First Degree
In recent years, the ultimate lottery book has been The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (2008). Although it is violent, I thought the first in the trilogy was very well done but I did not like the second and third books in the series very much. I remember bringing my then-boyfriend to see the movie and he enjoyed it but said we were the only people in the theatre who weren’t thirteen-year-old girls. I guess it’s lucky he didn’t notice that before we bought the tickets!
Another book about mob rule is A Catch of Consequence by Diana Norman (2002) (I realize I used one of her books last month; she was a very memorable author). This is a great historical novel that begins in Boston near Fanueil Hall/Quincy Market, if you know the area. The prosaic heroine is an innkeeper who rescues a British gentleman from an angry group of Patriots (and not the kind that plays football).
Angry crowds reminded me of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1859), the only one of his books I really like, in which a mob storms the Bastille. I read this in tenth grade English.
I’ve already used The Scarlet Pimpernel (November 2019) which is my favorite book about the French Revolution so for my fourth book I will use Lauren Willig’s The Secret History of the Pink Carnation (2004), a dual timeline novel in which the present-day heroine years for a Scarlet Pimpernel hero – and who can blame her? It was entertaining but too implausible for me to continue with the series, although I have enjoyed some of her other books.
Staying with this period of French History, my fifth book is Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly (2010), a YA dual timeline story about a present-day teen who goes to Paris with her father in search of the Lost Dauphin, the son of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. This book got good reviews but I recall it being somewhat depressing.
My final book is Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama (1989): “Instead of a dying Old Regime, Schama presents an ebullient country, vital & inventive, infatuated with novelty & technology.” When I was observing the January 6th riot on Capitol Hill on television and on social media, I noticed that preeminent historian Simon Schama, an expert on Revolutionaries, was tweeting away as he watched, which was quite surreal. I wish I had taken a class with him when we briefly overlapped in Cambridge but back then I was focused on the 16th century. Now he is teaching at Columbia.
Have you read any of these? Did you play #6Degrees this month? You should!
Next month (November 6, 2021), Kate says we’ll start with Sigrid Nunez’s What Are You Going Through, which was an NPR Best Book of 2020.
7 comments:
awesome links! I'm going to have a look at Citizens.
I have read Mantel's trilogy, but not this one yet.
My quirky chain is here: https://wordsandpeace.com/2021/10/02/six-degrees-of-separation-from-lottery-to-tides/
What a fascinating set of links — you've certainly added to my wishlist. I love seeing A Tale of Two Cities, we don't often see Dickens pop up in these chains.
And Schama, I love his stuff. Have you read Landscape and Memory? It's brilliant.
I haven't read Hunger Games, but I thought someone would connect it to the Lottery, and so you did! Great chain!
I haven't read any of those ones but I have read A Place of Greater Safety - it's really good.
I really want to get back to doing Six Degrees, I hope I can do that soon.
I like your choices. I haven't read any historical fiction by Diana Norman, except for her books as Ariana Franklin.
I missed this month's #6Degrees, but I enjoyed your chain a lot. Agree with your assessment on the Hunger Games series -- I liked the first book (and movie) way better than the rest. I also like Scarlet Pimpernel a lot, though I have been hesitant about starting Pink Carnation series. And A Place of Greater Safety has long been on my TBR, ever since I first read Wolf Hall, and there it sits because it really is a door-stopper!
I always love reading 6 Degree posts although I haven't done one myself.
Nice progression! I've read Tale of Two Cities (first time just a few years ago) and loved it. Read one of the books in the Pink Carnation series but it annoyed me and I did try any others. Absolutely loved Citizens, which I read probably a good 20 years ago before a business trip that took me to Paris. I really want to reread it.
Lottery is an excellent short story--very chilling--and I quite enjoyed both the movie and book of Hunger Games, but never bothered with the rest of the series. We went to Hunger Games on a family spring break trip to Washington D.C. because the kids (teens at the time) all really wanted to see it when it came out, so we did.
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