How it works: Kate W chooses the starting book on the first Saturday of the month, then each blogger connects six other books to that starting point using whatever themes or connectors we choose. Easy peasy and it’s always fun to see where everyone ends up.
The starting book this month is True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey, a fictional account of the notorious Australian outlaw told by Ned Kelly himself. Published December 2007
The Australian setting brought to mind a book I just read, The Shadow House by Anna Downes. However, rather than being an outlaw, the protagonist in this novel is a woman looking for a safe place to start over. Published April 2022
Dry: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs is also about starting over. I bought this years ago during my own trek to sobriety – it’s an amazing read. Published June 2003
Another novel that has sobriety (or lack of it) at its core is The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins and features one of my favorite unreliable narrators ever. Published January 2015
A more recent novel with another great unreliable narrator is The Spirit Engineer by A.J. West. However, in this book we go from contemporary issues to immersion in Victorian Spiritualism. Published January 2021
Staying with a Victorian narrator (although this one isn’t alive), I pulled The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton. Add in multiple points of view that loop and backtrack through different time periods to weave together the full story, and this is one of my favorite novels ever. Published October 2018
Wrapping up the list this month is Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett. It features a spectacular omni narrator consisting of the town’s ghost population but brings us back to a contemporary family. Published April 2022
And there you have it. All books I’ve read, covering everything from an Australian outlaw to a New Hampshire family, with quick stops for sobriety and ghost narrators.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this month’s Six Degrees of Separation. If you have your own list, please drop it in the comments. I’d love to see it!
Until next time, thank you for visiting.
Ann Dudzinski 