It’s literally the first Saturday of the month, which makes it Six Degrees of Separation day. This meme, hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best involves Kate nominating a book I have rarely read (in this case, We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson) and then nominating six other titles of books that spring to mind.
- With ‘castle’ in the title of the starting book, what else could I go for but I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith? In Grade 7 and 8, I just loved this book and kept reborrowing it from the school library. I saw the film, but it didn’t have the magic for me now that it had as a young girl. I have a copy on my shelves, but I don’t know if I want to re-read it or not. Perhaps some books are best left as memories.
- Brideshead Revisited had a castle in it too. I loved the series with Jeremy Irons. I know that I read the book too, while I was at university.
- L.P. Hartley’s The Go-Between was set in a big house as well, told from the perspective of a visitor from a lower class who doesn’t know the ‘rules’ of the gentry. We read it in Matric (yes, I’m that old), and I think that it has one of the best starting lines in literature: “The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.”
- Like everyone else in the world, we read To Kill a Mockingbird at school too. I have re-read this one, many times, and every time I hear the music to the absolutely perfect movie, my eyes fill with tears. To me, this book is emblematic of the Deep South
- Another book set in the South- New Orleans this time- is The Yellow House by Sarah M.Broom (my review here). The youngest of twelve children in a working class family, she tells the story of her family home in New Orleans, interweaving national and local history, family stories and her own story of place and identity.
- The Lives of Houses, edited by Kate Kennedy and Hermione Lee is a collection of essays that emerged from a 2017 conference titled ‘The Lives of Houses’ held at the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing at Wolfson College, Oxford. This conference brought together scholars from different disciplines and professions, with an emphasis on British, Irish, American and European houses. The ‘big’ names include Hermione Lee, Margaret Macmillan, David Cannadine, Jenny Uglow, Julian Barnes, and it focuses on 19th century British writers and a peculiarly British form of being ‘the writer’ in a mixture of eccentricity and domesticity. (My review here)
So somehow or other I started off with a castle and ended up in a house.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 
From a castle to a house sounds like a riches to rags story!
I’ve read the first four books on your chain, and after reading your review hope to come across The Lives of Houses, which looks very interesting.
Great chain, I nearly started with I Capture the Castle too, but went a completely different way,
I enjoyed your chain, partly because I have read the first four of your books. The first one I thought of when I saw this starting book was I capture the castle, but I have a rule that I will only link to books I’ve reviewed on my blog so i had to think again.
I started with a castle link too, but chose a different book. I do love I Capture the Castle, though! Great chain.
Very interesting chain here. Didn’t they make a movie of “The Go-Between”? I think I remember it.
Yes. It had Julie Christie in it. In fact, the cover of the edition we read in 1973 had a shot of Julie Christie from the film.
I have read several of these but not The Go-Between, which sounds worth hunting down. To Kill a Mockingbird was assigned reading when I was too young to appreciate it, maybe 12. I need to read it again and have never seen the full movie (but Gregory Peck was certainly attractive, wasn’t he?).
Constance
The Go-Between is lovely- quite similar to Ian McEwan’s ‘Atonement’, I thought.
An appealing chain, from which I have actually read your first four choices. Your last book looks really interesting. Thanks!
It’s pretty academic, because it came from a conference, and it certainly ranges around the topic of authors’ houses.
I Capture the Castle is a great starting point, and one that I didn’t even think of!
Nice chain!
I Capture the Castle is a great starting point, and one that I didn’t even think of!
Nice chain!
I was very tempted to start the chain with the same book you did, because I too loved I Capture the Castle. I love your focus on big houses and the South (which to me also is full of Big Houses, just like the English manor houses).