer in DC  receives postcards from an unknown person in Thailand, known only by his signature, "Nam."

Abby's Journey by Steena Holmes.

Twenty-year-old Abigail Turner knows her mother, Claire—who died shortly after she was born—through letters, videos, postcards, and journals.

Mothers and Daughters: A Novel by Rae Meadows

I enjoy reading books that explore the relationships between mothers and daughters. This one is especially interesting because of the secrets discovered by Samantha about her mother Violet and her grandmother Iris. Uncovering history and the thread that connect three generations of women is the theme of the story.

Have Mother, Will Travel: A Mother and Daughter Discover Themselves, Each Other, and the World by Claire and Mia Fontaine

Claire and her daughter Mia take a trip to seven countries in Asia and Europe, to renew and strengthen their mother-daughter relationship. 

The Secret Language of Women by Nina Romano

Here are two  books about women communicating privately, in this case through Nushu, the secret writing used by women in China in the 19th century. 

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

In 19th Century China, the women in one remote Hunan county developed their own secret code for communication, via nu shu (“women’s writing”). 

The overall theme of these six books is communication, whether from one stranger to another, between mothers and daughters, or secretly between cloistered women. Communication is primarily  through the written word and through travel. 

From Carrie Fisher's Postcards from the Edge to Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan! Did you follow the link from one book to the other? 

Book Review: Mothers and Daughters, a Novel by Rae Meadows

Mothers and Daughters: A Novel by Rae Meadows

"When a box of Iris's belongings arrives on Sam's doorstep, she discovers things about her mother she never knew - or could even guess...

But she is puzzled by much of what she finds. She learns that Violet, the woman she knows as her grandmother, left New York City as an eleven-year-old girl and found a better life in the  Midwest. But what was the real reason behind Violet's journey? And how could she have come that far on her own at such a tender age?"

Book description: Mothers and Daughters is a luminous novel about three generations of women, the love they share, the dreams they refuse to surrender, and the secrets they hold.

Comments: I enjoy reading books that explore the relationships between mothers and daughters. This one is especially interesting because of the secrets discovered by Samantha about her mother Violet and her grandmother Iris. Uncovering history and the thread that connect three generations of women is the theme of the story.
The ARC I received from the publisher has an added bonus - an audio CD of the novel read by Maggi-Meg Reed.

Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; First Edition edition (March 29, 2011)
Source: ARC from publisher
Genre: women's fiction

Author: Rae Meadows is author of Calling Out, which received the 2006 Utah Book Award for fiction and No One Tells Everything, a Poets & Writers Notable Novel. She lives in Minneapolis, Minn. Visit her website at http://www.raemeadows.com/