The First Saturday of the month is Six Degrees Day. This meme, hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best involves her choosing a starting book, then you linking the titles or themes of six other books. But this month was a little different because instead of Kate choosing the book, you were invited to start with your bookgroup’s current read. I attend two book groups: the first group with about 7 of us now called ‘Rosanna Readers’ was in the past a CAE bookgroup, and the second is the Ivanhoe Reading Circle, a more formal, meeting based group that was established in 1920. During September, the Reading Circle read Hannah Kent’s Always Home Always Homesick.
This book is a memoir of Kent’s sojourn in Iceland as a 17 year old on a Rotary exchange visit, her love for Iceland and its inspiration for her first book Burial Rites which was published to great acclaim after a spirited bidding war for publishing rights.
- It would come as no surprise that I chose Burial Rites as the first link. As probably everyone knows, the book is a ‘speculative biography’ of Agnes Magnusdottir, who was executed for murder in Iceland in 1829. Awaiting sentence, she is interned on a remote farm, where enforced proximity draws her into the circle of her keeper’s family. (See my review here)
- In writing Burial Rites, Kent looked to Margaret Atwood’s approach to writing Alias Grace, also about a woman charged with murder. Atwood had written “Where mere hints and outright gaps exist in the records, I have felt free to invent”. I read Alias Grace before starting this blog, but there are similarities between the two books both in subject matter and approach.
- Always Home, Always Homesick is about the author’s love for Iceland and the continuing pull it exerts upon her. Kent references Haldor Laxness’ Independent People several times, and to be honest, I think that it’s the only book that I have read set in Iceland. I read this 23 years ago, long before this blog and I can’t remember much of it except the bleakness of the sheepfarmer living his stubbornly independent life in a turf hut in the bitter cold.
- While we’re in the cold, I just recently read Andrew Miller’s The Land in Winter which is set in a small English village in the winter of 1962-3 when England was plunged into freezing conditions between Boxing Day 1962 until the spring of 1963. It’s a very domestic story of two neighbouring families, set in an exceptional climate event. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize last year, and I think it would have been a very worthy winner (but it wasn’t). My review is here.
- As denoted by the title, much of Hannah Kent’s book Always Home Always Homesick addresses the theme of homesickness. Could any writer have done it better than Colm Toibin with Brooklyn? The film was fantastic- perhaps even better than the book? My review here.
- Homesickness going the other way is addressed in Stephanie Bishop’s The Other Side of the World a beautifully nuanced book about nostalgia, motherhood and the sense of ‘home’. Set between 1963 and 1966, English-born Charlotte has been plunged into rapid motherhood, long before she feels ready. Ground down by the sheer mindlessness and fatigue of dealing with babies, she acquiesces in her husband’s dream of emigrating to Australia and ends up in stark, hot, sun-drenched Perth. My review is here.
A very fiction-y Six Degrees for me this time but I’ve managed to move between Australia, Iceland, English, Brooklyn and Ireland.
Having read three of your choices – Kent, Miller and Tóibín – makes me feel I should add the other three to my TBR, though I sense the Laxness would be hard to source. A great chain – as ever.
Nice! Alias Grace was such a good book!
I’ve read several of your books this month and will look out for Always Home, Always Homesick. My sisters were both Rotary exchange students and we had several exchange students stay with us. One girl, from Brazil, was the most homesick person I’ve ever seen.
I enjoyed both Burial Rites and Alias Grace – there are definitely lots of similarities. I read The Land in Winter earlier this year and although I didn’t love it, I was very impressed by it and agree that it would have been a worthy winner.
Clever link between Burial Rites and Alias Grace.
Did your book group enjoy Always Home, Always Homesick?
Clever link between Burial Rites and Alias Grace.
Did your book group enjoy Always Home, Always Homesick?
Yes, we did, although some people felt that it was a bit of a ‘filler’ between her other books. I think that those of us who had read Burial Rites enjoyed it more.
Burial Rites was outstanding and remains one of my all-time favourites. I think I got extra value out of Home because I was an exchange student and so much of what she described was familiar to me.
Do they still even do exchange visits now?
I think they do but the whole concept has changed.
I had no idea where I was going (town too small to be on a map – now you would google it); I had no contact with my family, except a pre-planned phone call at Christmas (now there would be constant contact); and there was, quite frankly, less stress about the family I was going to (I am NOT a helicopter parent but would I think hard about sending my 16yo daughter to live with people I didn’t know on the other side of the world? Yes!).
Do these differences make the experience more accessible? Possibly. But I think the challenges of the previous system weeded out the kids who weren’t suited. I was absolutely suited in terms of independence and willingness. It remains one of the best and most important things I’ve done and had a profound impact on what came next in my life (which is why I identified with Kent’s book so much).
I think that by allowing constant communication with ‘home’ through phones and internet would undercut the whole experience of independence and being confident to do something different. Technology would even make it possible to avoid having to learn the language. I can see why you would have found so much to identify with in Kent’s book.
Absolutely. I have a friend who worked for an exchange organisation and she said exactly that, and as a result, they preferred younger students (13-14yo) who are slightly less focused on the social opportunity of exchange, and more on the learning. Either way, the process has been compromised.
I really liked Brooklyn (and the movie) and the sequel, Long Island. I think he really has to write a third book – I want to know what happens next!
Burial Rites has been on my list for a while. I’ve already chosen my book group’s book for October but maybe I’ll keep it in mind for the next time I get to pick.
Constance
I haven’t read these books, but I like how you conencted them.
Mine: https://wordsandpeace.com/2026/09/05/six-degrees-of-separation-initials/
Very good chain. I need to watch Brooklyn–I loved the book. I am interested in The Land In Winter–set in my birth year. Now to read about that historic book club you are in.