Six Degrees of Separation: Pride and Prejudice to Digging to America

Published on by Margaret

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Each month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.

This month’s chain begins with the universally loved classic, Pride and  Prejudice, by Jane Austen.

Pride and Prejudice

This is a long time favourite of mine, a book I first read when I was about 12 after seeing a BBC adaption. It’s full of wit and humour and timeless characters – foolish people, flirts, bores, snobs, self-centred and dishonest people as well as ‘good’ people like Jane Bennet, who is determined to see good in everyone. Since then I’ve read all of Jane Austen’s books, apart from her Juvenilia books.

17th July was the 200th anniversary of her death and my first book in the chain is a book published to mark that anniversary. It’s a book I’m currently reading: Jane Austen at Home: a Biography by Lucy Worsley.  it focuses on her family and the places she lived during her short life. It really is a fascinating book for Jane Austen fans.

Jane Austen at Home

This leads nicely onto the second book in my chain – another biography of a favourite author, seen through the places she lived. It’s Agatha Christie at Home by Hilary Macaskill, an overview of Agatha Christie’s life followed by descriptions of the houses and countryside she loved ‘“ from Ashfield in Torquay her first home, where she was born and brought up, to Greenway, a Georgian mansion above the River Dart, now owned by the National Trust.  A beautiful book, with many photographs.

Agatha Christie at Home

Next a book also by a Hilary, Ink in the Blood: a Hospital Diary by Hilary Mantel, a short memoir which she wrote during the summer after she won the Man Booker Prize for Wolf Hall, when she was very ill. She had a marathon operation, followed by intense pain, nightmares and hallucinations. Illness she found knocks down our defences, revealing things we should never see, needing moment by moment concentration on breathing, on not being sick and being dependent on others for your well-being.

Ink In The Blood: A Hospital Diary

Blood provides the next link – The Blood Detective by Dan Waddell, crime fiction that absolutely grabbed me apart from the ending. It’s the sort of story that if I was watching it on TV I’d have to peep at through my fingers or even cover my eyes completely until the grisly bits were over. There are bits of graphic violence earlier in the book, which I could just about cope with, but the grisly stuff at the end was a step too far for me. It’s not just crime fiction though as DCI Grant Foster enlists the help of genealogist Nigel Barnes to track down the killer helping to solve the murders using family history.

The Blood Detective (Nigel Barnes #1)

Also crime fiction – and also a bit grisly is The Legacy by Yrsa Sigurdardottir, the first in the Children’s House thriller series. I loved it and once I started reading I just didn’t want to put it down, even though there are some particularly dark and nasty murder scenes, which would normally guarantee that I’d stop reading. It’s dark, mysterious and very cleverly plotted, full of tension and nerve-wracking suspense about three children, two brothers and their little sister who were adopted.

And so to the last book in my chain, Digging to America by Anne Tyler, also about adopted children. It  captivated me right from the start, with the description of two contrasting families waiting at Baltimore Airport for the arrival of two Korean babies they have adopted. The story develops as the two girls, Jo-Hin and Susan (originally Sooki) are integrated into their families ‘“ one American, the Donaldsons, outgoing and confident and the other the Yazdans, American/Iranian, reserved and restrained.

Digging to AmericaI never know when I begin a chain where it will lead. This one has gone from 18th century England to 20th century America, via Iceland, and passing through biographies, a memoir, and crime fiction. ‘Family’ is a theme in all the books in one way or another and adopted children feature in three of them – in Jane Austen’s own family one of her brothers was ‘adopted’ by a wealthy relation and another went to live with another family because of his epilepsy.

Quite surprising, really. I wonder where other chains will go?

21 thoughts on “Six Degrees of Separation: Pride and Prejudice to Digging to America”

    1. Kate, I’m not a massive Anne Tyler fan, but like you I did enjoy Digging to America, even though when I first heard about I just didn’t like the sound of it.

      Like

    1. Brona, Mantel is a favourite author – I’ve enjoyed all of her books that I’ve read, especially Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies.

      Like

  4. Like you, I never know where a chain like this will take me – it’s funny what twists and turns the semi-conscious can take. I rather like the sound of the two writers at home books, especially if they have beautiful photographs.

    Like

    1. Marina, I do enjoy making the chains – this one really surprised me, ending with Digging To America, which I read about 10 years ago (amazed that I remembered it’s about adoption).

      Like

  7. Ah, some very tempting books here – both the Austen and Christie At Home books look great. Fortunately I’ve read P&P, of course, and the Yrsa Sigurdardottir, which I loved – I wonder if book 2 is on the way yet…

    Like

    1. This time I’ve read all the books in my chain – well, I’ve read about half of the Jane Austen biography! And I’ve also read Wild Swans, the start of next month’s chain!!

      I’m looking forward to Yrsa Sigurdardottir’s 2nd book – The Reckoning, out next March.

      Like

  8. Welcome back! I loved this particular chain, and you’ve inspired me to read Jane Austen at Home. I haven’t read anything by or about Austen yet this year, and have been wondering what to do about that! Agatha Christie at Home also sounds good. I think I might like Digging to America also–I like the premise anyway.

    Like

  9. I like the sound of both Hilary Mantel’s book about being ill, and Digging to America – does the whole nurture/nature idea reveal itself in the story of the two brothers growing up in different families?

    Like

  10. This chain idea for a post is clever. I like the sound of the Digging to America book and a couple of the others; I enjoy biographies and memoirs.

    Like

  11. What an interesting group of books,Margaret. I like this chain very much. Glad to see The Legacy here, and the Hilary Mantel looks powerful.

    Like

  12. An amazing chain, Margaret. When I read in AC’s autibiography that Ashfield had been torn down and a housing estate put in its place I actually felt rather bereft. *Imagine* what a tourist draw that would be if it were still there! I must get to Greenway one of these days too, it’s not as though it’s all that far.

    Like

  14. My first encounter with Pride and Prejudice was via a stage version. They must’ve been concerned about the cost of hiring the actors because the Bennetts only had three daughters. I remember when I then came to read the book being really indignant that Jane Austen hadn’t done her research properly and seemed to think that there were five!

    Like

Comments are closed.