Saturday, June 3, 2023

Six Degrees of Separation, from Friendaholic to The Martian




Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly meme, now hosted by Kate @ books are my favorite and best.

On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

This month we start from:


0.
Friendaholic
by Elizabeth Day

"As a society, there is a tendency to elevate romantic love. But what about friendships? Aren't they just as – if not more – important? So why is it hard to find the right words to express what these uniquely complex bonds mean to us? In Friendaholic: Confessions of a Friendship Addict, Elizabeth Day embarks on a journey to answer these questions." - Goodreads

I haven't read this book, but the title says it all. The center theme is about friendship, which I picked to build my first chain - a friendship of two men which was developing throughout the years, or throughout the books where they were in together. I'm talking about....




1. The Big Four by Agatha Christie



...Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings. It was when fighting this international intrigued which threatened to control the world, that Poirot and Hastings were in the closest danger of death. In the most crucial hours, we get to see how deep their friendship was.

For my next chain, I used the word Four from the title, and picked another book from Christie with the same number in the title:



2. 4.50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie



It is one of Miss Marple's cases, where she looks into her friend's claim that she witnessed a murder on a train.

Again, I use one word from the last book title: Paddington, for my next chain:



3. A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond



Everyone knows who Paddington is, a fictional animal character who can think and talk like human being.

Another book with animal who can think like human being, and even narrate the book from its point of view is:



4. The Black Beauty by Anne Sewell



"Black Beauty's story, as told by himself, is the fascinating tale of the life of a horse a hundred years ago, when horses were a part of daily life." - Amazon

Another book with a horse in the story as well as in the title, would be my next chain:



5. All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy


Before finding this book in online second hand bookstore, I didn't know that this book has been adapted into movie starring Matt Damon! Have you watched it?

And so, for my last chain, here is another book from my TBR with Matt Damon starring in the movie adaptation, and also appears in the cover:



6. The Martian by Andy Weir



"A meticulously researched, briskly paced and surprisingly funny story about an astronaut left behind on Mars, presumed dead, who must now figure out how to survive and let the folks back on Earth know he is alive and needs rescue." - a Goodreads review.

I haven't read this, because this is a rare condition where I have watched the movie first before reading the book. Serious question: is it worth reading?



There, another fun chain to build. It begins with a book which provides many possibilities to create lovely chains. The one I posted here was my third options, which I found most interesting.

Have you read those books? If you do #sixdegree, how it worked out for you this time?

 

10 comments:

  1. That's a very well done chain, and with so many of my favourite books on it; 4.50 from Paddington; Paddington Bear, and Black Beauty though the last did get me emotional too.

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    1. Thanks, Mallika.
      About Black Beauty, I was actually reminded of this book when reading about the poor horse in Germinal.

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  2. Great chain! I've read 5 out of the 6 books you include. The first two books reminded me, I want to do a full chain of Christie at some point.

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    1. That's a brilliant idea - doing a full chain of Christie's. And very doable too considering how prolific she was.

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  3. Nice to see Paddington (the bear) in there :-)

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    1. He's adorable, isn't he? :)
      Thanks, Kate, for visiting my blog!

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  4. Having read your About page - huge respect for now reading in English rather than translations! We English are made lazy by the fact that so much is already in English but it would be great to read texts in their original language - Spanish for example with its love of metaphor... Loved your chain , kudos for getting Paddington bear and a spaceman on Mars with only three degrees of separation!

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    1. Thanks, Andrew, for visiting back! :)
      Well, I have to get used to reading all in English, as most of those books I want to read are in English. The positive thing is, that I now can read books in two languages (Indonesian and English), meaning I have more choices, right? :D
      I love building this chain, and it's a stroke of luck to remember that my The Martian copy has Matt Damon on the cover! (I bought it years ago, and it's quite forgotten..)

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