6 Degrees of Separation: Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver The Chain in Which My Math Skills Failed Me! Updated

In this meme, books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge.

A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the ones next to them in the chain. You can read all the rules at Books Are My Favourite and Best.

 

This month’s starting book is The Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver. I got it from the library and looked it over, but in the end didn’t cook anything from it due to my unemployment budget! I love Jamie–I’ve seen him on tv over the years and have enjoyed making some of his recipes.

The Naked Chef–-this was a tricky one to form a chain from–do I go all out foodie? [Julie Powell, of Julie & Julia fame died this week at only 49 so I did think of working her book in, but ultimately decided on a different course].

 

My first book may strike you as…well….odd. But, I bought it for my great-nephew Jamie last Christmas (it was on his wish list). Ultimate Bug Rumble by Jerry Pallotta.

I guess I could not count this one, since it’s a children’s book–right? Can’t believe I didn’t notice I had SEVEN books!

Not only is Muhammed Ali know for the phrase “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,” he also fought George Foreman (he of grill fame), long ago, in the “Rumble in the Jungle.” The Greatest: My Own Story by Muhammed Ali.

 

Muhammad Ali is from Louisville, KY. Lee Child’s book Groundskeeping is mostly set in Louisville.

 

Another author named Lee is Lee Smith–a woman this time. She’s from next door West Virginia instead of Kentucky. I’ve read a few of her books, including Dimestore: A Writer’s Life, and the book pictured here, The Last Girls.

Lee Smith grew up in West Virginia in a town not unlike that in The Truth According to Us by Annie Barrows. The main character, Layla, works for the WPA on the state guide for West Virginia.

 

One of the characters in the last book, The Truth According to Us, worked for the WPA writing the state guide for West Virginia. Food of a Younger Land, a nonfiction book, often draws on the work of the WPA both in the state guide series and in other publications.The WPA was a governmental organization, part of FDR’s New Deal. My great-uncles did construction work for the agency. Another great-uncle tried, but failed, to get into the artist’s section just as it was winding down.

One problem all sorts of governmental and non-governmental agencies, international aid agencies and international non-governmental organizations have tried to tackle is a that of The Mosquito by Timothy C. Winegard which is still on my TBR. I had malaria a few times while living in Malawi in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

While I did not come up with a clever way to bring us full circle back to Jamie Oliver, I did at least get us back to the first book in my chain–another book about insects.

Why not join the fun next month? December 3, 2022 we’ll start with The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey.