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ExUrbanis

Urban Leaving to Country Living

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION: Year of Wonders to White Fang

August6

This link-up is hosted by Books Are My Favourite and Best, and was inspired by Hungarian writer and poet Frigyes Karinthy. In his 1929 short story, “Chains”, Karinthy coined the phrase ‘six degrees of separation’. The phrase was popularized by a 1990 play written by John Guare, which was later made into a film starring Stockard Channing.

On the first Saturday of every month, Kate chooses a book as a starting point and links that book to six others forming a chain. Bloggers and readers are invited to join in and the beauty of this mini-challenge is that I can decide how and why I make the links in my chain.

Six Degrees of Separation Year of Wonders Aug2016 photo 2016-8 Year of Wonders_zpsg1amj8kk.jpg

August’s starting book is Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. You no doubt know that this is a story of the plague in the year 1666. When one village receives an infected bolt of cloth from Europe, they decide to isolate themselves from the world in order to prevent the spread of plague to their neighbours. Year of Wonders is perhaps Brooks’ best known book, but the book the won her the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is

1. March in which she imagines the Civil War experiences of Marmee’s husband, and the March sisters’ (Meg, Jo, Beth & Amy) father. It is a stunning story, and I believe that Brooks based the character loosely on Amos Bronson Alcott, father of real-life author Louisa May who wrote

2. Little Women (Kindle edition free on Amazon). I’m certain this link did not surprise you. This classic story of one year in the lives of the March sisters of New England during the American Civil War justly holds its place of honour in American literary tradition. We likely all know that the character of Jo March was the author’s alter-ego.

3. In The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, the only book in this chain that I have not read, the author Kelly O’Connor McNees, mixes fact and fiction to return to the summer of 1855 when Louisa was twenty-two. The cover promises that it is “a richly imagined, remarkably written story of the woman who created [Little Women]”.

4. From the LOST summer, we move a link to LAst Summer in Louisburg by Claire Mowat. The fortress of Louisburg is on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada. It’s been partially rebuilt and is a National Historic Site which employs scores of young people every summer to act in character throughout the fort. This book is a novel for young teens and centres on fifteen-year-old Andrea Baxter who obtains just such a summer job working in the fort.

Claire Mowat was the wife of Farley Mowat, famed Canadian author, who left a prodigious oeuvre of non-fiction books about Canada, its people, its wildlife, and its geography. He is perhaps best known for The Boat Who Wouldn’t Float and

5. Never Cry Wolf. This book is based on naturalist Mowat’s work for the Canadian government’s Wildlife Service which in the 1950s sent him north to assess the slaughter of caribou by wolves. Mowat is dropped alone onto the frozen tundra, where he begins his mission to live among the howling wolf packs and study their ways.

Never Cry Wolf should be required reading in every secondary school in Canada, and perhaps the US. It was made into a movie starring Charles Martin Smith and Brian Dennehy in 1983.

The cover on this reissue of Never Cry Wolf is a crime and I wonder how people in publishing who have never read a book are allowed to choose a cover. Nonetheless, the cover leads me to my last link:

6. White Fang (free Kindle edition on Amazon), a classic novel by Jack London first published in 1906. It takes place in the Yukon Territories and Northwest Territories of Canada during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush. White Fang, whose mother was half-wolf, is a fighting dog (hence the cover) who inherits a new owner who domesticates him.

So that’s my chain of six degrees: from a seventeenth century English village to nineteenth century Arctic Canada in six links. What do you think?

Why not visit Kate’s blog and see how she made the final connection to The Muse?
 

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

12 Comments to

“SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION: Year of Wonders to White Fang”

  1. On August 6th, 2016 at 12:33 pm Margaret @ BooksPlease Says:

    I like this idea and may have a go too. I have A Year of Wonders, but not read it yet, but I have read March (loved it) and Little Women (loved it as a child and re-read it many times). The only other book in your chain I’ve read is White Fang.

    I don’t want to repeat your first two links and will have to see what I can come up with. I’m sure I’ll find something and will end up with a different chain.

  2. On August 6th, 2016 at 1:41 pm Debbie Says:

    I’m so glad you enjoy this idea, Margaret, and I would love to see what would be in your chain! It fascinates me how they are all so very different.

  3. On August 6th, 2016 at 7:24 pm Lisa Says:

    This is fun!

  4. On August 6th, 2016 at 7:55 pm Debbie Says:

    I agree, Lisa – I think this is my favourite link-up!

  5. On August 8th, 2016 at 9:30 am Margaret @ BooksPlease Says:

    I’ve now made a chain – from Year of Wonders to Blood Harvest (by Sharon Bolton) – http://www.booksplease.org/2016/08/08/six-degrees-of-separation-year-of-wonders-to-blood-harvest/

  6. On August 8th, 2016 at 11:02 am Debbie Says:

    Brilliant links, Margaret!

  7. On August 8th, 2016 at 10:10 pm Lisa Hill Says:

    Thanks for co-hosting this, I like your choices, especially since they bring a reminder of reading Jack London when I was a teenager. How I loved that book!

  8. On August 9th, 2016 at 4:23 pm Debbie Says:

    I can’t take the credit for co-hosting, Lisa but I’m really glad you liked my book choices. I was first introduced to White Fang in my early teens too. Some books make a life-long impact!

  9. On August 9th, 2016 at 9:59 pm Kate @ booksaremyfavouriteandbest Says:

    I only read March last year (late to the party!) and thought it was exceptionally good historical fiction – Brooks is meticulous when it comes to creating a sense of place and time and I found March completely immersive. I really should read Little Women again because I think that after March, it would be a new reading experience.

    Thanks again for joining in.

  10. On August 10th, 2016 at 9:12 am Debbie Says:

    Kate, I’m glad to hear that you thought March exceptionally good. So many people have said that they just don’t want their experience of reading Little Women to change, and choose not to read March. And it does change that. 🙂 Seems a shame not to expand horizons.

  11. On August 22nd, 2016 at 10:31 pm Christy (A Good Stopping Point) Says:

    I’ve actually read three of these: Year of Wonders, Never Cry Wolf, and White Fang. I loved reading Call of the Wild and White Fang as a child. I liked the adventure. Still enjoyed reading it as an adult, though of course I noticed more about the story and London’s ideas at that point. The Last Summer at Louisburg sounds interesting. I’ve been to Cape Breton but we decided to use our time in other parts than Louisburg, so I haven’t visited.

  12. On August 23rd, 2016 at 10:13 am Debbie Says:

    The Last Summer at Louisburg is definitely a book for young teens, Christy, although it’s not a formulaic romance. We live in Nova Scotia but have not been to Louisburg either. It really should be a must-visit for us.

    Welcome to Exurbanis!

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