From Lincoln to Scarlet

The first Saturday of the month is time for #6 degrees hosted by Kate booksaremybestandfavourite.

By some chance of the blue moon, Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders was the January pick for PocketBook Club. I listened to it which was a bit confusing at first, but eventually, I got my head around the book’s lack of narrator and liked the book hell of a lot. In it are a lot of ghosts who do not know they are dead and are unable to ‘move on’.

Another book about a ghost unable to move on is The Lovely Bones by Alice Seabold which is a book about grief and love. Peter Jackson made it into a movie and I knew he would do a good job of it because I had seen his Heavenly Creatures which is the true story of two teenage girls who murder one of their mothers.

One of the girls served her time in prison and changed her name to Anne Perry who now writes detective novels, for instance, The Face of a Stranger about an amnesiac private investigator William Monk. I have not read it, or any of her books but the idea of her fascinates me.

Chopper Read also turned his hand from criminal activities to writing books, Chopper: From the Inside, to name one at random. I have not read any of Chopper’s books. I did see the movie with Eric Bana playing Chopper.

Eric was also in a movie called The Time Traveler’s Wife which was based on a book by Audrey Niffenegger. I have read this one. Phew. I thought I was getting off track for a while. I do like time travel stories. They are so timey wimey.

HG Wells popularised the idea of time travel and coined the term ‘time machine’ (according to Wikipedia) in his book from 1895, The Time Machine. I read it so long ago I don’t remember it well.  It’s old.

Not quite as old as A Study in Scarlet, the 1887 novel in which Conan Doyle introduced Sherlock Holmes. Which makes me think of Benedict Cumberbatch. It does not take much to make me think of Cumberbatch. I don’t need an excuse.

Next month, The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf.

9 thoughts on “From Lincoln to Scarlet

  1. Great links Kathryn – who would have thought we’d get to criminals turned writers! And I learnt a new phrase “wibbily wobbly timey wimey”. Love it. I’m not much into speculative fiction but I did enjoy The time-travellers wife.

  2. Nicely done 🙂
    Another chain links to The Lovely Bones but then goes in a different direction to yours. I was terrified by the book and even more so by the movie but saw it for the same reason as you – if it was as good as Heavenly Creatures, it would be great (and yes, it met expectations).
    I’ve read Time Traveller’s Wife but had completely forgotten a movie was made… not even sure if I have seen it!

  3. Very nice chain! And I have read a bunch of Anne Perry’s books. Had read many of them before I knew about her younger years and the murder. Always a bit odd to think about that because I really like her books. Ha!

    1. Oh, I wondered her books were good. I will have to keep an eye out for one in the second-hand bookstores. She is prolific, there’s a ton of titles listed on her Wikipedia page.

  4. The Lovely Bones has come up in more t han one chain. Shows how each can focus on a different aspects of a book. Hadn’t seen it as a ghost but then hadn’t read Lincoln in the Bardo so maybe we would have seen the link. I loved The Time Travellers Wife.

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