Six Degrees of Separation, from After Story to The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

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 yet another book I haven't read, but one I'd love to someday:

0. After Story by Larissa Behrendt

Summary from Goodreads:
"When Indigenous lawyer Jasmine decides to take her mother Della on a tour of England's most revered literary sites, Jasmine hopes it will bring them closer together and help them reconcile the past.

Twenty-five years earlier the disappearance of Jasmine's older sister devastated their tight-knit community. This tragedy returns to haunt Jasmine and Della when another child mysteriously goes missing on Hampstead Heath. As Jasmine immerses herself in the world of her literary idols – including Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters and Virginia Woolf – Della is inspired to rediscover the wisdom of her own culture and storytelling. But sometimes the stories that are not told can become too great to bear."



I started the chain with another book I've read this year, where the main characters are dealing with disappearance of a family member:

1. Sunbirds by Penelope Slocombe

Excerpt from my review:

"This is not a book about birds, but about people. People who long for freedom that seems to be possessed only by birds. People who, just like birds, fly high, leaving the present place to another, whenever it likes to, without responsibility, without reserve. The question is, is it possible for human being to take the same way of life as of birds?"

It's about a disintegrated family when the 18 year-old son left home for a spiritual journey to Himalayan, and never returned. You can read more about it on my review.

The long for freedom in this books' characters reminded me of a similar kind of longing in the next book of the chain...

2. Blue Hawk by Chloe Turner

Excerpt from my review: "It is a wonderful journey of a woman's struggles in the men's world, it is also an insightful story of family, jealousy, pettiness, and friendship. All is beautifully written and thoroughly well researched."

If you love historical fiction, Blue Hawk will amuse you with its vivid description of clothier and dyeing business in the 17th century of England. The protagonist is a wonderfully strong and courageous young woman who loved the color blue.

My next link is another book that also centers around the color blue.

3. The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier

Summary from Goodreads:
"Meet Ella Turner and Isabelle du Moulin—two women born centuries apart, yet bound by a fateful family legacy. When Ella and her husband move to a small town in France, Ella hopes to brush up on her French, qualify to practice as a midwife, and start a family of her own. Village life turns out to be less idyllic than she expected, however, and a peculiar dream of the color blue propels her on a quest to uncover her family’s French ancestry. As the novel unfolds—alternating between Ella’s story and that of Isabelle du Moulin four hundred years earlier—a common thread emerges that unexpectedly links the two women. Part detective story, part historical fiction, The Virgin Blue is a novel of passion and intrigue that compels readers to the very last page."

Another book with the Virgin in the title is..

4. Vivaldi's Virgins by Barbara Quick

Summary from Goodreads:
"Abandoned as an infant, fourteen-year-old Anna Maria Dal Violin is one of the elite musicians living in the foundling home where the "Red Priest," Antonio Vivaldi, is maestro and composer. Fiercely determined to find out where she came from, Anna Maria embarks on a journey of self-discovery that carries her into a wondrous and haunting world of music and spectacle, bringing eighteenth-century Venice magically to life."

Another historical fiction from the author (Barbara Quick) I've enjoyed is...

5. A Golden Web by Barbara Quick

Summary from Goodreads:

"Alessandra is desperate to escape.

Desperate to escape her stepmother, who's locked her away for a year; to escape the cloister that awaits her and the marriage plans that have been made for her; to escape the expectations that limit her and every other girl in fourteenth-century Italy. There's no tolerance in her quiet village for Alessandra and her keen intelligence and unconventional ideas.

In defiant pursuit of her dreams, Alessandra undertakes an audacious quest, her bravery equaled only by the dangers she faces. Disguised and alone in a city of spies and scholars, Alessandra will find a love she could not foresee -- and an enduring fame."

This chain will be closed with another historical fiction about extraordinary struggle put up by a strong intelligent courageous young woman...

6. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

Summary from Goodreads:

"Calpurnia Virginia Tate is eleven years old in 1899 when she wonders why the yellow grasshoppers in her Texas backyard are so much bigger than the green ones. With a little help from her notoriously cantankerous grandfather, an avid naturalist, she figures out that the green grasshoppers are easier to see against the yellow grass, so they are eaten before they can get any larger.

As Callie explores the natural world around her, she develops a close relationship with her grandfather, navigates the dangers of living with six brothers, and comes up against just what it means to be a girl at the turn of the century."

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

Where Are You Now? (2008) by Mary Higgins Clark

📞 Ten years ago "Mack" Mackenzie walked out of his apartment without a word and has never been seen again. However, on every Mother's Day after that, there's been always a short phone call from Mack to his mother, saying that he's OK. Before anyone receiving the call has time to ask anything, however, he'd ring off. Thus, his family "accepted" that Mack is alright; he just wants to be left alone.

📞 On the tenth Mother's Day after he's been missing, however, his little sister Caroline couldn't take it anymore. She shouted over the phone that she will search and find Mack no matter what. After that, a piece of paper was found inside the collection bag at a church. It's a message to Caroline from Mack, to leave him alone. She brought this evidence to the police, but the detective in charge wasn't interested.

📞 When a girl called Lissie Andrew was missing after leaving a bar alone at night, the same detective found out that Caroline lives at the same apartment building with her, and suspected that there's probably a connection somehow of these two missing cases. The police then connected Lissie's case with other missing cases of young girls, one of them only days after Mack had gone missing ten years ago. Did Mack has something to do with the crime, then? When the police suspected him, Caroline is determined now more than ever, to seek the truth and to clear her brother's name.

📞 This is my second Mary Higgins Clark of the year - the first was Pretend You Don't See Her, which I liked. Where Are You Now? might not as fascinating as Pretend You Don't See Her, but it's equally highly entertaining. I can see similarity in tropes from both novels. The main characters are young women. There are always a long list of suspects. They are usually connected to one another or are acquainted with the heroine, either relatives or professional acquaintances. I guess these connections enabled the author to throw curfews and red herrings on the plot. I have no complain, because that is what makes a good suspense novel, doesn't it? Needless to say, I was enjoying this much. Same as the first read, I have also listened to the audiobook. I found it both soothing and exciting at the same time, which was what I've needed after a tedious time.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Agatha Christie Short Stories 2024: SEPTEMBER #AgathaChristieSS24

There are only four months left of this year, can you believe it? Time flies too fast! Reading is the only thing to keep me calm amidst these whirling things in this world. And I've been enjoying these little stories from Agatha Christie to "catch my breath" before plunging to another... hundreds of stuffs that seem to always await me every morning! This month we will return to Miss Marple, Mr. Satterthwaite, and the elusive Mr. Quin.

THE HERB OF DEATH

A lovely young woman dies after being poisoned at dinner. But everyone else was also taken ill, so was she really the intended victim. Dolly Bantry tells the story of the case and Miss Marple thinks she knows the solution.

It was originally published in 1930 in The Story-Teller magazine, and was included in the first Miss Marple short story collection as one of The Thirteen Problems. Elements of the story were also woven into an adaptation of The Secret of Chimneys as part of the series Agatha Christie's Marple, starring Julia McKenzie.

THE BIRD WITH THE BROKEN WING

Mr. Satterthwaite is staying with his young friends the Keeleys, when a séance pulls up two clear messages: LAIDELL and QUIN. Before long there is a tragic death in the house and Satterthwaite, with the help of a message from Mr. Quin, correctly determines whether it was suicide or... murder.

The story was first published in the collection The Mysterious Mr Quin, Collins 1930. Unlike the other stories in the collection it did not appear in a magazine beforehand.

I can't wait to read them! Which one interested you most?

Comet in Moominland (1946) by Tove Jansson #MoominWeek #WITMonth #20booksofsummer24

"You must go on a long journey before you can really find out how wonderful home is."

☄ That is the essence of this book, the second one - in term of publication date - to the Moomin series created by the inimitable Tove Jansson, and translated from Swedish by Elizabeth Portch. Moomintroll feels the urge to take on a journey far away from home, to see the world, to take on challenges, to do good things for others. But when he has had all these, the one thing he was longing most were... home and family. Isn't that what we all experience?

☄ This book picked up where we left in the first book: The Moomins and the Great Flood. The Moomins family had decided to stay on the valley where the house Moominpappa had built up ended during the flood. Now the family are settling in Moominvalley, with the addition of Sniff (the little creature they encountered in first book) who is living with them now. Sniff finds a beautiful cave while he and Moomintroll are following a path in the forest, and Moomintroll goes pearl-fishing in the sea. The next day they find the pearls, which they have hidden inside the cave, now are arranged in the shape of a star with a tail. The Muskrat, a philosopher who's also living with the Moomins, tells them they are shaped like a comet. So Moomintroll and Sniff are taking a journey to the Faraway Lonely Mountains, where the Professors at the Observatory will tell them more about it.

☄ Long story short, after a long and challenging journey, the Professors tell them exactly when a huge comet would hit the earth, in a few days. Now Moomintroll and Sniff need to go back home ASAP to.... well, they don't know exactly what to do, but Moominmamma would surely know what to do then. If only they could arrive just in time. Can they do that? Will the comet destroy their beloved Moominvalley?

☄ Along the adventure, some new characters were added to spice up the story up. We were introduced first to Snufkin, a nomad who loves playing music with his harmonica, and defies rules and authority. Then there's the Hermulen, who is an avid stamp collector, and ignorant of anything elese. One particular character gives Moomintroll a distraction from his mission - a beautiful Snork Maiden whom Moomintrol had saved from poisonous bush. This made me reflect on Moomintroll's actual age. He seemed to be of earlier age of five or seven years old back in the first book (where Moominmamma told him to wear dry sock after he wetted his feet in the swamp) but here he's having a crush - albeit a childish one - on Snork Maiden. Maybe the Moomins are ageless?

☄ Overall, Comet in Moominland is much more entertaining and complex than its predecessor. What I love most about it is the level of trust showed from Moomintroll and his parents, particularly Moominmamma. Even when the danger was near, Moominmamma and Moominpappa refused to evacuate with hteir neighbors, because they believe Moomintroll would come home. They never considered the possibility of their son going somewhere safer without them. No, they just knew that Moomintroll was coming home. Likewise for Moomintroll, he repeated many times to his friends that Moominmamma would know what to do. He never thought his parents would have evacuated with their neighbors. No, he just had to get home, and everything would be okay. That's a huge amount of confidence and a strong bond of love. I am so lucky to have the same kind of family! We were able to get through hardship and sorrow because we did it in love and trust of each other. This is a book with a fun adventure, that will warm you heart through.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Read for:

Moomin Week #MoominWeek

hosted by Mallika @ Literary Potpourri & Chris @ Calmgrove

Women in Translation Month #WITMonth
hosted by womenintranslation.org

20 Books of Summer 2024 #20booksofsummer24
hosted by Cathy @ 746 Books

The Black Lake (Oeroeg) by Hella S. Haasse (1948) #WITMonth

🖤 The Black Lake was first published anonymously in 1948 as Oeroeg. It was the Dutch author Hella Haasse's first novel, and was translated to English by Ina Rilke. Set in Indonesia during Dutch colonialism in 1940s, Oeroeg is a story about childhood friendship gone sour over political and ideological differences.

🖤 The narrator (his name was never revealed) is a white boy, son of a Dutch Indies plantation manager in Sukabumi, West Java. He was born in Indonesia, and being an only child, his only playmate is Oeroeg. Oeroeg is a native boy, the same age as the narrator's. He's the son of the plantation's mandor (leader of the workers). Despite of their totally different backgrounds, the two boys spent their childhood together and were quite inseparable.

🖤 Then an accident happened, triggered by the drunken and irresponsible white men led by the narrator's father, whose reckless amusement on board of a inadequate raft on the Black Lake, caused the raft fell apart. Oeroeg's father died while saving the narrator's life from drowning. Because of that, the narrator's father sent Oeroeg to the same school and boarding house as his son. The seeds of disruption began at this point.

🖤 Oeroeg began to realize his inferiority from other students. He began to try imitating the white's style and seemed to be ashamed to be a native. Despite all that, the two students still studied and hang around together, though not as closely as before. The consciousness of the gap laid between them has finally dawn upon these adolescents.

🖤 Graduated from secondary school, the narrator was sent by his father to study in Dutch. This was the last straw of their friendship. While he's away, huge things happened. Indonesian youths began their resistance movement against Dutch colonialism; the narrator joined the army during World War II; and Oeroeg joined the Indonesian nationalist to fight for the nation's independence. When the narrator happened to return with the Dutch army to Sukabumi, everything has changed so drastically. He no longer found it the home he used to be rooted to, and most of all, he lost his best friend Oeroeg....

🖤 I found this novella quite thought-provoking. Growing up often means restricting our heart to so many rules and ideologies, that we often forget the human being underneath these thoughts. My heart ached over Oeroeg and the narrator's last scene. I understand Oeroeg's hatred towards the nation that had caused sorrows to his people. But how could he forget the one friend that at one time had shared his happiness?

🖤 I'm also wondering the roots of Indonesians' inferiority complex towards Western people. Is it a characteristic that is attached to our people? And made us so easy to be colonized by the European for centuries? Or is this character the result of centuries of colonialism? After more than 70 years of our independence, Oeroeg's behaviors still reflect on our modern people - trying to be identified as European, but also hating the Western.

🖤 All in all, this is an intriguing bildungsroman of friendship and identity searching, set in a turmoil era of colonialism, and loosely based on the author's experience of growing up in West Java during the same era.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Read for:

Women in Translation Month #WITMonth
hosted by womenintranslation.org

The Moomins and the Great Flood (1945) by Tove Jansson #MoominWeek #WITMonth #20booksofsummer24

👜 The Moomins are tiny creatures created from the Finnish author Tove Jansson's imagination. The Moomins and the Great Flood is the first book in the series, and the one that introduces us to the main characters: the Moomins family. We learn here that Moomins are house trolls who used to live behind kitchen stoves. It was translated by David McDuff from Swedish, its original title is Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen.

👜 Moominmamma and her only son Moomintroll are on a journey to find Moominpappa. He has been travelling with the Hattifatteners to look for a place to build a house. Hattifatteners are white tiny creatures who are always on the move and usually traveling through the sea in groups.

👜 The Moomins' journey is quite eventful, and they get to meet some new friends. "The Little Creature" is the one they first meet - a helpless, whinny creature who likes sparkling gems. Later on he will be named Sniff. Then they also meet Tulippa, a pretty young girl with shining blue hair who's been staying inside a tulip. She saves the Moomins and the little creature from a giant serpent while crossing a swamp. The four of them then continue their journey together.

👜 Later on they are joining a group of Hattifatteners who are crossing the sea by boat. But a storm strikes, and a sea troll helps them to navigate safely to an island, where they meet a boy who has seen Moominpappa. They are on the right track, then!

👜 A rainstorm seems to check their progress, but during the flood they find a message in the bottle floating their direction from Moominpappa, and by the help of a stork, they finally find him - safe and sound! Not only that, they later on find the house Moominpappa has built, which the flood has been floating intact to a valley, and where they finally decide to live.

👜 Considering this novella is the first of a series, it is quite an interesting introduction, although there isn't much 'substance' in the story if you read it as standalone. My favorite character is Moominmamma, she is just a typical wonder mom who always knows what her children need, and is always prepare for everything. I loved how, when Moomintroll's feet became wet from the swamp, she just takes a pair of dry socks out of her handbag for him. This handback is actually becomes a trademark for Moominmamma, as she always brings it everywhere she goes. To me it's also a symbol of a loving and caring mother (hence, the handbag emojis I use in this post ;)).

👜 The story is not overly fantastic, but it gets better on the next one (I have moved on to Comet in the Moominland, which I loved - review's following! 😉)

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Read this book for:

Moomin Week

hosted by Mallika @ Literary Potpourri & Chris @ Calmgrove

Women In Translation Month 2024 #WITMonth
hosted by womenintranslation.org

20 Books of Summer 2024
hosted by Cathy @ 746 Books

Under the Tonto Rim (1925) by Zane Grey

🌳 Lucy Watson is a welfare worker who was assigned by the government to teach home and social skills to the mountainous backwoods families in the forest under the Rim Rock in South West. A city girl, Lucy is an orphan, and a sister is all she has in the world. Her rebellious sister Clara had eloped with a young man years before. Now all alone in the world, Lucy is determined to impart household skills and social etiquette the these simple backwoods people, to make their lives better. Would she be able to achieve her ambition?

🌳 Lucy's first obstacle is the backwoods young men - the wild and rugged of them - or so people, with whom she met before arriving at her destination, warned her. They predicted that one of them would soon marry Lucy before she finishes her job, just like few teachers before her. The young men's leader seems to be Edd Denmeade, the elder of the Denmeades' offspring, in whose family Lucy would work first. This adds to Lucy's apprehension.

🌳 This is neither a pure western world with gunshots and actions, nor adventure novel I've expected it to be. Rather, it's a romance, glorifying the power of nature and love. Lucy soon discovers, that when her 'pupils' have benefited from her guidance, she, too, has gained a lot more. First, that these people, some of them at least, show higher moral standard than city people. Second, Lucy learns the strength and comfort from the forest - its tree, its streams, its foliage and bush.

"She [Lucy] found out presently, that going into the forest was a source of comfort. When there seemed no comfort she went to the lonely solitude of trees and bush, of green coverts and fragrant wild dolls, and always she was soothed, sustained. She could not understand why, but it was so. She began to prolong the hours spent in the woods, under a looming canyon wall, or beside a densely foliaged gorge from which floated up the drowsy murmur of stream. All that the wild forest land consisted of passed into her innermost being."

🌳 You might imagine this book is a bit boring. It is not. Especially when Clara, the "lost" sister sent an appeal to come and live with Lucy. She comes in pale and dejected condition, but the woods and it's simple backwoods people soon mend her health, both physically and mentally. Unfortunately, the dark past follows her even into the woods, and its consequences is about to change her, Lucy, and the Denmeades' lives forever.

🌳 I was completely charmed by Grey's comforting prose and his minute description of the woods and nature elements. I felt like I was in the deep of woods with Lucy, every senses in me quiver with excitement as I experienced everything myself. If you ever need to escape in a book, this one will satisfy you!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2