Six Degrees of Separation – Murmur –> ??

Happy June! I did one of these Six Degrees of Separation posts two months ago and it was a lot of fun, so I wanted to do it again! Basically you make a list of six books, with each one connecting to the next in some way. It can be any kind of connection! I love this because I love seeing the different ways people think and make connections. This meme (actually called #6Degrees) is hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favorite and Best.

Today’s starting point is Murmur by Will Eaves. This was the winner of the 2019 Wellcome Prize, which celebrates topics of health and medicine in literature. I haven’t read it, but the Goodreads synopsis sounds really intriguing:

“Taking its cue from the arrest and legally enforced chemical castration of the mathematician Alan Turing, Murmur is the account of a man who responds to intolerable physical and mental stress with love, honour and a rigorous, unsentimental curiosity about the ways in which we perceive ourselves and the world. Formally audacious, daring in its intellectual inquiry and unwaveringly humane, Will Eaves’s new novel is a rare achievement.”

I haven’t read this or even heard of the prize before! But I love the idea, and I think my mom would really like some of these books. In fact, I was looking through the past winners and the 2010 winner was The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, which I know my mom read and loved (I remember her talking about it).

“Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.”

The book follows the story of of the whole Lacks family, and is an important discussion about science and ethics and human rights.

Another book that highlights important scientific contributions from Black women is Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly.

“Set amid the civil rights movement, this is the never-before-told true story of NASA’s African-American female mathematicians who played a crucial role in America’s space program. Before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as ‘Human Computers’, calculating the flight paths that would enable these historic achievements. Among these were a coterie of bright, talented African-American women. Segregated from their white counterparts, these ‘coloured computers’ used pencil and paper to write the equations that would launch rockets and astronauts into space. Moving from World War II through NASA’s golden age, touching on the civil rights era, the Space Race, the Cold War, and the women’s rights movement, Hidden Figures interweaves a rich history of mankind’s greatest adventure with the intimate stories of five courageous women whose work forever changed the world.”

I haven’t read the book yet but I did see the movie and it was amazing. Book-to-movie adaptations are always a tricky thing to get right. Nonfiction usually translates better I think, but there are a few fictions ones that I do love. One of my favorite adaptations is the Stardust (by Neil Gaiman) adaptation.

I love that this book is basically an original fairytale. It’s magical and fun and beautiful (and a little scary since the witches eat the stars’ hearts, yikes). I admit to kinda preferring the film to the book (I KNOW!! blasphemy).

Something that has become really popular these days (in young adult novels at least) is fairytale retellings. The most common seems to be Beauty and the Beast retellings, but I love ones that branch out to lesser known fairytales, or tales from other cultures. One of my absolute favorite fairytale retellings is Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik.

Here is the Goodreads summary:

“Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders… but her father isn’t a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has loaned out most of his wife’s dowry and left the family on the edge of poverty–until Miryem steps in. Hardening her heart against her fellow villagers’ pleas, she sets out to collect what is owed–and finds herself more than up to the task. When her grandfather loans her a pouch of silver pennies, she brings it back full of gold. But having the reputation of being able to change silver to gold can be more trouble than it’s worth–especially when her fate becomes tangled with the cold creatures that haunt the wood, and whose king has learned of her reputation and wants to exploit it for reasons Miryem cannot understand.”

This is a very loose retelling of Rumplestiltskin, with other fairytale elements woven in. I love Novik’s writing in this, it’s just gorgeous. And there are so many great female protagonists in the story too. To top it all off, look at that cover!!! Heart eyes forever.

Naomi Novik wrote another series called the Temeraire series, which is about an alternate history of the Napoleonic Wars if there were dragons!! The first book is called His Majesty’s Dragon.

“Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors ride mighty fighting dragons, bred for size or speed. When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes the precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Captain Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future – and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarified world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France’s own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte’s boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.”

And that’s six books! Yet again I have managed to end with a fantasy novel – who is surprised? No one haha. I hope you enjoyed seeing my thought process seeing how these books connected! Have you read any of them? Or are you gonna check out any of them now that I’ve talked about them?