Hosted by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, Six Degrees of Separation picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six more steps. Links in titles will take you to my reviews where they exist. This month – the starting book is a wild card – the book you ended your last chain with, which for me was:
Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow
As I said previously, I think this is my favourite werewolf novel ever – and it’s told as a prose poem! This is a quirky contemporary novel about packs of werewolves in LA, combining themes of gang warfare with a murder story and a touching central romance, like The Sopranos with lycanthropes. Today, I won’t take the paranormal route, but choose another book set in Los Angeles…
Lost Light by Michael Connelly
In the 9th Harry Bosch novel, Connelly’s dogged detective is now retired from the LAPD and working for himself. When he left, he took the file of an unsolved case with him. A film production assistant was murdered four years earlier days before a daring $2 million robbery on set – Harry was there investigating her murder when the robbery happens, but neither case was solved. Twisty plot beckons. I shall stay in Los Angeles for my link, but move back a few decades:
Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
One of my favourite books so far this year, this super novel set in the 1960s/70s is just so rock’n’roll! Jenkins Reid tells the story of the band at the book’s heart in documentary interview style, as all those involved look back on their time in the spotlight. Just loved it. 1960s rock’n’roll leads me to a rather different book.
The Misinterpretation of Tara Jupp by Eva Rice
Take one big happy family; add some horses, a big country manor in Cornwall, plus doses of first love which doesn’t go easily. Shake it up and relocate to London, where it ends up with Tara becoming a pop star (the new Alma Cogan) at seventeen in the ready-to-swing London of the early 1960s. Young women going up to the city also happened in:
The Country Girls by Edna O’Brien
Starting in the LImerick countryside, O’Brien’s coming of age novel follows young Caithleen from the country to boarding school where she gets expelled, and thence to life as a shopgirl in Dublin. Wonderfully sensual and evocative, it was just too much for the Irish censors in 1960 and they banned it. Another book that was similarly banned was:
Peyton Place by Grace Metallious
The book that set the benchmark for every soap opera and drama of small town America that followed was banned for several years in the 1950s in Canada! With big themes, it’s got a little of everything; and although people will always dwell on the bad things that are going on behind the town’s closed doors, there is good too. It was adapted into a famous TV series, as was:
The Long Firm by Jake Arnott
A TV series I’d love to rewatch, as I remember Mark Strong as gay gangster Harry Clarke in 1960s Soho was excellent with a real air of menace about him. Arnott’s debut has an interesting structure too: five people who have been involved with Harry tell their stories. Fab stuff.
So this time I’ve gone from LA, and back a few decades through rock’n’roll to swinging London, then 1950s Ireland and New England ending back in 1960s Soho. Where will your six degrees take you?
Great chain! I absolutely loved Daisy Jones – what an incredible piece of believable writing!
Daisy Jones was so well done – I loved it! Great nostalgia trip.
I remember my parents watching Peyton Place! And that cover is wonderfully tacky. I did rewatch The Long Firm a little while back and liked it just as much the second time around. Great set of links, Annabel.
I must read more of Arnott – I own them all, but apart from The Fatal Tree and the Long Firm haven’t got to them yet!
Well, to be honest I’d say they were his best. The rest of the trilogy never quite match the brilliance of The Long Firm.
Wow… I like the sound of most of these – except for Lost Light which I think my husband would like. I really, Really, REALLY must read that Daisy Jones book – its my personal history!
The Harry Bosch books are a super crime series set in LA (and now on Prime TV too and VG). Daisy Jones was just WOW! Fleetwood Mac meets The Eagles – so well done.
Yeah… I think I’m going to have to buy Daisy Jones.
I remember reading as a teenager in the 1970’s a couple of Edna O’Brien’s novels including “The Country Girls”. Still staggered to recall from your post that it was a banned book; so much for the infamous “good old days” 🙁
There was a very good programme on O’Brien in the Imagine strand a few weeks ago. I imagine it’s still on iplayer
I like the way you have a range of books – recent publications and going back to the 1950s. And I haven’t read any of them!
Thanks Margaret. I struggle to read older books than that! Every year I say I must read more books from before I was born which was 1960, but very few creep in – however Peyton Place was simply marvelous, so I should never write them off.
Nice chain. I haven’t read any Connelly yet. I should try this series
He’s one of the best US crime procedural novelists IMHO.
I love that you have a ‘favourite’ werewolf novel 😀
I’ve read so many vampire and werewolf novels over the years! This one was so different to the usual more fantasy-edged fare – very urban – and a prose poem. Loved it. 😀
I remember reading Peyton Place in my twenties, titilated by the fact it was a banned book, and then being rather underwhelmed. Thanks for sharing your chain,
That’s the problem – the banning makes you expect more. I loved reading Peyton Place and we had a great discussion about it in our book group a few years ago.
Thanks for the suggestions!
Other than Peyton Place all others new to me. Sounds like interesting reads.