Six Degrees of Separation (Apr): From The Correspondent to The Bronze Horseman

 The meme is hosted by Books are My Favourite Best and is described thus: 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. 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.

This month starts with The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, a book I have never heard of but I now know is written in an epistolery style. Letters - it makes me immediately makes me think of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and the importance that various letters play in moving the story forward. 

Pride and Prejudice takes to me to The Benevolent Society of Ill Mannered Ladies by Alison Goodman, a detective novel also set in Regency England with two strong female leads living authentic lives and solving a few myseteries along the way. 

From there I jump to Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear, a book of the same kind - strong female lead who is a private detective, living outside of the normal for women of the time period, which is between WWI and WWII. Maisie lives true to herself and her values but is greatly impacted by the trauma of having been a nurse in the trenches during WWI. 

The Women by Kristin Hannah also explores the impact of war on women, this time on the forgotten nurses that servied during the Vietnam War and how they were treated upon their return. Kristin Hannah also explores the experience of women in war in her book Winter Garden, this time delving into the Siege of Leningrad. 

That finally brings me to The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simmons, which for a long time I would have said was one of my favourite books. The Bronze Horseman also explores the Siege of Leningrad, but is an entirely historical novel with some elements of romance. This has actually been a good reminder to read it again some time soon. 

Review: The Host by Stephenie Meyer

Let me set the scene. Earth has been slowly and insidiously invaded by an alien species, the Parasites, that have been secretly inserting themselves into the bodies of human hosts so successfully that the invasion of Earth is almost over by the time it's discovered. Pockets of human resistence exist, but are ineffective against the scale of the parasitic invasion. Once a Parasite is inserted into its host, the host's human essense is irredeemably destroyed, allowing the Parasite to live independently in the human body, accessing the body's processes and in some ways it memories - its likes and dislikes and feelings. The Parasites have been travelling the Universe, moving from host species to host species. Despite their way of living and methods of colonisation, they claim to be a non-violent non-confrontational species, that looks down on humans for their savage way of existence. 

The Host is the story of Wanderer, a centuries old Parasite that has been inserted into the host body of Melanie Stryder, a recently caught member of the human resistence. The only issue is, Melanie's consciousness still remains inside her body, co-existing and in some ways resisting Wanderer's possession of her body. Wanderer and Melanie must live together to achieve their common goal - to find Melanie's younger brother Jamie and partner Jared, who she left behind when caught by the Parasites. 

The novel is science fiction, but would easily work for people who have little interest in science fiction. The focus is far more on the human elements of the story. Melanie seeks to control her own body, while Wanderer forms relationships on her own terms with the humans that she meets. She wants to support the humans she comes to love but is horrified and repelled by their capacity for violence and their desire to destroy her own kind. Wanderer is incapable of viewing her own species invasion of Earth and destruction of human in the same terms as she sees the human resistenace to this invasion. On an even more personal level, Melanie desires nothing more than than to love Jared again, while Wanderer experiences the strength of those feelings while forming her own romantic connection. 

This was a re-read for me and I still enjoyed it. It isn't high literary fiction, or even particularly well written. But it is an easily accesible and interesting gateway into the world of science fiction that will work well for many people. I enjoy this book, and it will always be something for me to return to when I need something readable and enjoyable to keep me entertained.

3/5: It was an enjoyable read.

 

Review: The Community by Christine Gregory

This book was a birthday present from my ten-year-old daughter. She told me she saw it in the shop and thought of me.Which, honestly, might be my new favourite kind of book recommendation.

The Community, by Christine Gregory, is a murder mystery set in a small, environmentally-minded co-operative town in regional Queensland – a place called Steels Creek, tucked in among bushland and built around the idea of doing things differently.

Our main character, Nils Larsen, is a disgraced journalist who has come to Steels Creek to disappear. Or at least to recover. He carries around what he thinks of as a murky past, though it slowly becomes clear that what actually haunts him is his role in exposing police corruption and everything that followed from that. He’s divorced, slightly adrift, and sees his daughter only occasionally. When she does visit, there is a quiet but heavy tension between them. She is still angry at him for what his choices cost their family.

When a body is found in a local waterhole, Nils is pulled back into investigation. The murder ends up touching not just him, but his daughter and her friends as well, adding a personal closeness to the case.

This is very much a slow-burn crime novel. The story takes its time and lets you get to know the town and the people in it including the long-timers, the love interest and of course the inevitable red herrings. 

In many ways, it’s fairly standard crime fiction. There’s nothing wildly new or exciting. But I don’t really mean that as a criticism. It’s a well-built, familiar kind of story and that's often what I’m in the mood for.

What really stayed with me, though, were the descriptions of the bush. I grew up near bushland and spent a lot of time bushwalking, and the way the landscape is written here felt true. The heat and the stillness of the air were all so vividly done that I could almost feel it while I was reading.

I’ve already forgotten most of the fine details of the plot (which probably tells you something about how much space this book is taking up in my brain now) but I do remember how compulsive it was while I was in it. It’s the kind of novel you keep picking up for “just one more chapter”, and then suddenly realise you’ve read far more than you planned to.

And, of course, I will always have a soft spot for a book that my daughter looked at and thought, Mum would like this.

The Classics Club

I've decided to join the Classics Club, the idea of which is to set a goal of reading 50 classics within 5 years from the date that you start the challenge. On a higher level, "the point isn’t to challenge people to read by a strict list — but to create for ourselves a habit and a curiosity about literature". 

So what's a classic: "for the purposes of your project list, it’s your choice, really. Modern classics, ancient classics, Eastern canon, Western canon, Persophone, Virago, African literature, children’s classics… You make your own goal, and you decide what is a classic".

My challenge commences: March 2026

The Classics Club Book List 

(1831) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
(1838) Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
(1847) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 
(1847) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
(1847) Agnes Gray by Anne Bronte
(1848) Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
(1855) North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
(1865) Force and Fraud by Ellen Davitt
(1898) The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
(1899) The Awakening by Kate Chopin
(1899) Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
(1929) Passing by Nella Larsen
(1937) Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
(1939) The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
(1940) The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead
(1945) The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
(1948) The Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
(1949) Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
(1951) My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
(1954) Lord of the Flies by William Golding
(1958) Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
(1958) Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
(1959) The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
(1961) Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
(1961) Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto
(1961) The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
(1962) A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine l'Engle
(1964) My Brother Jack by George Johnston
(1967) Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
(1967) One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
(1969) The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula le Guin
(1977) The Shining by Stephen King
(1977) The Silmariliion by JRR Tolkien 
(1977) Tirra Lirra by the River by Jessica Andersen
(1978) The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
(1981) Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
(1982) Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally
(1985) Love in a Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
(1987) It's Raining in Mango by Thea Astley
(1989) The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
(1991) Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
(1992) The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
(1994) Death of River Guide by Richard Flannagan
(1997) The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
(2004) Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
(2005) Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro 
(2006) Carpentaria by Alexis Wright
(2009) Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
(2011) All That I Am by Anna Funder
(2013) The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flannagan

Literary Wives (March 2026): Mrs Bridge by Evan S. Connell

Literary Wives is an on-line book group that examines the meaning and role of wife in different books. Every other month, we post and discuss a book with this question in mind: What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife? 

Don’t forget to check out the other members of Literary Wives to see what they have to say about the book!

Other participants:

• Kate of booksaremyfavouriteandbest
• Naomi of Consumed by Ink
• Rebecca of Bookish Beck
• Kay of What Me Read
• Marianne of Let's Read

Mrs Bridge by Evan S. Connell

Mrs Bridge is set in middle-class Kansas City in the years between the late 1920s and the post-war period, and quietly follows the life of India Bridge, a respectable, well-off wife and mother living exactly the life she is supposed to want. 

The story unfolds through a series of small, precise vignettes which show moments in India Bridge’s life that, when taken together, give you an almost perfect sense of her character and her world. We meet her in her late teens and then follow her through her children’s younger years, their adolescence, and later, as they leave home and begin lives of their own. 

She lives a lonely life, with a husband who works almost constantly, and within social expectations that quietly but firmly shape everything she does. She couldn’t necessarily articulate that sense of restraint, but she clearly feels disconnected from herself and from her own life. Early on, she reflects that as a young woman she had felt marriage and family life might not be for her but she wasn’t taken seriously. That life simply wasn’t presented as a real option. Women (and men, to a lesser extent) were given one narrow path: marriage, children and domesticity. Mrs Bridge falls into what is expected of her, and from there she keeps rolling forward, never quite feeling like she is steering. She is always the passenger, never the driver. This idea is beautifully and painfully captured in the final scene of the book. 

I felt a little disconnected from her as a character but I think Connell does this deliberately. We feel removed from India because she is removed from herself. There are moments when she comes close to recognising what is missing and trying to do something about it, like when she leaves a potentially controversial book lying around, hoping it might start a conversation with her husband. But she always retreats. It is as though she is too afraid to follow these flickers of awareness through, too frightened to really confront the emptiness she senses in her life. 

There are a couple of possible reasons for this. She may be afraid of what she will discover if she looks too closely. Or she may simply never have been given the emotional language or life skills to identify and act on her own needs. This is a time when women were barely acknowledged as having needs at all, let alone encouraged to take them seriously. 

One of the most unsettling moments in the novel is her strangely muted response to a friend being killed by their own child. It feels as though she is frightened of strong feeling itself. Possibly she knows that if she faces the horror and pain she not be able to contain herself.  

There is also an undercurrent of casual, unquestioned racism running through the novel that feels entirely of its time. It appears in off-hand remarks, in social assumptions, and in the way people who sit outside Mrs Bridge’s world of comfort and respectability barely register as fully realised lives.  The prejudice is not loud or dramatic; it is simply absorbed into the background of everyday life. In a way, this mirrors Mrs Bridge’s own emotional blindness. Just as she rarely interrogates the limits placed on her as a woman, she also never questions the social order that places her so securely in it and others so far outside it. 

So much of what Mrs Bridge does, she does because she thinks she should. Hosting cocktail parties. Hiring a maid. Keeping special hand towels for special occasions that she hopes no one will use and no one ever does. These rituals of correctness become substitutes for meaning. They are how she measures whether she is succeeding at her life. 

Her relationships with her children are shaped in exactly the same way. She is deeply invested in what they should be doing, what they should care about, and how they should behave. She is so focused on the “shoulds” that she misses the quiet, ordinary pleasure of discovering who her children actually are and of building relationships with them that are genuinely mutual. 

What does Mrs Bridge say about being a wife?

What Mrs Bridge ultimately says about wives, and about women like Mrs Bridge, is so beautifully restrained. It shows how a life can be carefully constructed, socially admired, and still feel profoundly uninhabited or empty. Marriage does not ruin Mrs Bridge and Mr Bridge isn't cruel to her or her children. Mrs Bridge shows something something more insidious: a world that trains women to be accommodating, pleasant and grateful, while preventing them from coming to know themselves and be themselves.

This is a wonderful novel. It is short yet perfectly crafted. I really can’t fault it and I would recommend it to everyone.

Literary Wives Book Club

Literary Wives is an on-line book group that examines the meaning and role of wife in different books. Every other month, we post and discuss a book with this question in mind: 

What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife? 

Reviews

June 2025 The Constant Wife by W Somerset Maughan

September 2025 Novel About My Wife by Emily Perkins

December 2025 The Soul of Kindness by Elizabeth Taylor

March 2026 Mrs Bridge by Evan S Connell 

Don’t forget to check out the other members of Literary Wives to see what they have to say about the book!

Other participants

Kate of booksaremyfavouriteandbest

Kate can’t remember a time in her life that didn’t include books. She started her blog in 2012 as a way of extending her bookish-circle – and extend it, it did! Kate lives in Melbourne, Australia with her husband and four children. When she’s not reading, she can be found swimming laps at her local pool, dreaming of her next beach holiday, or walking by the Yarra River. Kate works as a grief counsellor.

Naomi of Consumed by Ink

Once upon a time, Naomi worked as a biologist, math tutor, and early childhood educator. Since then, she has been happily reading bedtime stories to three eager listeners, and hopes this will never change. She loves traveling around the Canadian Maritimes with her family, visiting the used book stores and bakeries.

Rebecca of Bookish Beck

Originally from Maryland, Rebecca lives in Newbury, England and works as a freelance proofreader and book reviewer. She also curates a neighborhood Little Free Library and volunteers with community gardening projects and at her local public library.

Kay of What Me Read

Kay is a long-time professional technical writer (now retired—yippee!) who also taught composition and technical-writing courses at the college level. She loves reading all kinds of books. She is also a moderator for The Classics Club. She is the secret author of three (sadly unpublished) trashy romance novels and one literary novel.

Marianne of Let's Read

Marianne is 68 years old, has been married for 42 years, has two boys. Christoph, 35, works in Amsterdam as an editor, and Philip, 31, works in Brussels at the European Parliament. The family is German but has lived in the Netherlands for 20 years after 6 years in England. Marianne hasn’t worked since she had her second child, but she used to work as a foreign language secretary and a lawyer’s assistant. She did a lot of volunteer work before she fell ill with constant migraines. In 2019, her husband retired and they returned to Germany. They now live near her family. She loves reading, crafts, photography and languages

Read Christie 2026

For as along as I can remember I have been an avid Christie fan. I have read all of her Poirot and Marple novels, and many of her others. Despite this, I continue to read and re-read her novels, never tiring them. 

With this as my inspiration, I have decided to join "Read Christie 2026", described as: 

Welcome to Read Christie 2026! This year's reading challenge will focus on Agatha Christie's Biggest, Best and Beloved stories! We'll be reading a new book each month, plus throughout the year we will cover An Autobiography. From the biggest inspiration to the best to read in one setting, beloved in your collection to the best according to Christie, our reading prompts promise to deliver a year of fantastic stories for fans. Plus, we will be providing book club guides, pertinent questions, and plenty of insights to help you get the most out of the challenge.

What are the books?

My Quick Reviews

January: Best Opening - The Body In the Library

The Body in the Library has a very bold opening. Mrs Bantry is awaken by her maid informing her that there is a body in the library. Her husband has stumbled upon a young blonde woman if fancy evening aware, dead in their library. Mrs Bantry, feeling for her husband around whom local gossip inevitably begins to swirl, calls upon her long term friend Miss Marple to help her to solve the murder. 

A fun fact, when I was a young girl my copy of this book was missing the final pages and I would read it without ever knowing who the guilty party was. Fortunately this was inevitabley resolved. 

February: Beloved Character(s) - Mrs McGinty's Dead

Why is this one about beloved characters? Admission from me - I don't feel attached to any of these characters. I suppose Ariadne Oliver is always good fun, but someone I don't think that's what they're getting at. I can't read this one without picturing the David Suchet episode either. I'm not sure whether that helps or hinders my reading of the story. 

March: Biggest Impact on You As a Young Reader - Murder on the Orient Express

April: Beloeved in Your Collection - A Carribean Mystery

May: Best Short Story Collection - The Labours of Hercules

June: Best to Read in One Sitting - The Murder of Roger Akroyd

July: Best-Kept Secret - The Rose and the Yew Tree

August: Beloved Duo - By the Pricking of My Thumbs

September: Best According to Agatha - Endless Night

October: Best Cold Case - Sleeping Murder

November: Biggest Inspiration - And Then There Were None

December: Best Seasonal Read - Hercule Poirot's Christmas

All Year Round: Best Book About Agatha Christie - An Autobiography