It’s the first Saturday of the month, which means it’s time for another Six Degrees of Separation, hosted by Kate of Books are my Favourite and Best. The idea is that Kate chooses a book to use as a starting point and then we have to link it to six other books of our choice to form a chain. A book doesn’t have to be connected to all of the others on the list – only to the one next to it in the chain.

This month we’re starting with Wifedom by Anna Funder. I haven’t read this book, but here’s what it’s about:

Looking for wonder and some reprieve from the everyday, Anna Funder slips into the pages of her hero George Orwell. As she watches him create his writing self, she tries to remember her own…

When she uncovers his forgotten wife, it’s a revelation. Eileen O’Shaughnessy’s literary brilliance shaped Orwell’s work and her practical nous saved his life. But why – and how – was she written out of the story? Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder recreates the Orwells’ marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and WWII in London. As she rolls up the screen concealing Orwell’s private life, she is led to question what it takes to be a writer – and what it is to be a wife.

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First, I’m linking to another book about the ‘forgotten’ wife of a famous person. Mrs Engels by Gavin McCrea (1) is a fictional portrayal of Lizzie Burns, the lover and eventual wife of the German philosopher Friedrich Engels. There’s not a lot of information available on the real Lizzie, but we know that she was probably illiterate, which makes it all the more important that books like this are written to give a voice to people who were unable to tell their own story. The novel describes Lizzie’s early life in 19th century Manchester where she worked at a cotton mill, before moving on to her relationships with Engels and his friend, Karl Marx.

The setting provides the link to my next book. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (2) is also set in a mill town in the north of England – the fictional Milton, thought to be based on Manchester. It’s the story of Margaret Hale, who moves from the south of England to the north after her father leaves his job as parson to take up a new position as a tutor in Milton. Here Margaret is exposed to new people and new ideas. This isn’t a favourite classic of mine, but I did find it interesting and have since gone on to read more of Gaskell’s books.

North and south are directions of the compass and so are east and west. The next book in my chain is The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey (3), a mystery set in a small English village in 1491. The novel is narrated by a priest, John Reve, who listens to the confessions of his parishioners and tries to piece together the truth about the disappearance of the wealthy Thomas Newman, who has been swept away by the river. Was it murder, suicide or a terrible accident? This is an unusual book, structured so that the story moves back in time rather than forwards, but it’s not one that I particularly liked due to feeling a lack of connection with the characters.

Another author who shares a surname with Samantha is W.F. Harvey, author of The Mysterious Mr Badman (4). This is a book from the excellent British Library Crime Classics series and one that I really enjoyed. Published in 1934, it’s described as a ‘bibliomystery’ and begins with Athelstan Digby helping out in his nephew’s village bookshop when three different people arrive one after the other, all asking for a copy of the same rare book. Although I found it more of a thriller than a traditional mystery, it’s very entertaining and a lot of fun to read.

Digby is not a common name, but it also appears in Beau Geste by P.C. Wren (5). Digby Geste, his twin brother Michael (nicknamed Beau) and their younger brother John are orphans living with a rich aunt when her valuable sapphire, the ‘Blue Water’, disappears. Each of them, for various reasons, decides to confess to the theft before running away to join the French Foreign Legion. Part adventure novel set in North Africa and part whodunnit with two separate mysteries to solve, I loved this book and still need to finish the trilogy.

With two of the Geste brothers being twins, I started to think about other books featuring twins. There are a few I could have chosen, but I decided on a novel I read earlier this year, The So Blue Marble by Dorothy B. Hughes (6). Although this isn’t the strongest of the Hughes novels I’ve read so far, it’s still very enjoyable. The twin characters, Danny and David Montefierrow, are a sinister pair who are searching for a mysterious blue marble and will stop at nothing to find it!

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And that’s my chain for September! My links have included: Forgotten wives, Manchester cotton mills, compass points, authors with the name Harvey, fictional Digbys and books featuring twins.

In October we’ll be starting with I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith – finally, a book I’ve actually read!