The Six Degrees of Separation meme is hosted by Kate at booksaremyfavoriteandbest. The idea behind the meme is to start with a book and use common points between two books to end up with links to six books, forming a chain. The common points may be obvious, like a word in the title or a shared theme, or more personal. Every month Kate provides the title of a book as the starting point.
The starting book this month is Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. I have only read one book by Ann Patchett, Bel Canto. I loved it and I have several more on my shelves to read. But this one is fairly new and I won't be reading it for a while. I know little about the book but I decided to use the word "lake" in the title as the basis for the links in my chain.
1st degree:
My first book is The Lady in the Lake (1943) by Raymond Chandler. I have read four books in the Philip Marlowe series. This is the 4th book and it will be the next book I read in the series. The story begins with the search for the wife of a very rich business man. The story is set in California.
2nd degree:
China Lake (2002) by Meg Gardiner is the first book in the Evan Delaney series. It is another one set in California and I was interested because a large portion of it takes place in Santa Barbara. The Santa Barbara setting was very well done, which makes sense because the author lived here in the past. China Lake in the title refers to the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in the Mojave desert, where a good bit of the action takes place. The book was a page turner but it was too much of a thriller for me and I had problems with the characters. I still have Mission Canyon, the 2nd book in the series, and Mission Canyon is the part of the Santa Barbara area that we lived in during our first six years in California. So I will eventually read that one too.
3rd degree:
The Draining Lake (2004) by Arnaldur Indridason is the 4th book in a police procedural series set in Iceland. I have read the first book in this series and plan to continue reading it. The lake in this book is draining due to an earthquake. A skeleton is revealed by the draining. Inspector Erlendur and his team are called out to investigate.
4th degree:
In The Lake Ching Murders (2001) by David Rotenberg, the former Shanghai Head of Special Investigations Zhong Fong has been exiled to the north country in China as a convicted political felon. With much reluctance, officials bring him out of exile to investigate the deaths of 17 influential foreigners which took place on a pleasure boat on Lake Ching. I haven't read anything else by this Canadian author and the book has been on my bookshelves for 10 years. This is the 2nd in a series of 5 books
5th degree:
Iron Lake (1998) by William Kent Krueger is the first novel in the long running Cork O'Connor series, set in the small town of Aurora, Minnesota near Iron Lake and the Iron Lake Reservation. Cork, the former sheriff, is half Irish and half Anishinaabe. An influential local judge is found dead, an apparent suicide; Cork is the one who discovers the body. A young Indian boy is missing and his mother seeks Cork's help to find him. I loved this book and the second book in the series and plan to read more by this author.
6th degree:
The last book in my chain is Lady in the Lake (2019) by Laura Lippman. The setting is Baltimore in the 1960s. The story was inspired by two cases of women who disappeared in Baltimore, one black and one white, that occurred around the same time as the story in the book. The protagonist is a female crime reporter. I read Lippman's first mystery in the Tess Monaghan series (1997) but I have not read any of her standalone mysteries.
My Six Degrees took me to several locations in the US plus Iceland and China. Have you read any of these books?
If you did this month's Six Degrees, where did your list take you?
The next Six Degrees will be on April 6, 2024. The instructions for the starting book: "look to your bookshelf – do you see a Lonely Planet title there? Or an Eyewitness Travel title? Or any other travel guide? That’s your starting book."
24 comments:
How clever to make a 'lake' chain! And to cram it with interesting choices.
Excellent lake chain. And YES, why didn't I think of Chandler's Lady in the Lake. No matter. I'm happy with my chain as it is.
This was a good chain, Tracy. Think the only one I've read is IRON LAKE and, yes, very good. I am not caught up on that series, but my husband is. He really likes it too.
Margaret, I had hoped that all my links could have Lake as the last word, but I also wanted them to be books I had read or were on my shelves, so that did not work. I like having this list of books and series I want to get back to.
Davida, I liked your chain a lot too. It had good recommendations for me. Reading descriptions of Tom Lake makes me want to read it soon, but it will be at least the end of the year before I get to it.
Kay, Krueger's series is a long one, it will take me a while to make much progress on it. So far I have found the books to be very intense.
You picked some good novels here, Tracy. I thought China Lake depicted Santa Barbara effectively too, but it's good to hear that from someone who's more familiar with the place than I am. And you remind me of how good some of Chandler's work is. I haven't read him lately and I really should. It's also good to see some Arnaldur Indriðason. I like his Inspector Erlendur series.
Thanks, Margot. I liked all the books I put on the chain and most of them I have not read yet. I hope this will remind me to do that. I am going to have to dig out my copy of Mission Canyon by Meg Gardiner, and I really need to read those books in the Inspector Erlendur series that are on my shelves. I enjoy reading about Iceland, although I think I remember that first book as pretty dark.
This is an awesome chain! I really liked Tom Lake (my mother just told me she thought it was about a man named Tom Lake until her book group chose it - understandable; I guess I just didn't think about it at all until I began reading) but did not like Iron Lake as much as you did. Trying to remember - maybe I did not really care for the main character. But my friend Suzanne likes this series as much as Three Pines and you also like it, so maybe I should try another.
I like Laura Lippman and she came to the last Betsy-Tacy convention in Minnesota and was a lot of fun to be around. Her recent books are a bit noir for me but I do like the Tess Monaghan series.
Constance, I had read or heard from more than one source that Tom Lake was not a person but was a lake (in Michigan), but then it seems it is neither. But I still enjoyed using Lake as my common theme, because I liked the combination of books so much.
Iron Lake and the 2nd book in the series were both more violent and dark than I care for, and too much personal angst, but the writing is so good that I still enjoyed them. So I will continue the series as long as I mostly like the books.
I have read articles by Laura Lippman and I admire her a lot, but I think her standalone books are too dark and/or tense for me. But I should not judge before I try one. I do plan to read more of the Tess Monaghan series.
Nice hop around some water! What put you off about Gardiner's characters?
It's been about thirty years since I read THE LADY IN THE LAKE (RC's) and I remember relatively little detail from it, that isn't in the mix of all the other Chandlers I read at the same time, more or less (every novel but PLAYBACK, THE SIMPLE ART OF MURDER collection, and I think the first of Parker's "completions").
I suspect I might have One (1) Fodor's or the like in my entire set of tomes...did entirely too much dull travel as a kid to ever delve back in, in a serious way. My loss.
Love how you found such great "lake" titles for your chain. :D
I liked Tom Lake more towards the end than the beginning but it's worth checking out. And a Lippman novel I liked was called Sunburn. I think I started Lady in the Lake but didn't get too far. Nice list.
Todd, unfortunately I don't remember exactly what I did not like about the characters in China Lake. I remember being very irritated with the main character; she was immature and made poor decisions. And I don't think I liked the two male characters either. I do remember that there was a forest fire, and I thought that was well done.
We have one Lonely Planet book on the shelves, and it is Lone Planet's Best Ever Photography Tips, because Glen is into photography and always has been. I will use that for my starting book. We have zero travel guides. We do not travel that much, although Glen has lots of travel books about train journeys and such.
Nicely done. Tom Lake was one of my favorite books of last year, and I recommend it if you can work it into your schedule. I used to be a Chandler fan, but his The Lady in the Lake wasn't one of my favorites of his. Kind of funny to see another such similar title in the chain, too.
At some point I must try the six degrees of separation challenge. I did read The Lady In The Lake by Laura Lippman. It's a very well written novel. I found it sad but I came away from the novel wanting to try out her Tess Monaghan series.
Lark, I liked all the Lake titles also. I was very happy with the post. Now if I can just remember to follow up on all these titles.
Susan, I look forward to trying out both Tom Lake and Lady in the Lake. At least I already have a copy of the latter. I will put Sunburn on my book sale list. If I find it there it should be a good price.
Sam, I had forgotten that I had that book by Laura Lippman even though it is right there on the bookshelf. I think I read that The Lady in the Lake was not liked as well as the previous books in the series. I do want to read them all anyway though.
Kathy, You really should try out Six Degrees of Separation. It doesn't come easy for me but it is satisfying when it comes together.
I do want to read Lippman's Lady in the Lake but it does sound like it would be a downer. I am not so fond of sad books lately.
An awful lot of titles with 'lake' in them - I hadn't even realised, I thought 'sea' would be the popular choice.
Marina Sofia, I was surprised to find so many titles with the word Lake. I would like to list books with a theme of rivers or oceans some day but right now I cannot even keep up with reviewing the books I read.
I, too, am a mystery lover, so I'm glad to see your list. As soon as I read your #1, I thought of Lippman's Lady in the Lake, which I did like a lot. To me, it felt not so much dark as thought-provoking. It deals with personal identity as well as sociological issues such as racism and sexism.
Mary, I am glad to hear that you liked Lady in the Lake. I really need to dive in and read it.
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