The starting book this week for Six Degrees of Separation is Are You there God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. If you want to find out about how to join in here’s the link at Books are my Favourite and Best. It’s not a book I’d heard of before but I gather that in it a young girl talks to God about her problems.
The opposite of God is Satan so my next book is The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis in this book Screwtape is an elderly devil high up in the Infernal Civil Service who is giving advice to a younger one, his nephew Wormwood, as to how to lead human beings into sin.
![The Screwtape Letters (Annotated) by [C.S. Lewis]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/514ltIehmzL.jpg)
Anthony Hopkins played C.S. Lewis in the film Shadowlands. The film was about Lewis’ love affair with the american Joy Davidman and her subsequent death. Hopkins also played the butler, Stevens, in the film The Remains of the Day which was based on the book by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Another famous fictional butler is of course Jeeves of the P.G. Wodehouse comic novels so my next choice is Thank you, Jeeves.
A bit of a blurry cover but at least you can see the banjo. In that book Jeeves quits because of Bertie’s terrible banjo playing. A famous banjo playing scene occurs in Deliverance a book by James Dickey turned into a film with Burt Reynolds. In that book four friends decide to go on a canoe trip in the north west Georgian wilderness and all kinds of terrible things happen to them.
Another book set in a boat is Life of Pi by Yann Martel. In that book a young boy is shipwrecked in a boat with a Bengal tiger who he has to persuade not to eat him.
And finally another book with a tiger in it is R.K. Narayan’s A Tiger for Malgudi in which an ageing tiger encounters a guru and learns about non-violence. It’s written from the point of view of the tiger.
So there we have it from God to Tigers in six degrees or should I say tiggerish bounds? Have you read any of these and if so what did you think of them?
Next month (January 2nd, 2021) the start book is Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. Why don’t you join in?
victoria blake 
A devilishly good list!
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Hi Mary thanks for the comment. The Screwtape Letters are very funny on the question of human frailty!
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I really like the variety in the books you’ve chosen! P.G. Wodehouse, James Dickey, and Judy Blume – that’s amazing! And you’ve got clever connections between, them, too. Well done
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Hi Margot, yes Wodehouse to Dickey is a bit of a leap, aided by a banjo of course!
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Interesting chain here. I read Deliverance in college for my American Southern Writers class, before the movie came out. I knew after reading it, I did NOT want to see the film and I never did (although I liked the theme song “dueling banjos”).
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Hi Davida I saw the film first before reading it and I thought it was a very powerful film but also one that I would never watch again. Once in a lifetime was quite enough!
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Great links Victoria!
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Thanks Cathy, yours too!
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An interesting list. The only one I’ve read is The Remains of the Day. Judy Blume’s ‘Forever’ was all the rage when I was at school, because it was about teenage sexuality. I don’t remember reading it and I’m sure it would be very tame by today’s standards, but I think it still got/gets censored.
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I hadn’t heard of it before so was interested to find out about it. I imagine that the range of books dealing with teenage sexuality has increased a great deal since then.
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I was able to follow you after every leap. Very clever list. I’d be honored if you’d take a look. My 6-Degrees chain
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Hi Anne and thanks for the comment. I’d love to take a look but the link you’ve included doesn’t take me to your blog. Will you try again and I’ll visit!
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Judy Blume is a big deal in the US but perhaps not well known overseas. It is interesting to consider how an author reacts to learning his or her book has been banned because I doubt most contemplate that when they are writing it. She has received fandom from enthusiastic readers but also vitriolic abuse from those seeking to censor the book due to the discussion of puberty and Margaret’s reflections on being the child of one Christian and one Jewish parent. The book is really a cultural phenomenon. I am not a huge fan but read it along with every other girl I knew in the 70s and definitely admire how Blume has stood up to criticism (mostly, I assume, from people who had not read the book). And I probably learned things my mother was too shy to tell me!
I have read your first three. When I lived in NYC every book group was reading Life of Pi. I never got past the first chapter and I think my sister didn’t get much farther. Oh well, can’t like everything!
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Hi Constance I’m really interested to read it and thanks for the history of the book. I could have gone for another ‘boat’ book that wasn’t Life of Pi but I fancied the tiger link!
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I really like how you’ve connected the books through the characters (tigers are characters too!). Life of Pi is one of my all-time favorite books, so happy to see it here. Screwtape looks snarky and fun, as does Tiger for Malgudi — both added to my TBR. 🙂
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Screwtape is absolutely snarky and very funny! I liked my tiger link. Who doesn’t love a tiger? I was tempted by Tigger in Winnie the Pooh which could have taken me off in all kinds of other directions!
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