Six Degrees of Separation ~ Redhead By the Side of the Road

The Readhead by the Side of the Road
Tyler, Anne "The Redhead by the Side of the Road" - 2020

I discovered this challenge on one of the blogs I follow, Carol from the "Reading Ladies Book Club". Thank you, Carol.

#6Degrees of Separation:
from Redhead By the Side of the Road (Goodreads) to Palace Walk.

#6Degrees is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. I love the idea.

Each month, a book is chosen by Kate and we get to go on from there, no matter how, the book just have to be linked to six other ones to form a chain. Any book only has to be connected to the one before them.

Rules:

•     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 prompt starts with "Redhead By the Side of the Road" (Goodreads) by Anne Tyler. I have mixed feelings about this author, I read four of her books, two I quite liked but I wasn't very impressed with the others.

What a fun way of reminiscing about books I read. Since this is the first time I participate in this challenge, I have concentrated on the titles of the books and always looked for a new title with one of the other words.

The chain took me from Turkey to Great Britain, to Italy and Turkey, from there to the US, to Bangladesh and Myanmar and finally to Egypt. Quite a nice trip, don't you think?

Red
Pamuk, Orhan "The Red-Haired Woman"
Woman
Collins, Wilkie "A Woman in White"
White
Pamuk, Orhan "The White Castle"
Castle
Walls, Jeanette "The Glass Castle"
Glass
Ghosh, Amitav "The Glass Palace"
Palace
Mahfouz, Naguib "Palace Walk"

I could carry on, e.g. with "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson but since it's SIX degrees of separation, I stop here.

This is what Kate says (check here)

Annabel Smith and Emma Chapman began the 6 Degrees of Separation meme in 2014 (and Kate took over in 2016).

The meme was inspired by Hungarian writer and poet Frigyes Karinthy. In his 1929 short story, Chains, Karinthy coined the phrase 'six degrees of separation'. The phrase was popularised by a 1990 play written by John Guare, which was later made into a film starring Stockard Channing. Since then, the idea that everyone in the world is separated from everyone else by just six links has been explored in many ways, from 'six degress of Kevin Bacon' to the science of connections. And now it’s a meme for readers.

So, to the meme. 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.

How the meme works
Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge.
A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the ones next to them in the chain.

How to Join the Meme
Each person’s chain will look completely different.  It doesn’t matter what the connection is or where it takes you – just take us on the journey with you. Don’t worry if you haven’t read the first book either: you can always find ways to link it based on your expectations/ideas about it.

Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the Linky section (or comments) of each month’s post. If you don’t have a blog, you can share your chain in the comments section. You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degree. 

You will find all the following months here.

Tyler, Anne "A Spool of Blue Thread"

Tyler, Anne "A Spool of Blue Thread" -  2015

The first book I read by Anne Tyler ("The Accidental Tourist") didn't leave a huge impression, the second one ("A Patchwork Planet") wasn't a whole lot better but the next ("Digging to America") was lovely. I really liked it. So, when a friend recommended her latest book, "A Spool of Blue Thread", I gave it a try.

It is a really good book, a story about four generations of a family. A family that consists of all the usual members, the ordinary ones and the not so ordinary ones. Anne Tyler tells about them as if you are there, as if you are part of the clan. It all sounds so familiar. And nice, even though not everything that happens is nice, it's what life is.

I can recommend this book if you like family stories, especially of the 20th century.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2026.

From the back cover:

"'It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon.' 

This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The whole family - their two daughters and two sons, their grandchildren, even their faithful old dog - is on the porch, listening contentedly as Abby tells the tale they have heard so many times before. And yet this gathering is different too: Abby and Red are growing older, and decisions must be made about how best to look after them, and the fate of the house so lovingly built by Red's father.

Brimming with the luminous insight, humor, and compassion that are Anne Tyler's hallmarks, this capacious novel takes us across three generations of the Whitshanks, their shared stories and long-held secrets, all the unguarded and richly lived moments that combine to define who and what they are as a family."

Anne Tyler was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for "A Spool of Blue Thread" in 2015.

Tyler, Anne "Digging to America"

Tyler, Anne "Digging to America" - 2006

 Two very different American families meet while adopting a Korean baby. One family are immigrants themselves, from Iran. The families become friends and start a tradition for both of them. The book demonstrates all the different parts of family life, the joys and the problems.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Anne Tyler has a great way of giving her characters life, describing both ordinary and extraordinary lives.

A lot of topics come up for discussion. How far do you want to keep your adopted child from another culture to stay in touch with this culture, how much are you as a family willing to adjust to this culture? How much are they willing to adapt themselves? How much is a marriage threatened or able to grow through an act like that? All these questions show what a great book this would be for a book club.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"Two families meet at the Baltimore airport while waiting for their baby girls to arrive from Korea. The Iranian-American Sami and Ziba Yazdan, with Ziba's elegant and reserved mother, Maryam, in tow, wait quietly while brash and all-American Bitsy and Brad Donaldson, plus extended family, are armed with camcorders and a fleet of balloons proclaiming "It's a girl!" After they decide together to throw an impromptu "arrival party," a tradition is born, and so begins a lifelong friendship between the two families.

As they raise their daughters, the Yazdan and Donaldson families grapple with questions of assimilation and identity. When Bitsy's recently widowed father sets his sights on Maryam, she must confront her own idea of what it means to be other, and of who she is and what she values. Rich, tender, and searching, Digging to America challenges the notion that home is a fixed place, and celebrates the subtle complexities of life on all sides of the American experience."

I also read "The Accidental Tourist" and "A Patchwork Planet"  but wasn't that impressed with either of those novels. However, I loved "A Spool of Blue Thread".

Tyler, Anne "A Patchwork Planet"

Tyler, Anne "A Patchwork Planet" - 1998

The story of a man who is socially regarded as a "loser", his failure, the disappointment of his family. Same as "The Accidental Tourist", I read this ages ago but the book didn't leave a huge impression. Nicely told but I couldn't warm to the characters.

From the back cover:

"Barnaby Gaitlin is a loser - just short of thirty he's the black sheep of a philanthropic Baltimore family. Once upon a time he had a home, a loving wife, a little family of his own; now he has an ex-wife, a 9-year-old daughter with attitude, a Corvette Sting Ray that's a collectors item but unreliable, and he works as hired muscle for Rent-a-Back, doing heavy chores for old folks. He has an almost pathological curiosity about other people's lives, which has got him into serious trouble in the past, and a hopeles charm which attracts the kind of angelic woman who wants to save him from himself. Tyler's observation is more acute and more delicious than ever; her humour slyer and more irresistible; her characters so vividly realised that you feel you've known this quirky collection for ever. With perfect pitch and poise, humor and humanity, Anne Tyler chronicals, better than any writer today, the sublime and the rediculous of everyday living, the foibles and frailties of the ordinary human heart."

Not at all like "Digging to America" which I enjoyed very much.

Read my other reviews about Anne Tyler's novels here.

Tyler, Anne "The Accidental Tourist"

Tyler, Anne "The Accidental Tourist" - 1985

I have read this book a couple of years ago. I know I didn't dislike it but it didn't leave a huge memory either which is usually the case when I wasn't that impressed.

Anne Tyler was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for "The Accidental Tourist" in 1986.

From the back cover:

"How does a man addicted to routine cope with the chaos of everyday life? Macon does his best, writing Armchair Tourist guidebooks that soothe the travel-hating businessman. Even when his son, Ethan, is murdered and his wife leaves him, Macon folds his anguish neatly back into place and adapts the household routine along more efficient lines. So when he meets Muriel, dog trainer from the Meow-Bow dog clinic - an utterly chaotic, outrageous, vulnerable woman - he considers that his defences against love and pain are in excellent working order."

I also read "A Patchwork Planet" and "Digging to America" as well as "A Spool of Blue Thread", really liked the two last ones.