I spotted this meme on the outstanding blogs of Susan at A Life in Books and Marina at Finding Time to Write. If you haven’t visited their blogs I’d recommend you do for insightful reviews, bookish observations and original poetry. The meme was created by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best.

From what I can gather each month starts from a different book and the aim is to move from the initial book to the sixth book with one link from the previous title. The books don’t have to be linked to each other, just the one before.

After missing last month because I left it too late, the starter book this month is The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. Written when Hinton was only 17, The Outsiders is a story of teenage rebellion with the young people of a small town having split into two rival gangs. The Outsiders wasn’t the only book of Hinton’s to be made into a film, Rumble Fish was another, The Outsiders was made into a movie starring many of the Brat Pack regulars.

Tom Cruise featured in The Outsiders and also happened to have played the screen version of the vampire Lestat in the film adaptation of Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice. Now one of the most famous contemporary vampire novels, the story details the testimony of a young man telling the story of his life, a story of an eternal life filled with the lust for human blood.

Vampires have long since held a fascination in literature and many stories have followed since Bram Stoker’s novel hit the shelves. One of the modern-day incarnations, also now translated to the screen is The Vampire Diaries by L. J. Smith. Technically a series, the first, The Awakening finds Elena determined to ensnare the new boy Stefan, who may not be all he seems.

A completely different diary now in Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith, in which the eponymous hero, Mr Pooter finds himself having to face disagreeable tradesmen, wayward friends and an unsuitable daughter-in-law.

George Grossmith also wrote A Society Clown and a clown of a different sort featured in It by Stephen King.  Responsible for many a case of Coulrophobia, IT is not only well-known for its deminutive clown Pennywise, it’s also known for it’s almost eyewatering size, around 1184 pages depending on the edition.

Another book that is perhaps synonymous with doorstopping novels is War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Set in early 19th Century Russia, the book takes the reader through the loves and lives of those caught up in the Napoleonic war and the build up to it. And it only takes 1440 pages to tell it in.

Taking the title to segue seamlessly to the final book we arrive at 1974 by David Peace, the first of the Red Riding quartet sees Eddie Dunford’s dream job as crime correspondent descend into a horror story when a little girl is found dead with swan’s wings stitched into her back.

So there we have it, another set of seemless links from a Oaklahoma small town to the wilds of Yorkshire.