Six Degrees of Separation – from True History of the Kelly Gang to Crooked Heart

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 Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang, about an Australian bushranger/outlaw.

Five Things

To help meet the demand for flour from obsessed home-bound bakers, this 1,000-year-old English flour mill has resumed commercial production for the first time in decades.  Don’t you love their grit (pun intended)?

Betsy Was a Junior, Group Read, Part 5

Even after Betsy Ray vows to make Okto Delta more serious it was uphill work. The girls’ activities become more and more frivolous, and Winona suggests the boys should either join or start their own group. Carney drives the girls to the St. John game in the Sibley auto, with an Okto Delta pennant fastened to the front. Even with Tib sitting on Winona’s lap, how did they all fit in the car? (I always wondered how the Gilbreths all fit in their car too.) Dreadful moment – when Hazel Smith starts over to join Betsy at the football game, realizes she’d be intruding on the sorority and withdraws. That is an awful feeling, whether you are the inadvertent crasher or someone like Betsy who did not intend to hurt Hazel’s feelings (but made no reparation). And isn’t it typical that all of Deep Valley High knows about the sorority except Joe Willard? Of course, Joe has better things to do, like earn his living, but in a way he is the unwitting cause of the Okto Deltas – had he been dating Betsy instead of Phyllis, suggestible Betsy might have had a more serious junior year.