Let's play a literary version of the popular association game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” Here’s the Wikipedia explanation of the original idea.
Ready? Here goes:
How are best-selling writer Laura Lippman and Vernon Jordan, the first author to be selected for One Book, One Community of Southwestern Indiana, connected?
1. In 2008, Laura Lippman’s What the Dead Know received the Anthony Award for Best Mystery Novel.
2. Louise Penny, herself a recipient of several Anthony Awards, sets her Inspector Armand Gamache series in Three Pines, a small town outside of Quebec, Canada.
3. Canada is the title of the latest book by Richard Ford, whose break-through novel was The Sportswriter.
4. Sportswriter John Feinstein took a leave from absence from the Washington Post to research A Season on the Brink: a Year with Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers, which topped the New York Times Bestseller List for 16 weeks in 1987.
5. Preceding Feinstein’s book as #1 on the NYT Nonfiction Bestseller List was Fatherhood by Bill Cosby.
6. While studying at Temple University, Bill Cosby joined Omega Psi Phi fraternity, whose list of notable members includes former National Urban League President Vernon Jordan, author of Vernon Can Read: a Memoir.
There you have it!
Why not give the game a try and share the results with us? Send your list of 6 literary connections to pmc@evpl.org. We'll post them as we’re able. Feel free to incorporate movies and music – anything that’s available in the library’s catalog. Happy connecting!
(Thanks to readers' advisor superstar Sarah Statz Cords for this suggestion.)