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 Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser. As usual, this is a book I haven’t read! Here’s what it’s about:

In the late 1980s, the narrator of Theory & Practice — a first generation immigrant from Sri Lanka who moved to Sydney in her childhood — sets up a life in Melbourne for graduate school. Jilted by a lover who cheats on her with another self-described “feminist,” she is thrown into deeper confusion about her identity and the people around her.

The narrator begins to fall for a man named Kit, who is in a “deconstructed relationship” with a woman named Olivia. She struggles to square her feminism against her jealousy toward Olivia—and her anti-colonialism against her feelings about Virginia Woolf, whose work she is called to despite her racism.

What happens when our desires run contrary to our beliefs? What should we do when the failings of revered figures come to light? Who is shamed when the truth is told? In Theory & Practice, Michelle de Kretser offers a spellbinding meditation on the moral complexities that arise in this gap. Peopled with brilliantly drawn characters, the novel also stitches together fiction and essay, taking up Woolf’s quest for adventurous literary form.

I’m going to use an immigrant from Sri Lanka as my first link. The Swimmer by Roma Tearne (1) begins with Ria, a woman in her forties, discovering a young man swimming in the river behind her house in Suffolk. His name is Ben and he’s a Tamil refugee who has fled violence in Sri Lanka and made his way to England. I enjoyed watching Ria and Ben’s relationship develop until a sudden change of narrator sent the story in a different direction.

Staying with the theme of swimming, Wonder Girls by Catherine Johnson (2) is set in 1928 and tells the story of Ida Gaze, who at the age of sixteen sets out to become the first person ever to swim the Bristol Channel between Wales and England. Although it’s a fictional story, it’s still a very inspirational one!

Another book with ‘wonder’ in the title is The Wonder by Emma Donoghue (3), a dark but fascinating novel about an eleven-year-old girl in 19th century Ireland whose parents claim she has eaten nothing at all for four months. To prove whether the girl really is a miracle or whether it’s a hoax, a nurse, Lib Wright, is hired to watch over her and see if the claims are true. Lib has been serving in the Crimean War and was trained by Florence Nightingale, which leads me to the next book in my chain…

The Nightingale Girls by Donna Douglas (4) is the first in a series about a group of student nurses at London’s Nightingale Hospital in the 1930s. I enjoyed meeting the three main characters and stated in my review that I was looking forward to the rest of the series – well, that was twelve years ago and I still haven’t picked up any of the others!

Nightingale is the name of the author of the next book in my chain. Murder in Tinseltown by Max Nightingale (5) sounded fun, but was a disappointment. It’s an interactive ‘choose your own adventure’ style book, where you play the role of a detective investigating a murder and at various points in the story you choose what happens next by turning to different pages. A good idea, but it needed a lot more editing, unfortunately.

A book starting with the same two words in the title is Murder in the Crooked House by Soji Shimada (6). This is one of several Japanese crime novels I’ve read over the last few years, but not one of my favourites as I found the mystery far too convoluted and too concerned with alibis, timings, room layouts and other little details rather than the characters and their motives. It was originally published in 1982 but I read a reissue in an English translation by Louise Heal Kawai.

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And that’s my chain for July. My links have included: Sri Lanka, swimming, the word ‘wonder’, Florence Nightingale, the name Nightingale and titles beginning with ‘Murder in’.

In August we’ll be starting with The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden. I have that book on my TBR – I wonder if I’ll be able to read it before August!

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 All Fours by Miranda July. I haven’t read it and probably won’t as it doesn’t really appeal to me, but here’s what it’s about:

A semi-famous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country from LA to NY. Thirty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic and domestic life of a 45-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectations while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.

I had no idea how to get started with this month’s chain – I couldn’t think of anything similar I’ve read and nothing in the blurb inspired me. Eventually, I decided to go with another book written by a Miranda: in this case Miranda Malins, author of two historical novels about the family of Oliver Cromwell. Set in the years of Cromwell’s Protectorate following the English Civil War, The Puritan Princess (1) tells the story of his youngest daughter, Frances.

Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris (2) is the story of a manhunt involving two former soldiers who fought in Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army and signed the death warrant that led to the execution of King Charles I. When the monarchy is restored several years later, the two men flee to New England to go into hiding in the new Puritan colonies of Connecticut, Massachusetts Bay and New Haven.

Another book with the word ‘act’ in the title is Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie (3). This is a Poirot novel which also features one of her other recurring characters, Mr Satterthwaite. The two investigate the death of a guest who drops dead at a party hosted by an actor. The book was originally published in 1934.

Also published in 1934 was A Pin to See the Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse (4), now available as part of the British Library’s Women Writers series. Part of the novel is based on a true crime known as the Thompson-Bywaters case which took place in 1922. However, the crime element of the story was not as strong as I’d expected and I found it more of a character study of the main character, Julia Almond.

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters (5) is set in London in 1922 and is also inspired by the Thompson-Bywaters case. The ‘paying guests’ of the title are Leonard and Lilian Barber, a married couple who become lodgers in the home of Frances Wray and her mother. What seems at first to be a quiet domestic novel slowly becomes something much more dramatic.

The Paying Guests appeared on the longlist for the 2015 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction but didn’t make the shortlist. A book that did get shortlisted that year was A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie (6). Set in the early 20th century, it follows three characters – a British archaeologist, a Pashtun soldier and a twelve-year-old-boy – who are linked by a search for the legendary Circlet of Scylax.

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And that’s my chain for this month! My links have included: the name Miranda, Oliver Cromwell, the word ‘act’, books published in 1934, the Thompson-Bywaters case and the 2015 Walter Scott Prize.

In July we’ll be starting with Michelle de Kretser’s Theory & Practice.