Six Degrees of Separation – from Beach Read to Winter Cottage

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up. This month’s starting point is Beach Read by Emily Henry. I haven’t read that but I did recently finish Book Lovers by the same author.  

First Degree

Book Lovers is about an unlikely couple, an editor and a book agent, whose love of books (and propinquity) brings them together in an offbeat location. My link is people in an unusual place who value books, which led me to Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (2003). This memoir describes a small literature discussion group Nafisi held in her home while teaching at the University of Tehran and the resulting conversations. In 1981, she was expelled from the University for refusing to wear the mandatory Islamic veil. This was a great book group read some years ago.

Second Degree

Well, I wasn't going to pick Nabokov so although Tehran and Taran are not exactly homonyms my next book is Taran Wanderer (1967), fourth in the Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander. Prydain is a fictional country inspired by Welsh mythology and folklore, and I read and reread these books from age 10 to about 14. I met Alexander once at a book signing at Books of Wonder in New York, and it was amazing how much he resembled one of his beloved fictional characters, bard Fflewddur Fflam.

Third Degree

This link is fantasy. Another Shore by Nancy Bond (1976) is a favorite of mine, in which seventeen-year-old Lyn, working in a reconstructed colonial settlement at Canada’s Fort Louisbourg, suddenly finds herself transported back to 1744, when the French inhabitants are at war with England.

Fourth Degree

From the shores of Nova Scotia to the those in South Dakota, my fourth link is By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1939). I loved these books about Laura and her pioneer family, although this time of year I more frequently think about the next book in the series:

Fifth Degree

The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1940). Can anyone who read this book ever forget how Almanzo Wilder and Gap Garland risked their lives to bring 60 bushels of wheat back to the starving town?

Sixth Degree

The 1880-81 winter in DeSmet is a story of survival (and malnutrition) so my final link is a more upbeat winter setting. A family that is down on its luck during the Depression finds temporary shelter in Winter Cottage by Carol Ryrie Brink (1968), and with no other options, they decide to settle in and stay for the Wisconsin winter, optimistically rationalizing that they'll pay "rent" to the unknown owners when they leave in the spring. This book is not as well known as Brink's Caddie Woodlawn but is even more charming. 

Yes, it is summer in Australia where Kate is and winter where I am in Boston, which may have influenced my wanderings from the beach to Iran, Prydain, bleak Nova Scotia (I visited the Fort in July 2014 and was freezing), and then chilly South Dakota and Wisconsin. Next month (February 4, 2023), we’ll start with the book that - by complete coincidence - is my weekend reading, Trust by Hernan Diaz. It is described as “a glorious novel about empires and erasures, husbands and wives, staggering fortunes and unspeakable misery.”

Have you read any of these? Did you play #6Degrees this month?