Six degrees of separation: next in line

Posted on March 7, 2026 by WordsAndPeace

#6Degrees

Six degrees of separation:
next in line

This fun meme is hosted by
Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest
(see there the origin of the meme and how it works
– posted the first Saturday of every month)

Today, we are supposed to start from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.
I did read it, about forty-five years ago (yes, 45). As far as I can remember, I loved it back then, but I don’t think I would enjoy a reread at this point. My reading tastes have changed a lot. And I’m not interested in watching the movie either.

If you are still with me after this counter-cultural introduction, tighten your belt for a crazy chain.
You are used to crazy keyword chains by me, but even this didn’t satisfy me today, so I decided to go really over the top crazy.
Ready?
Don’t even try to figure out the connections in this picture!

Click on the titles to access my reviews

Next in line

Next in line? All depends what line we are talking about!

So, I went to my Goodreads list of all the books I have read (2,655),
and searched through alphabetical order of authors.
Here is the book I gave 5 stars to after Emily Brontë:

1. Summer of Reckoning, by Marion Brunet
MY VERDICT:
Excellent and intense evocation of life and misery in a small French city.

Then, I searched through alphabetical order of title.
Here is the book I gave 5 stars to after Wuthering Heights:

2. The Year of My Life: A Translation of Issa’s Oraga Haru, by Kobayashi Issa
Loved it (read in 2022), but haven’t posted my numerous notes yet!

Then, I searched through chronological order of publication.
Here is the book I gave 5 stars to after 1847:

3. Moby-Dick or, The Whale, by Herman Melville (1851)
Alas, read it before blogging, and don’t have a review on it either.

And now for the last 3 titles, I looked at 5 star books
with the exact same number of pages – 464 pages
in the edition I had it listed.
I actually read 13 books with that exact number of pages.
I’m featuring here my 3 favorites:

4. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, by Erik Larson
From my short review: Highly recommended, not just for Chicagoans.

5. The Complete Chi’s Sweet Home, Part 2, by Kanata Konami
I devoured all this series.

6. Walking the Bones, by Randall Silvis
MY VERDICT:
Suspenseful multi-layered thriller, enriched by the depth of the characters and their personal stories. Randall Silvis is becoming one of my favorite latest discoveries.

Visit other chains here

HAVE YOU READ AND ENJOYED ANY OF THESE BOOKS?
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF MY CRAZY CHAIN?
PLEASE LEAVE YOUR LINK IN A COMMENT

Top Ten Books or Covers that Feel/Look Like Summer

Posted on June 6, 2023 by WordsAndPeace

Top Ten Books or Covers
that Feel/Look Like Summer

TTT for June 6
#TopTenTuesday

📚 📚 📚

Oops, haven’t participated since January!
I’m going simple here, with books on my Goodreads shelves that have the word SUMMER in the title.

Click on the covers to access my reviews or general info on the book

6 books that I enjoyed a lot:

4 books on my TBR:

Also on my TBR, it contains the word ‘été’, which is the French for ‘summer’:

Available in English as: 10:30 on a Summer Night

Have YOU read
or are YOU planning to read any of these?
Please leave the link to your own post,
so I can visit.

Paris in July 2022: Day 6

Posted on July 6, 2022 by WordsAndPeace

Paris in July 2022
#ParisinJuly
Co-hosted by Readerbuzz and Thyme For Tea

Day 6

Sharing more on the 26 French books I have read so far this year.
Actually a lot of these I have listened to.

Click on the covers to read my full review,
or get more details on the books

Read in April-May:

Code Lupin
The very first by Bussi. Not too good back then.

Vanda
VERDICT: Another powerful and very touching portrait of precariousness by Marion Brunet. She won’t let you be indifferent, and might even change your view of contemporary France.

Code 612 : Qui a tué le Petit Prince ?
This one is a fun enigma trying to decipher a possible code hidden in The Little Prince, that would reveal what happened ultimately to its author – his body was never found.
I liked how Bussi managed to come up with so many ideas, based on true events, places, and texts.

Nouvelle Babel
Wow, another fantastic novel by Bussi, this time a mix of scifi, dystopia, and thriller. And a majestic reflection on totalitarianism, freedom, and globalization.
Plus a fantastic sample of the most amazing places on earth – not surprising from a geography teacher!
Technology now allows people to teleport wherever they want – almost. But at what cost?

L’Axe du loup
Another brilliant book by Tesson. This time, he wants to walk in the footsteps of the 7 prisoners who escaped (maybe?) from the gulag, as retold in the fascinating book, The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom, by Slavomir Rawicz.

La Nuit des temps
I loved how this scifi book worked on the tension between the very old and the new (some of the inventions described in that book exist now, but not when he wrote the book I believe).

Les dieux voyagent toujours incognito
Like in Intuitio, Gounelle seems to enjoy focusing on some psychological dimension. At the beginning, this novel even sounds like a self-help book about self-confidence.
But it becomes much more than that, and goes from twists to more twists!

Le Pays où l’on n’arrive jamais
I adored it as a teen.
Just as sublime. Loved it so much, and I’m sure I appreciated even more the amazing descriptions of nature, of forests.

Le Voyage d’Octavio
This is the delightful portrait of a both simple (illiterate even at first) and sophisticated man (a real artist) in Venezuela.

Le Mystère Henri Pick
Wow, how come I had never read anything by Foenkinos?
Really enjoyed this mystery/literary fiction focused on the world of books, libraries, authors, and publication.
I loved the characters, their stories, and how one plot leads to the next.

HAVE YOU READ THESE BOOKS?
OR BOOKS BY THESE AUTHORS?