Sunday, April 2, 2017

6 Degrees of Separation

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I stumbled upon this book meme, hosted by Books are my Favourite and Best  and had to have a try. It turned out to be such a lot of fun, I wish I'd done some of the earlier ones too. But at least I can participate in future ones for sure. The official instructions are here. 
But here's a bit of background info from the blog. The meme was inspired by Hungarian writer and poet Frigyes Karinthy. In his 1929 short story, Chains, Karinthy coined the phrase ‘six degrees of separation’. The phrase was popularised by a 1990 play written by John Guare, which was later made into a film starring Stockard Channing. Since then, the idea that everyone in the world is separated from everyone else by just six links has been explored in many ways, from ‘six degrees of Kevin Bacon‘ to the science of connections. And now it’s a meme for readers.

Today's starter is Room by Emma Donoghue, so we start with that one, and it's blurb.
To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world.

It’s where he was born. It’s where he and Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. There are endless wonders that let loose Jack’s imagination-the snake under Bed that he constructs out of eggshells; the coziness of Wardrobe beneath Ma’s clothes, where she tucks him in safely at night, in case Old Nick comes.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it’s the prison where she’s been held since she was nineteen-for seven long years. Through her fierce love for her son, she has created a life for him in that eleven-by-eleven-foot space. But Jack’s curiosity is building alongside her own desperation, and she knows that Room cannot contain either indefinitely . . .

Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience-and a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.
 


Now for my 6 degrees of separation. 

1) The Yellow Room by Jess Vallance
The Yellow Room It's a chilling Australian domestic drama about Anna, a teenager who finds herself drawn to become friends with her father's ex-girlfriend, Edie. There is more to Edie than meets the eye, and her mental judgment snaps for a short period of time, in which she decides that keeping Anna prisoner in a tiny room, with all her favourite things, is the best course of action for both of them. My review is here.
The Yellow Envelope: One Gift, Three Rules, and a Life-Changing Journey Around the World
2) The Yellow Envelope by Kim Dinan
Both have the word 'yellow' in their title. In this travel memoir, Kim and her husband Brian embark on a journey to travel around the world. They take with them a yellow envelope from a friend, full of money to distribute randomly to deserving people along the way, as they feel led. My review is here.


Around the World in 80 Days3) Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
In this classic Victorian novel by Jules Verne, Phileas Fogg and his loyal man servant, Passepartout, do a similar thing to Kim Dinan, and embark on a trip around the world, and they also distribute their fair share of money along the way, although their motivation is different. However, they too experience their fair share of adventures and misadventures. My review is here.

Water for Elephants
4) Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
At one stage, Fogg and Co. are forced to hire Kiouni, a female elephant, to help them traverse a certain length of their journey in India. They manage to make quite good friends with her. In this book, Jacob Jankowski forges a special bond with Rosie, another female elephant, when he's given the position of her trainer in a ramshackle circus during the Depression Era.

The Night Circus5) The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
This is another story in which the main protagonists discover that life in a travelling sideshow is not all its cracked up to be. The magical circus operates from sunset to sunrise, delighting the audience, A pair of rival magicians groom their young proteges, Celia and Marcus, up for an intense competition. Little do they know the young pair will fall in love.

The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)6) The Hunger Games
Catniss and Peeta are another young pair who are also forced to be bitter rivals in a cutthroat competition, and also happen to fall in love.

Voila, with just 6 degrees of separation, I've started with characters who are confined to a very tiny space, and ended with characters who are dumped in a wide open space to battle for survival. I'm liking this meme and look forward to next month's.  

20 comments:

  1. Enjoyed your links Paula, particularly that you included a classic. I look forward to seeing yours in future.

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    1. Thanks, I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge. Looking forward to more.

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  2. The Yellow Room sounds interesting! Great list.

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    1. It is a bit of a thriller, and well worth a read. Thanks Kathryn.

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  3. It's fun to see where your links end up isn't it?

    I've tried to plan this meme in the past, but have that it works best when I just start typing and let things evolve organically :-)

    I ended up in England under the reign of Charles II which was unexpected.

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    1. Hi Brona, that sounds like a great method to me :) Your list sounds intriguing. I'll have to pop across and have a look.

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  4. Welcome Paula and so glad you had fun with this meme! I hadn't heard of The Yellow Room - sounds fascinating. I don't normally read thrillers but every so often I pick one for a change of pace.

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    1. I'm just the same. I was given that to write a review for a magazine and couldn't refuse. Sometimes we need a nudge out of our comfort zones 😊

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  5. Hi Paula - loved the post. This looks like fun. I think I might have a go next month :)

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    1. Hi Jenny,
      Yes, give it a go. I'm looking forward to next month's too.

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  6. Wow, what an inventive blog Paula. Now you've got me thinking. Will have to give it a try myself. When I was doing my writing course at Tabor, we did a similar thing with word associations. We had to think of compound words and keep joining another word on until we had an idea for a story (e.g. footprint, print copy, copyright, right turn, turncoat, etc). But it sounds like fun to do it with book titles. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Hi Nola,
      I like yours too. It sounds like a really inventive way to cure writer's block in an original way. Yeah, try this meme too. Ideas like this surely must keep our creative muscles exercised.

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  7. I just thought of one:

    'All the Light We Cannot See' by Anthony Doerr and 'The Light Between Oceans' by M.L. Stedman (both have light in the title).

    'The Light Between Oceans' and 'Carry Me Home' by Dorothy Adamek (both set on an island).

    'Carry Me Home' and 'The Memory Keeper's Daughter' by Kim Edwards (both have a female character who is intellectually challenged).

    'The Memory Keeper's Daughter' and 'The Secret Keeper' by Kate Morton (both have 'Keeper' in the title).

    'The Secret Keeper' and 'Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet' by Jamie Ford (both are parallel narratives, with the past story set in WWII).

    Thanks for the challenge :)

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    1. Yeah, I love that. Some great titles there too, I may add. It's so interesting, how many things can be brought together through 6 degrees of separation. Always impressed by the concept.

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  8. Sounds like an interesting challenge, Paula, and one you had fun with. Well done. :)

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    1. Hi Adele, it was good fun. Will do more in future.

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  9. Now, if in the spirit of six degrees to Keven Bacon - you not only start but have to end up with a specific famous title in six moves - that could be interesting :)

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    1. Wow, yes, imagine if we were given both the starting and finishing book. That could be a challenge indeed.

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  10. That would certainly make it more challenging! But I do love seeing where everyone's connections take them. I actually cheated and did two lists this month!

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    1. Hi Wendy, yep, I think you've nailed it. Seeing where everyone's train of thought takes them is lots of fun. There are as many threads to follow as there are bloggers.

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