6 DEGREES OF SEPARATION #8: THE NARROW ROAD TO THE DEEP NORTH.

'They say every person on the planet can be linked to any other in six steps or less BUT what about books?

Books can be linked in obvious ways - for example, books by the same author, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric 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.'

It's that time again. Hosted as always by Annabel and Emma, this month's book, once again not one I've actually read, is .....

The Narrow Road To The Deep North is a love story unfolding over half a century between a doctor and his uncle's wife.

Taking its title from one of the most famous books in Japanese literature, written by the great haiku poet Basho, Flanagan's novel has at its heart one of the most infamous episodes of Japanese history, the construction of the Thailand-Burma Death Railway in World War II.

In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Death Railway, surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with his uncle's young wifetwo years earlier. Struggling to save the men under his command from starvation, from cholera, from beatings, he receives a letter that will change his life forever.

- Book description, The Man Booker Prize.com

#1 TENKO. Arguably one of the best known and perhaps the most highly commercialised novels of its genre. Based on true events, I read the book, watched the tv dramatisation, long, long before Pen and Paper but the character, one of only a few I can actually remember, that instantly springs to mine is the ever practical, rather formidable Dr Stephanie Mason who teams up with the brusque Sister Ulrica.

#2 THE THORN BIRDS. Another blast from the past (also adapted for television though I somehow managed to miss it) this one recently re-read. It is once again, a man of the cloth, Father Ralph de Bricassart, who I instantly remembered. One of my girlhood literary crushes, in my mine's eye I can still see him (swoons), shirtless, as Meggie inspects his badly bruised ribs.

#3 TWILIGHT. Though not a debate I got into it, two of literatures most recent hotly contended crushes (and not just amongst teenage girls) were Twilight's Edward or, my choice should I have had to pick, Jacob.

#4 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Ah, the most famous literary Jacob of them all, Dickens' Jacob Marley.

#5 THE HOUSE AT MIDNIGHT. Haunted not by his  business partner let alone the ghost of Christmas Past, Christmas Present or Christmas Yet To Come but by the death of his uncle, Lucas becomes obsessed by old cinefilm of himself and his friends taken thirty years previously.

#6 THE SHADOW YEAR. Another story of obsession, of a decadent summer, of sexual tensions, of a group of young peoples lives changed forever at the centre of which is not a manor but an isolated cottage.

{NB Unless otherwise stated all of the books featured in this meme have been reviewed by myself on Pen and Paper}