Six Degrees of Separation – from I Capture the Castle to White House Autumn

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 I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (1948) which I read for the first time twenty-six years ago and have already used in a #6degrees. It’s about two sisters who live with their eccentric father and stepmother in a decrepit castle. They spend most of their time trying to improve their finances but yearn for excitement. 

Surely anyone who has read this book remembers the first sentence: “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. . . .”

Some Autumn Favorites

The weather is suddenly cooler, blankets are back on our beds, and I am thinking of books about Autumn:

Autumn Term by Antonia Forest (1948). Twins Nicola and Lawrie are heading to Kingscote School, determined to be as impressive as their elder sisters, but things start badly on the train when Nicola pulls the emergency cord and never seem to recover . . .

Six Degrees of Separation: From The Road to 84 Charing Cross Road

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where one ends up.   This month’s starting point is The Road by Cormac McCarthy: “his most harrowing yet deeply personal work. Some unnamed catastrophe has scourged the world to a burnt-out cinder, inhabited by the last remnants of mankind and a very few surviving dogs and fungi” (author website).   I have read at least one book by McCarthy but this sounded way too much like real life!

My first book involves more cheerful roads: The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum (1909).  In this fifth Oz book, Dorothy and Toto (back in Kansas) meet the Shaggy Man, who asks them to point out the road to Butterfield.  When the road splits into seven different paths, they take the seventh and have various adventures before arriving in Oz.  Of course, nowadays Aunt Em would be very concerned about Dorothy talking to a stranger who looks like a tramp, let alone heading off into the sunset with him!  My great-grandfather read the first fourteen Oz books to his children and I believe our copy of this book was the first edition.