Today’s topic for “A Month of Favorites” is a meme within a meme — 6 Degrees of Separation. “A Month of Favorites” is being run by Girlxoxo, Traveling with T and Estella’s Revenge. The link-up, today, is at the normal 6 Degrees of Separation blog host: Annabel Smith. [Edited to add: moved to Estella’s Revenge because we are a bit too early for Annabel’s link-up.]

I’ve never played this game before, so I hope I’m doing it right. I’ll post the rules graphic at the end. Maybe that will help.

A chunkster I read while traveling in England

I’ll start with a favorite book that I read this year: Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. I read it during our England trip so it has all these wonderful associations attached to it now — the garden behind our hotel in Bath, the train from Bath to Birmingham, the tremendous view from our hotel in Birmingham.

A novel with a lot of helpful history, perfect for reading in Paris while eating macarons….

That, then, reminds me of the book I read in France: Paris by Edward Rutherfurd. What a great travel companion that was! I went out and saw things I had just read about in the book.

Historical fiction that goes from pre-history to modern times with lots of interesting stops in between.

Naturally, that reminds of me of this book: London by Edward Rutherfurd. I would have saved this to read on the England trip, but my brother read it earlier in the year, so it was even more fun to read it at the same time that he was.

Exploring the “Secret History Beneath the Streets”

While we’re in London, we might as well go underneath with London Under, a terrific nonfiction book by Peter Ackroyd exploring tunnels, subways, sewers, and other things beneath the streets.

The mysterious world under London

Neil Gaiman explored the underworld of London in the fantasy novel Neverwhere — a great companion book to the nonfiction, London Under.

I wished after I read London Under and Neverwhere that I’d saved them until after the trip. I thought that I might enjoy them more when I understood the geography of London better. As it turned out, I was completely wiped out after the trip. So perhaps it’s just as well that my post-trip reading included a much lighter read: a trip with my favorite werewolf to London in Kitty Steals the Show by Carrie Vaughn. It was fun seeing all the great landmarks through her eyes.

That was fun! Here are the rules (do you think I did it right?). [Edited to add: Oops! Apparently, I did it wrong. I was supposed to start with the assigned book. Oh well, since it’s the month of favorites, I’m going to stick with what I’ve got here.]