Six Degrees of Separation – from Sandwich to The Hippopotamus Marsh

Somehow I've just discovered this bookish meme, Six Degrees of Separation, which has been ongoing since 2014! The idea is that the host (Kate at booksaremyfavoriteandbest) selects a book on the first Saturday of each month, and then readers make a chain of six more books that are linked in some way. You can then link it up at her blog. She says:

Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge.

A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the ones next to them in the chain.

This sounded fun, and I looked at a few of the other participants to get an idea of how they do it. Lots of interesting thematic, personal or quirky links, with people ending up with very different books as their final choice.  

This month the initial prompt was Sandwich by Catherine Newman. So here is my chain! 

Sandwich by Catherine Newman is about Rocky, a woman in her 50s who travels to the same summer cottage in Cape Cod every year - this summer it's a whole whack of family in the small cottage and Rocky is thinking about life.

The Wedding People by Alison Espach: this novel also features a middle aged woman in a bit of a life crisis, finding herself in a place by the sea - this time in a luxury hotel among strangers, rather than a cottage with lots of family, but the sense of discovery of self is similar. 

This then made me think of This Summer Will Be Different by Carly Fortune. In this one a younger woman at the start of her life has to make a key romantic decision. Set in Prince Edward Island, near the sea, at a family home that the main character returns to again and again. 

One of the elements of Fortune's book is an homage to Lucy Maud Montgomery, PEI's best known author. So thanks to the evocation of PEI and the Anne industry there, I'm going with Anne of Green Gables as my third link! 

The inspiration writers find from Anne Shirley and LMM's writing makes me think of a biography I recently came across, Anne’s Cradle: The Life of Hanako Muraoka, by Eri Muraoka, about the Japanese translator of Anne of Green Gables. It tells the story of her life and looks at how her translation created the LMM craze in Japan that's still going strong.

The Japanese focus of  Anne's Cradle, plus Anne's well known friendship with Diana, and their storytelling/writing adventures, makes me think of a recent Japanese book, Mina's Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa. In this one the narrator Tomoko and her cousin Mina become bosom friends when Tomoko is sent to live with her aunt's family for a year, in Ashiya, on the coast. And Mina writes a lot of tiny stories to share only with Tomoko.

And finally that brings me to book 6, Pauline Gedge's The Hippopotamus Marsh. In Mina's Matchbox, the main character owns a pygmy hippo, Pochiko, who she rides to school - as seen on the cover. Gedge's book in the first in an excellent series about Egyptian dynastic wars and history. But it has hippos in the title! 

From Cape Cod to Egypt, via PEI and Japan, this chain has taken us on quite a journey :) 

In a Summer Season

In a Summer Season / Elizabeth Taylor
London: Virago, 2006, c1961.
224 p.

Another novel about marriage, but this one is a bit different from the more modern ones I've read lately. This was published in 1961, in England, and it does reflect the social expectations of that time, and how these characters are upsetting the equilibrium. 

Kate Heron is a widow, and ends up marrying a man who is the opposite of her former husband - ten years younger than her, serially unemployed, not very interested in the arts and literature, but very physically compelling. 

Dermot is about halfway between the age of Kate and her oldest son, Tom. And sometimes Dermot seems more attuned to Kate, and at others more so to Tom's generation, especially with music, drinking and the horses. He's always on to some scheme to make money; as the book opens he's trying to grow mushrooms in the shed. And his mother is also continuously trying to involve him in schemes of her own, to the benefit of her friends. This mother is something; so self-absorbed, so entitled. Kate has to run interference and try to be the grownup, as it's her money that would be used by any of these schemes. 

There are happy times between them, even if the neighbours and the countryside are scandalized by this strange relationship, especially those who knew her first husband. They believe that Dermot has only married her for her money but within the book we see Dermot acknowledging that he is really in love with her and that has made him into more of a man. Still, his resentment at not having work, and his drinking habit, combine to make him unhappy and rude a lot of the time. 

As his drinking gets worse, their relationship struggles - but of course they try to hide that from everyone else. But when Kate's old friend Charles returns home, now widowed, with his late teen daughter, things begin to really go off the rails. 

I found this book to be a quiet, sad read. The hopes of each person as to what they wanted to be, and how they wanted their lives to work, were never based in honest appraisal of reality. There was so much stagnant energy in so many of the characters - Dermot, Kate's two children, Charles' daughter - lots of them unable to stir or accomplish anything. Lots of doomed love affairs and misplaced longings too. 

And Taylor can be quite piercing when it comes to relationships, especially romantic ones, and the lies a person is comfortable with - or the truths they understand but won't admit to anyone, even themselves. You could see the fallout of this one from the start, although I did find the actual conclusion a bit startling and unexpected in the details. In some ways this feels like a book from the 60s but some elements also feel contemporary. It was a train wreck of a read; once I'd begun I really had to finish it to see where she was going with it. I won't forget it quickly. 

The Wedding People

 

The Wedding People / Alison Espach
NY: Henry Holt, c2024
384 p.

This novel was a pick for the Read with Jenna book club, and has just this week won the Goodreads Reader's Choice for Fiction award. So it's pretty popular and widely read. I don't often read these books, as I feel like I've already read them, just from all the talk. But this one sounded interesting from what everyone was saying about it, and I was kind of in the mood for a read like this. I'm glad I gave it a try, because I found it pretty good, with humour and pathos and good characters all blending into a very readable story. 

The plot is seemingly straightforward: middle-aged academic Phoebe Stone is divorced and one day she shows up at a fancy hotel in Newport, Rhode Island - one which she's always wanted to stay at - and finds that she is the only guest that is not part of the destination wedding taking over the place. But as she's dressed in a fancy green dress (long story) she is taken for another guest. Before the facts are cleared up, she meets the bride to be, the much younger (and richer) Lila. Their relationship is a quick build, and it's really funny and touching. Lila is a bit controlling and doesn't want anything to ruin her wedding week. Phoebe's plans for the week do not mix well with Lila's. Their unexpected conversations and the way they reveal themselves to one another drew me in quickly - their interactions are strong and lively and feel so real. 

Phoebe gets drawn into the chaos of the wedding week plans, even becoming the Maid of Honour once the original can't make it. It's crazy, but you just go with it. She also meets the groom, before she realizes that's who he is, which is another element of this story. 

It's an interesting mix of heart-rending, funny and predictable, all at the same time. It doesn't veer into maudlin, though. Somehow this story avoids that easy trap, and is fresh and engaging even with some of the more obvious plot points. I did find the frank talk about sex a bit over the top at times, with some explicit language, and seemingly every character (except the child one) really focused on their sex life a lot of the time. 

But the narrative goes into loss, marriage, love, personal responsibility for your own life, friendship, life choices, aging, and so much more. And the characters really sell this one for me. I found the opening and the first half quick reading, with a bit of a drag in the middle as the week carries on, then it picks up again as the story and the competing desires of all the characters come to a head. I liked the ending and the possibilities it offered to many of the characters. This was overall a satisfying read, and I'm glad I gave it a go, finishing just in time to vote for it on Goodreads ;) 

The Perfect Passion Company

 

The Perfect Passion Company / Alexander McCall Smith
New York : Vintage Books, 2024, ©2023
385 p.

I used to read all of Alexander McCall Smith's books, in each of his 3 main series, and then the little extras he'd publish -- but at some point I got overwhelmed by the volume of his output, and then lost track of where I was in a series and just gave it all up. 

I have still read a few of his standalone novels over the past few years; some I really enjoyed and some were just meh. But when The Perfect Passion Company came into my library recently, I decided I was in the mood for a lighter read and gave it a try. 

I found this standalone delightful. I enjoy his book which are set in Scotland; this one takes place in Edinburgh, where Katie Donald has just returned home from London to take over her aunt's matchmaking business, while her aunt takes an adult gap year. 

Katie has a bit of training from her aunt, not a lot, and also some help from the handsome William, an Australian who has his knitwear design office next to hers. He's a lovely man both in appearance and in personality, and Katie has to keep firmly telling herself that he is engaged. 

The novel is in three sections, as it was originally published as two e-shorts. But with the final bit, the sections meld perfectly here into a cohesive novel. Katie encounters some unusual clients, finds out that people don't always tell the whole truth to an agency, makes some successful matches, meets all sorts of unusual people, and eventually meets William's Australian fiancée when she makes a flying visit to Edinburgh. There is light intrigue, amusing incidents, some hints of romance and of course the wonderful setting itself. Really entertaining. 

Meanwhile Katie's aunt heads off to Canada for her gap year. That was a surprise - I wasn't expecting Canadian content here! I don't quite understand the appeal of leaving Edinburgh for a tiny lake town north of Kingston, but that's where she ends up, enjoying being alone, quiet and unknown. At least for a little while, until she gets involved in the lives of the single men around her. These Canadian scenes were amusing, to a Canadian reader at least! It added another layer to my experience of this book. 

I'm glad I ended up giving one of his books a try again, as this was just the light but touching reading I needed! 

Heart on my Sleeve

It's already a week into December, and so that means that I'll have to speed up and share some of my outstanding reviews for the year! I have a few books that I've read in the last while and have been meaning to talk about. So there's going to be a batch of random reads shared for the next week or two ;) I'll start with this fashion memoir by a beloved Canadian icon, Jeanne Beker -- both an entertaining and thoughtful book that is just the right topic and the right size to make a great holiday gift for any fashionistas you might know. This review was first shared at my sewing blog, and I hope you'll enjoy it here too. 

Heart on my Sleeve / Jeanne Beker
TO: Simon & Schuster, c2024. 
256 p.

This memoir by Canadian fashion icon Jeanne Beker was a delight. Unlike a traditional memoir, this is structured as a walk through memory, tied to specific pieces of clothing. It highlights how something we wear can carry history and family with it, beyond just being a piece of clothing or an accessory. I really liked this concept and the way it was carried out. She shares an item from her closet, then talks about how/where she got it and the resonances of the piece. Each chapter has a line drawing to illustrate the item, drawn by her own artist daughter. And this book sounds just like she's talking to you - the style is intimate and authentic, highlighting both the glamorous parts of her career and her personal challenges. 

I've read her earlier memoirs (such as Finding Myself in Fashion), and some of the stories here are repeated from those earlier books, but still just as enjoyable. The chapters are short, but cover a range of life moments. From the satchel her parents brought with them when they immigrated to Canada as Holocaust survivors, containing the small amount of family items they still had, to a Chanel dress given to her by Karl Lagerfeld, this book moves from touching and serious to funny & fashion-related. The pace is good and the book shares so many elements of her life, from the personal (her parents, partners and children), to the many famous fashion people she met and befriended in her many years of hosting FashionTelevision. 

There are some great moments included, from the unexpected generosity of Karl Lagerfeld (one of my favourite stories from past books too) to her interviews with fashion greats or music luminaries like Paul McCartney, Keith Richards and more (she worked on MuchMusic before fashion). I really enjoyed the way she started with her wardrobe and let each piece draw out recollections - we all have the experience of knowing just when and where we wore something, and what the meaning of it was to us; some pieces that we've kept forever because of those memories, and some that we could never wear again. 

This covers fashion history, Canadian history (a fun story about Pierre Trudeau, for example), family stories, and traces the development of Canadian media in a way, too. I thought it was a great read, and one I'd recommend to anyone interested in fashion or Canadian women's lives - especially if you were a fan of FashionTelevision in the old days like me ;) 

(review first appeared in slightly different form at FollowingTheThread)

Winterkill

 

Winterkill / Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
NY: Scholastic, c2022.
266 p.

The last book I've read this week focusing on Ukraine and the Holodomor is Winterkill by Marsha Skrypuch. She is a well known author of middle grade fiction, who has written on many Ukrainian topics, as well as on some other historical tragedies such as the Armenian genocide. She balances hard stories with a writing style that is aimed at the younger reader, sharing difficult facts in an accessible way. 

This book focuses on the Chorny family, living in Ukraine in early 1930. There are collectivization efforts going on all around them, aiming at having all successful farmers give their land to the state and work the fields for the state (and as it turns out, not being paid or fed for the pleasure). We meet Nyl, a 12 yr old boy with two younger siblings, Slavko and Yulia. As the story opens, he finds two Canadians in his mother's kitchen, inventorying the farm's possessions for the Party. These are people of Ukrainian descent from Canada who decided that the Soviet plan was utopia so left Canada to return to Ukraine and work for Stalin's regime. One of them is Comrade Alice, a girl of Nyl's age, whom he tries to talk to normally. This encounter has long term repercussions for Nyl. 

There are many harsh moments in this story; violence, murder, starvation, death, cruelty. And they are told clearly, but without gratuitous detail. Skrypuch is able to express historical fact with compelling storytelling, at the right level for this audience. Nyl's family breaks down throughout the book, starting with his uncle who is murdered by a Party official. His sister betrays the family, his parents both slowly perish, and he takes his younger brother with him when he escapes his village of Felivka, heading for the larger town of Kharkiv and the possibility of some work (and food) at the tractor factory being built there. 

In Kharkiv, they meet up with Comrade Alice again, by this time quite disillusioned and trying to find a way to get home to Canada, taking photographic evidence of the terror-famine with her. She and Nyl pair up to try to walk out of the famine region of Ukraine to Moscow where she could flee - Nyl just wanting to go far enough to outwalk the famine, which somehow magically limited itself to the areas where Ukrainian peasants lived. (spoiler: it was Stalin's plan to destroy Ukrainian lives and culture). 

This is a book that just has one awful thing happening after another, but it doesn't feel hopeless. There is hope and grit in both Nyl and Alice, and they make it out. But it's not a sugary ending. There are loose ends, no satisfying justice, just survival. Still, there is a sense that there is a future for Nyl. I found this book fascinating, an absorbing read that I couldn't put down. The element of finding Canadians in it was a shock to me - I hadn't known that Canadian citizens had left Canada during the hard years of the Depression, thinking that the idealized Soviet Union would be a better bet. Bad gamble there. Definitely an informative read, which I also found full of daily detail that anchored the story in its time and setting. 

And one other note, about this cover -- I think it's brilliant, with the girl on the cover mirroring the commemorative statue outside the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide in Kyiv. 

To find out more about this book, you can watch Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch's interview with HREC.

The Photograph

The Photograph / Kat Karpenko
Pennsauken Township, NJ: BookBaby, c2020.
226 p.

I discovered this one online via my library; it's a story that was spurred by a family photo belonging to the author. It was a photo of her grandparents' full family, just before they left Ukraine for Canada in in 1928.

Karpenko has taken that photo, and some family stories, and created a novel that is deeply affecting. It's 1928, and the Karpenko family of Ukraine is feeling the looming pressure of the Stalinist government and its agricultural policies. Collectivization is going on, and any successful farmer is being branded an enemy of the state - their land and equipment should belong to the collective. Nicholai Karpenko sees no future except for more repression and state theft; he decides that his family should escape the Soviet Union and go to Canada. This is harder than it first seems, requiring some tricky planning for an escape. 

Not only that, but he can't convince any of his brothers or sisters to join them. In the end, it's only Nicholai, his wife Juliana and their three children who make their way to Canada, with a stop in Budapest to find the connections they need to leave Europe. The book is loosely arranged in three sections, starting with this emigration storyline. 

It then follows the rest of the family who stayed in Ukraine, over the years of 1929-1931, and then we experience the Holodomor, the terror-famine orchestrated by Stalin, over the years 1932-1933. These sections are historically accurate, and so quite horrific. The famine was severe, with millions of Ukrainians dying of starvation, a situation created by Stalin's policies - excessive grain quotas, restriction of movement of Ukrainian farmers, and genocidal intent. The book doesn't hide the truth, and we have characters suffering and dying. However, the book is written for school age readers, so the narrative style doesn't go into graphic descriptions. But it is clear what is happening. 

The terrible events are counterpointed by the love that this family has for one another, and the ways they try to help each other. Their survival is not assured but they keep on. And the connection with Canada in the end gives a longer view. 

This is hard-hitting but also a family story. It's well done, with a lack of overdone sentimentality, just a dose of reality. But the characters and their relationships make this a compelling read, one that brings forgotten history to life.  

To find out more about this book, you can watch Kat Karpenko's interview with HREC (Holodomor Research and Education Consortium).