Six Degrees of Separation - From The Beauty Myth to Backlash

I'm here with Six Degrees of Separation, a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. She chooses a book as a starting point and then links 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 starting book of this month's chain is by Naomi Wolf, a book that was very controversial in the '90's - The Beauty Myth:

I have not read this book, though I was aware of it when it was published, 1990.  It's about how society tries to tell women how they 'should' look - like fashion models and celebrities.  It's about how women attempt to conform to those standards, to their own peril, both physically and mentally.  I may read this one at some point.

Connecting to the word 'Myth', we'll move on to Neil Gaiman's most recent book, Norse Mythology.  I have not read this one either, but I have long been a fan of these stories.  As you can see, Thor's Hammer is on the cover.  There is Odin and Thor and Loki and all the other characters that live in Asgard.  I understand that the author narrates the book in audio.

One of the Norse goddesses is 'Freya', so that's our connection here to Christina Sunley's book, The Tricking of Freya.   I did read this book soon after it was published in 2009.  It's about a young woman named Freya who grows up in the US, but visits her relatives in a small town in Canada each year, the village of Gimli.  It was settled by Icelandic immigrants and her Aunt Birdie tells her tales of the Norse gods, while also keeping a family secret.  Freya eventually travels to Iceland to learn more.

'Iceland' is the connection between books and we move on to Ragnar Jonasson's mystery, Snowblind.  Set in a small fishing village in northern Iceland, rookie policeman Ari Thor has a murder to solve.  He's new to the area and knows no one.  The locals are not talking, nor do they trust Ari.  And with almost 24-hours of darkness, it snows and snows and snows.  I've not read this book yet, but I am going to a mystery conference in April where the author will appear.  Can't wait!

The next book in our chain is Swiss Vendetta by Tracee de Hahn.  It's connected by 'Snow', though it could also be connected by 'author being at April mystery conference'.  Swiss Police Inspector Agnes Luthi has just transferred from Financial Crimes to Violent Crimes.  She's called out in a major blizzard to investigate her first homicide.  A woman has been murdered at a historic chateau and Agnes must try to solve the crime without much assistance from anyone.  A locked-room mystery that I am very much looking forward to reading.

And we move on to a book first published in 1847 - Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte.  The connection is the name 'Agnes'.  Like the main character in the story, Anne Bronte was a governess for several years.  The book is considered somewhat autobiographical and it details some of the oppression these women suffered as their choices of vocation were very limited.  This is the Bronte sister that I have not read as yet.

We will complete this chain's circle and come back to women and society.  The connecting factor is 'Women, Jobs, Choices'.  I did read Backlash by Susan Faludi when it was written in 1991.  It's about the backlash against women for victories won in the workplace.  It's about the glass ceiling, the man 'shortage' and infertility of women who were told that it occurred because they postponed childbearing too long.  It was an intriguing book, which won the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction.

Well, this has been an interesting chain - certainly for me as I connected one book to another.  We've gone from a 'Beauty Myth' to 'Mythology' to 'Freya' to 'Iceland' to 'Snow' to 'Agnes' to 'Women, Jobs, Choices'.  From non-fiction to fiction to crime novels to classics.  I'll look forward to next month's Six Degrees (April 7th), when our starting place is Arthur Golden's bestseller, Memoirs of a Geisha (a book I've read - yay!).