#6Degrees May 2017

#6degrees is a monthly meme hosted by Kate @Books Are My Favourite and Best.

Oftentimes I haven't read the starting book for this meme, but I can assure you that I only play the next 6 books with ones I have actually read. 

If I've read the book during this blogging life, then I include my review link, otherwise, you just have to take my word for it!

This month the starting book is The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas.

Are you game?

Old image alert - Kate @Books Are My Favourite & Best now hosts #6Degrees but this is a good refresh of the rules.

I have tried to read The Slap several times, but simply cannot get past the first page.
Lots of people have highly recommended this book to me, but I just can't do it.
I couldn't even watch the TV series.

I have the same problem with The Light Between Oceans.
I can't get past the first page and I have no intention of seeing the movie.

I could probably fill a whole #6degrees with books that I can't read past the first page, however, that would be a tad boring. So, instead I will link to a lighthouse.

One of my favourite children's picture books is The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch by Ronda & David Armitage. Ronda was born and raised in New Zealand while David grew up in Tasmania. However, the were living in the UK when they wrote/illustrated the book together.
Debate still rages over which lighthouse they were referencing!

There are cheeky, talking seagulls, a hungry lighthouse keeper and a scaredy cat, called Hamish.
Which leads me beautifully to my favourite and best (see what I did there?) Hamish of all time.

Hamish Macbeth *big sigh & girly swoon*

I was a huge and avid fan of the BBC TV series set in the fictional town of Lochdubh.
But I had no idea at the time, that it was based on a series of books by M C Beaton.
I read the first book (in a series of 29!) called Death of a Gossip a few years ago.

Another Scottish gem with a bit more literary cred (shortlisted for last year's Man Booker) was His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet.

Set in the Scottish Highlands, this psychological thriller claimed to be a true story about Burnet's ancestor, Roderick Macrae. But it wasn't.
It was highly entertaining and fiendishly good fiction dressed up as fact.

Which leads me back to Australia and our famous 'is this true or not?' story, Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay. I was devastated when I discovered that the story was pure fiction.

Joan Lindsay was an interesting character - she believed that clocks and other machinery would stop in her presence & she apparently dreamt most of the story about Picnic at Hanging Rock. Her parents were friends with Martin Boyd, she studied painting under Frederick McCubbin and married Norman Lindsay's brother, Daryl.

I hope to find out lots more when I dive into Beyond the Rock by Janelle McCulloch.

My chain went from a modern Aussie backyard BBQ, to lighthouses, the Scottish Highlands and back to the Australia bush circa 1900.

Where did your chain take you?

Next month (June 3, 2017), the chain will begin with Steve Martin’s Shopgirl.