#6Degrees of Separation is a monthly linkup and meme hosted by Kate @ Books Are My Favourite and Best.

#6Degrees of Separation: The Berlin Letters to Ella Minnow Pea

*This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

Books and Letter Writing

#6Degrees is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Making connections between books is challenging, creative, and fun!

Each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked 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 rules are:

• 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.

Play Along?

I haven’t participated in this meme for over a year mainly because I haven’t read the starter books. For this month, the starter book is your last read (or the last book on January’s chain). The last book I read from the date I started this draft is The Berlin Letters by Katherine Reay, Even though it is not epistolary in its entirety, letters are a significant part of the story.

Are you wondering how I’ve connected all these books?

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Starter Book: Even though I have not yet written a formal review of The Berlin Letters, I know it’s a 5-Star read!

Amazon Summary: “From the time she was a young girl, Luisa Voekler has loved solving puzzles and cracking codes. Brilliant and logical, she’s expected to quickly climb the career ladder at the CIA. But while her coworkers have moved on to thrilling Cold War assignments—especially in the exhilarating era of the late 1980s—Luisa’s work remains stuck in the past decoding messages from World War II.

Journalist Haris Voekler grew up a proud East Berliner. But as his eyes open to the realities of postwar East Germany, he realizes that the Soviet promises of a better future are not coming to fruition. After the Berlin Wall goes up, Haris finds himself separated from his young daughter and all alone after his wife dies. There’s only one way to reach his family—by sending coded letters to his father-in-law who lives on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

When Luisa Voekler discovers a secret cache of letters written by the father she has long presumed dead, she learns the truth about her grandfather’s work, her father’s identity, and why she has never progressed in her career. With little more than a rudimentary plan and hope, she journeys to Berlin and risks everything to free her father and get him out of East Berlin alive.

As Luisa and Haris take turns telling their stories, events speed toward one of the twentieth century’s most dramatic moments—the fall of the Berlin Wall and that night’s promise of freedom, truth, and reconciliation for those who lived, for twenty-eight years, behind the bleak shadow of the Iron Curtain’s most iconic symbol.“

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FIRST DEGREE. From The Berlin Letters, it’s a quick leap to a story about WWI and letters between sweethearts, Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb.

My Summary: “At the beginning of WW 1 as Evie watches her brother, Will, and his best friend, Thomas, leave for the front, she (and nearly everyone) naively believes the war will be over by Christmas. To keep their spirits up, the three make plans to celebrate Christmas in Paris. The Great War, as we know from history, turned out much differently. While Thomas and Will struggle with the horrific realities of war, Evie does her part by writing to each of them. Through letters, Evie and Thomas grow fond of each other and find it easy to share their deepest hopes and fears through letters. Evie is a high-spirited, determined, and independent young woman who wants to more fully participate in the war effort. Through her interest in writing, she writes columns for a newspaper on the topic of war from a woman’s point of view. These columns become more controversial as she finds it difficult to write anything but the truth. Eventually, she travels to France to be closer to the front as she wants to contribute to the war effort in a more significant way. Will Evie and Thomas and their love survive the war? Will they ever make it to Paris to celebrate Christmas?”

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SECOND DEGREE: Fast Forward to post WWII and we have correspondence between a writer and a book club, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer.

Amazon Summary: “I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.” January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb. . . .

As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.

Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises and of finding connection in the most surprising ways.

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THIRD DEGREE: Another compelling correspondence between strangers happens in Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson.

My Summary: “Told in epistolary format, the story in Meet Me at the Museum unfolds from alternating viewpoints as we meet the two main characters through their letters. Tina is a hard-working, loyal, and duty-bound English farmer’s wife, mother, and grandmother, and she is also grieving the recent loss of her best friend, Bella. In thinking of the past, she remembers the promise that she and Bella made to each other to visit the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark to see the mummified Tolland Man from the Iron Age. Life intervened and now Tina is in her 60s and her friend is gone. She is inspired to write to Professor Glob, author of The Bog People, who mentions school children in the dedication of his book (our fictional Tina is one of the school children). Tina isn’t aware that Glob has died, so quiet, kind, and introspective Anders, curator of the Denmark museum, writes back to Tina. Tina and Anders begin a thoughtful and heartfelt correspondence. Anders is grieving the recent loss of his wife and through letters, Anders and Tina share intimate details of their lives and express thoughts that they have difficulty sharing with anyone else. As they discuss archeology, the Tolland Man, their philosophies of life, grief, and their families, they develop an endearing and unique friendship that could possibly lead to more.“

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FOURTH DEGREE: Similar to the friendship that formed between two strangers in Meet Me at the Museum, Love & Saffron by Kim Fay features a penpal friendship between two women.

Amazon Summary: “In the vein of the classic 84, Charing Cross Road, this witty and tender novel follows two women in 1960s America as they discover that food really does connect us all, and that friendship and laughter are the best medicine.

When twenty-seven-year-old Joan Bergstrom sends a fan letter–as well as a gift of saffron–to fifty-nine-year-old Imogen Fortier, a life-changing friendship begins. Joan lives in Los Angeles and is just starting out as a writer for the newspaper food pages. Imogen lives on Camano Island outside Seattle, writing a monthly column for a Pacific Northwest magazine, and while she can hunt elk and dig for clams, she’s never tasted fresh garlic–exotic fare in the Northwest of the sixties. As the two women commune through their letters, they build a closeness that sustains them through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the unexpected in their own lives.

Food and a good life—they can’t be separated. It is a discovery the women share, not only with each other, but with the men in their lives. Because of her correspondence with Joan, Imogen’s decades-long marriage blossoms into something new and exciting, and in turn, Joan learns that true love does not always come in the form we expect it to. Into this beautiful, intimate world comes the ultimate test of Joan and Imogen’s friendship—a test that summons their unconditional trust in each other.’

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FIFTH DEGREE: Since Amazon has compared Love & Saffron to 84, Charing Cross Road, it’s inevitable that Charing will be next in my chain.

Amazon Summary: “This funny, poignant, classic love story unfolds through a series of letters between Helene Hanff, a freelance writer living in New York City, and a used-book dealer in London at 84, Charing Cross Road. Through the years, though never meeting and separated both geographically and culturally, they share a charming, sentimental friendship based on their common love for books. Discover the relationship that has touched the hearts of thousands of readers around the world, and was the basis for a film starring Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft.”

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SIXTH DEGREE: The final link in the chain is a plot twist as we consider the quirky and clever writing in Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn. Letter writing is challenging as letters disappear from the alphabet one by one. (I hope you’ve also noticed the clever title LMNOP and the graphic images ELLA, MINNOW, PEA(s in a pod). Now I know you can’t help but want to read this book!)

Amazon Summary: “A hilarious and moving story of one girl’s fight for freedom of expression, as well as a linguistic tour de force sure to delight word lovers everywhere.

Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal phrase containing all the letters of the alphabet, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”

Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has banned the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop. As the letters progressively drop from the statue they also disappear from the novel. The result is “a love letter to alphabetarians and logomaniacs everywhere” (Myla Goldberg, bestselling author of Bee Season).

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I hope you enjoyed this #6Degrees of Separation chain from The Berlin Letters to Ella Minnow Pea!

I have read all these books and can recommend them all!

The most striking thread that connects the stories in this chain is the letter writing.

Can we connect the first and last books in the chain? I believe so! The Berlin Letters involves a great deal of concentration and intelligence in cracking codes to read hidden messages. In Ella Minnow Pea, written communication becomes increasingly difficult as letters from the alphabet continue to disappear. This requires concentration and intelligence to make sense of the written content. In both books, letters must be decoded.

I need to note that these are the first six books I thought to connect. Many stories are out there that could also fit this chain. Can you think of another title that might fit this chain?

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QOTD!

Do you have ideas for creating your own chain?
What book would you add to this chain?
Have you read one of these stories?
If you have a February #6Degrees of Separation post, please leave a link in the comments!

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Happy Reading Book Buddies!

“Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.”
~Rainer Maria Rilke

“I love the world of words, where life and literature connect.”
~Denise J Hughes

“Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad ones.”
~Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“I read because books are a form of transportation, of teaching, and of connection! Books take us to places we’ve never been, they teach us about our world, and they help us to understand human experience.”
~Madeleine Riley, Top Shelf Text

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