#6Degrees of Separation #4 – July 2024

By Claire Louisa on Jul 6, 2024

I started joining in with this blog at the beginning of the year, but due to study all my good intentions fell away, we are on a bit of a break so I'm going to try to post as much as I can before we start back full classes in July.

This is a monthly link-up hosted by KateW at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn't need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain. The rules are:

Link the books together in any way you like.
Provide a link in your post to the meme at Books Are My Favourite and Best.
Share these rules in your post.
Paste the link to your post in the comments on Kate's post and/or the Linky Tool on that post.
Invite your blog readers to join in and paste their links in the comments and/or the Linky Tool.
Share your post on Twitter using the #6Degrees hashtag.
Be nice! Visit and comment on other posts and/or retweet other #6Degrees posts.

This month's starting point is Kairos by Jennifer Erpenbeck described as a romance in the 1980s when Germany's East and West were still divided but coming to an end. I'm linking this to my first choice The Girl Behind the Wall by Mandy Robothom a story of two sisters kept apart because on the night the Berlin Wall went up, they were on different sides not knowing what was about to happen. I started reading this back in June 2021 via Pigeonhole and got 60% of the way in when for some reason I DNF'd it, I can't remember why, but the story has stayed with me to some degree because as soon as I saw the starting book was set in Germany at the end of the GDR I immediately thought of this book.

The next book I thought of was Stasiland by Anna Funder which I read in 2019 not long after watching the German movie Balloon, well worth a watch, which made me aware of how ignorant I was about the history of Europe and even though I'd have been 14 at the time I knew nothing about it. This is a nonfiction read which I found very enlightening and I can't imagine living the way the people in East Germany did.

The next book I chose is Law of the Heart by Boris Starling I recently chose this as my bookclub read, set in North Korea it is linked by another country divided this time by north and south. It was eye opening to learn a bit about the way the people in the north are forced to live while also being separated from their families over the border never allowed to meet. I really enjoyed this book.

I'm linking this to The Girl With Seven Names: A North Korean Defector's Story by Hyeonseo Lee a book I borrowed from Amozon Prime Reading in 2021 but still haven't gotten around to reading, something I must change. This is the story of one woman's terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom.

I had a couple of ways to go here but decided to chose a book which had a big impact on me and one I regularly recommend The People Smuggler by Robin De Crespigny. This is a biography: After his father, brother and he were incarcerated and tortured in Saddam's Abu Ghraib, Ali al Jenabi escaped from Iraq first to work with the anti-Saddam resistance in Iran and then to help his family out of the country all together. He becomes a people smuggler in order to save his own life as well as that of his family and how they were treated after finally arriving in Australia. It will cetainly make you look at people smugglers and refugees differently.

I couldn't decide which book to make my 6th linkup so I've added an extra. Now we've arrived in Australia my next choice is No Friend But the Mountains: Written From Manus Prison by Behrouz Boochani this was a hard book to read and one I still haven't fully made my way through and will once again open your eyes to the plight of refugees in our country and what they are willing to do to escape a homeland they love in order to be safe.

My final book is one I am currently reading Safe Haven by Shankari Chandran and is set in Australia it is about refugees and asylum seekers. Safe Haven is about displacement and seeking refuge—but ultimately it is a story about finding home—and the lengths you'll go to find safety and love. I am really enjoying this novel.