Six Degrees of Separation – from Time Shelter to Memory Man

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 Time Shelter by Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov and translated by Angela Rodel. According to the Guardian, “A mysterious therapist, Gaustine, founds a clinic that treats patients with Alzheimer's by recreating the pasts in which they felt most secure.”

First Degree

Gospodinov’s premise is intriguing but not enough to make me want to read it so I went with time instead. Time at the Top by Edward Ormondroyd (1963) is one of my favorite juvenile time travel novels, featuring Susan whose apartment building elevator takes her back to the 19th century. If you have Kindle Unlimited, please download and read it.

Second Degree

You're the top!
You're the Coliseum
You're the top!
You're the Louvre Museum

My next is The Children on the Top Floor by Noel Streatfeild (1964), which is not as well-known as her Shoes books. It’s about four babies left on the doorstep of a television personality on Christmas morning after he mendaciously tells his audience that he envies them the patter of little feet opening their stockings.

Third Degree

My next link is children.  Where Are The Children? was the first book by Mary Higgins Clark (1975) and established a formula of romantic suspense – a sympathetic heroine in jeopardy for whom things get worse before they inevitably get better. My sister Andrea read one recently and complained to me that it was extremely weak. Yes, Clark was often too predictable but I enjoy her creativity and some of her characters were memorable.

Fourth Degree

The adverb where is my next link, leading me to Where Memories Lie by Deborah Crombie (2008). This is the twelfth book in the Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James series and scored a perfect 5 when I read it in 2014. In this installment, Gemma’s kind neighbor, Dr. Erika Rosenthal, asks for help learning how a brooch stolen from her during WWII has appeared at an auction. It was clear Erika had a fascinating/disturbing history and I like that her friendship with Gemma enabled her story to be told.  The most recent book in this series is part of my 20 Books of Summer.

Fifth Degree

I used to enjoy Elizabeth George’s books but when she killed off a prominent character, just as the woman was finally happy, I decided I’d had enough. I just listened to George’s explanation that the story arc needed upheaval but I am unconvinced. She thinks people were upset because she skillfully wrote it to create emotion but I was angry because that character had already gone through a lot of suffering and insecurity (and the readers had suffered through it with her). However, they're her characters and she is free to kill them all, just as I am free to stop reading her books.  A Traitor to Memory (2001) takes place several books before that fateful killing.

Sixth Degree

As you can see, my last two links are memory. In David Baldacci’s Memory Man (2015), Amos Decker is a detective who has a perfect memory because of a brain injury suffered when he played in the NFL. There is no denying this attribute is useful in detecting; however, his tragedy is that he cannot forget the murder of his wife and daughter, although over the seven books, he makes friends and becomes slightly less miserable.  I like this series, which is full of quirky characters.

I was able to link Time Shelter, which tries to recreate the past with Memory Man, in which the protagonist can’t forget it, with stops in New York, London, Cape Cod, and Ohio, if I recall correctly. Have you read any of these? Did you play #6Degrees this month? Next month (August 5, 2023), Kate says we will start with Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld, which I already have on reserve at the library.