I call it “Book Serendipity” when two or more books that I read at the same time or in quick succession have something in common – the more bizarre, the better. This is a regular feature of mine every couple of months. Because I usually have 20–30 books on the go at once, I suppose I’m more prone to such incidents. People frequently ask how I remember all of these coincidences. The answer is: I jot them on scraps of paper or input them immediately into a file on my PC desktop; otherwise, they would flit away!
The following are in roughly chronological order.
- A self-induced abortion scene in Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown and Sleeping with Cats by Marge Piercy.
- A woman who cleans buildings after hours, and a character named Tova who lives in the Seattle area in A Reason to See You Again by Jami Attenberg and Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt.
- Flirting with a surf shop employee in Sandwich by Catherine Newman and Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt.
- Living in Paris and keeping ticket stubs from all films seen in Paris Trance by Geoff Dyer and The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick.
- A schefflera (umbrella tree) is mentioned in Cheri by Jo Ann Beard and Company by Shannon Sanders.
- The Plague by Albert Camus is mentioned in Knife by Salman Rushdie and Stowaway by Joe Shute.
- Making egg salad sandwiches is mentioned in Cheri by Jo Ann Beard and Sandwich by Catherine Newman.
- Pet rats in Stowaway by Joe Shute and Happy Death Club by Naomi Westerman. Rats are also mentioned in Mammoth by Eva Baltasar, The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo, and The Colour by Rose Tremain.
- Eels feature in Our Narrow Hiding Places by Kristopher Jansma, Late Light by Michael Malay, and The Colour by Rose Tremain.
- Atlantic City, New Jersey is a location in Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland and Company by Shannon Sanders.
The father is a baker in Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland and Our Narrow Hiding Places by Kristopher Jansma.
- A New Zealand setting (but very different time periods) in Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly and The Colour by Rose Tremain.
- A mention of Melanie Griffith’s role in Working Girl in I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself by Glynnis MacNicol and Happy Death Club by Naomi Westerman.
Ermentrude/Ermyntrude as an imagined alternate name in Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly and a pet’s name in Stowaway by Joe Shute.
- A poet with a collection that was published on 6 August mentions a constant ringing in the ears: Joshua Jennifer Espinoza (I Don’t Want to Be Understood) and Keith Taylor (What Can the Matter Be?).
- A discussion of the original meaning of “slut” (a slovenly housekeeper) vs. its current sexualized meaning in Girlhood by Melissa Febos and Sandi Toksvig’s introduction to the story anthology Furies.
- An odalisque (a concubine in a harem, often depicted in art) is mentioned in I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself by Glynnis MacNicol and The Shark Nursery by Mary O’Malley.
- Reading my second historical novel of the year in which there’s a disintegrating beached whale in the background of the story: first was Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor, then Come to the Window by Howard Norman.
A short story in which a woman gets a job in online trolling in Because I Don’t Know What You Mean and What You Don’t by Josie Long and in the Virago Furies anthology (Helen Oyeyemi’s story).
- Her partner, a lawyer, is working long hours and often missing dinner, leading the protagonist to assume that he’s having an affair with a female colleague, in Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown and Summer Fridays by Suzanne Rindell.
- A fierce boss named Jo(h)anna in Summer Fridays by Suzanne Rindell and Test Kitchen by Neil D.A. Stewart.
- An OTT rendering of a Scottish accent in Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly and Test Kitchen by Neil D.A. Stewart.
- A Padstow setting and a mention of Puffin Island (Cornwall) in The Cove by Beth Lynch and England as You Like It by Susan Allen Toth.
- A mention of the Big and Little Dipper (U.S. names for constellations) in Directions to Myself by Heidi Julavits and How We Named the Stars by Andrés N. Ordorica.
- A mention of Binghamton, New York and its university in We Are Animals by Jennifer Case and We Would Never by Tova Mirvis.
- A character accidentally drinks a soapy liquid in We Would Never by Tova Mirvis and one story of The Man in the Banana Trees by Marguerite Sheffer.
The mother (of the bride or groom) takes over the wedding planning in We Would Never by Tova Mirvis and Summer Fridays by Suzanne Rindell.
- The ex-husband’s name is Jonah in The Mourner’s Bestiary by Eiren Caffall and We Would Never by Tova Mirvis.
- The husband’s name is John in Dot in the Universe by Lucy Ellmann and Liars by Sarah Manguso.
- An affair is discovered through restaurant receipts in Summer Fridays by Suzanne Rindell and Test Kitchen by Neil D.A. Stewart.
- A mention of eating fermented shark in The Museum of Whales You Will Never See by A. Kendra Greene and Test Kitchen by Neil D.A. Stewart.
- A mention of using one’s own urine as a remedy in Thunderstone by Nancy Campbell and Terminal Maladies by Okwudili Nebeolisa.
- The main character tries to get pregnant by a man even though one of the partners is gay in Mammoth by Eva Baltasar and Until the Real Thing Comes Along by Elizabeth Berg.
- Motherhood is for women what war is for men: this analogy is presented in We Are Animals by Jennifer Case, Parade by Rachel Cusk, and Want, the Lake by Jenny Factor.
Childcare is presented as a lifesaver for new mothers in We Are Animals by Jennifer Case and Liars by Sarah Manguso.
- A woman bakes bread for the first time in Mammoth by Eva Baltasar and A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans.
- A gay couple adopts a Latino boy in Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly and one story of There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven by Ruben Reyes, Jr.
A husband who works on film projects in A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans and Liars by Sarah Manguso.
- A man is haunted by things his father said to him years ago in Parade by Rachel Cusk and one story in There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven by Ruben Reyes, Jr.
- Two short story collections in a row in which a character is a puppet (thank you, magic realism!): The Man in the Banana Trees by Marguerite Sheffer, followed by There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven by Ruben Reyes, Jr.
- A farm is described as having woodworm in Mammoth by Eva Baltasar and Parade by Rachel Cusk.
- Sebastian as a proposed or actual name for a baby in Signs, Music by Raymond Antrobus and Birdeye by Judith Heneghan.
What’s the weirdest reading coincidence you’ve had lately?
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
Crumbs! You’ve excelled yourself this time, Rebecca.
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Nice ones! I feel like I’ve read several books with beached whales!
I managed to remember one this month: the narrator’s teenage biology students are shocked and amused to find out that flowers are plant ovaries in both Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass and Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Dreams.
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There must be something irresistible, narrative-wise, about a beached whale.
That’s a very good one, super-specific.
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How do you manage to remember all of these? Amazing, Rebecca!
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Like I said in the opener, I have to write/type them down immediately or I wouldn’t remember!
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Yes, but how do you know that it’s going to end up being a recurring theme? You can’t make a note of everything.
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Ah, so I generally have a moment of déjà vu and then sometimes it takes me a little while to place where else I just read about that person/place/thing/experience. Once I’ve worked it out, I jot the basics and the two author names down on a tiny slip of paper.
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You have an enviable memory! Some of these are downright peculiar.
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The trick is to jot them down right away and then I let a computer file remember for me. Most of them are pretty odd, I must agree.
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So many! Fab.
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They really stack up! I used to add to a Twitter thread, or make a post about them a couple of times a year, but now it has to be at least every couple of months or it’s too many at once.
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I see your recommendation is in the Faber summer reading list. Mine didn’t make it. (Can’t actually remember what I submitted!)
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Is it?! Thanks for letting me know, I’ll go have a look!
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https://www.faber.co.uk/journal/faber-members-summer-reading-recommendations-2024/ (I’m “Rebecca of Newbury” 😉 I chose Happiness Falls by Angie Kim because it’s published by Faber and was a gripping but intelligent read.)
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That is an impressive collection of related books! Marie and I just finished reading Remarkably Bright Creatures together and we both loved it. 🙂
I inadvertently read “The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle” and the “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” at the same time last year (due to when my holds were available at the library). I had hoped for some fun symmetry in the stories, but the only thing they really had in common was the title.
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I thought Remarkably Bright Creatures was cute, and it made for a good book club read for us. However, I’m always wary about animals being used as plot devices. I’m impressed you read it with Marie. I’m trying to remember if there was any adult content you would have had to censor…
That’s fun! I’ve had The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo out from the library before but didn’t manage to read it. Some other time.
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Yes, it definitely needed some light censoring…. But the vast majority of the book was great/appropriate and the animal as a plot device made it more interesting to Marie who is a very reluctant reader (she is a very skilled reader, but has almost no interest in actually reading, which breaks my heart!).
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Aww, well, you ended up with 1 out of 2 daughters being an obsessive reader just like you were at that age, so it’s not a bad ratio. I’m sure Marie will find some books that draw her in. I loved animal stories as a child. I read all the classics like Misty of Chincoteague and The Incredible Journey, but also contemporary stuff including the Redwall and Saddle Club series–even though I only ever rode a horse a few times at summer camp. And my favorite book when I was 9 was Watership Down, about a warren of rabbits displaced from their home (and then I ended up living 6.5 miles away from where it’s set!!).
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Some of these coincidences are pretty unbelievable, especially the person who cleans buildings after hours AND a character named Tova in the Seattle area. I’ve never even met a person named Tova.
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Ha! And then an author named Tova a bit further down. I’ve never met one in real life either. But I often think that writers choose pretty unlikely names and nicknames.
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I know there are writers named Tove Janssen and Tove Ditlevson, so maybe it’s a common name in . . . Sweden? Denmark? One is Swedish and the other is Swedish-speaking Finnish.
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The character from Remarkably Bright Creatures does have a Scandinavian background. But I think it must have another possible origin, because the author Tova Mirvis is Orthodox Jewish.
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Of course I don’t mean I don’t believe you, just . . . how weird!
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No worries. They definitely are weird coincidences! The weirder the better as far as I’m concerned.
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Me, too!
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The movie Working Girl was also mentioned in this week’s episode of the Felicity rewatch podcast (Dear Felicity) – and I realized I’ve never seen it.
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Do you mean Felicity the TV show with Keri Russell? I loved that when I was in high school and college!
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Oh, I LOVED that show too, but even so, I find it hard to imagine a rewatch-podcast centred on it. lol Never mind, what am I saying, there’s a rewatch podcast for everything, I know.
Did I mention this one already, I can’t remember how recently I happened upon it, with two characters in two different books choosing to watch older episodes of “The Office” as their cosy-viewing (after a stressful day, etc.)? But I’ve been through a phase of reading a lot of shorter novels (e.g. Jean Rhys, some debuts) and short fiction and it’s been less common to find these coincidences there…or maybe I’ve just not noticed them.
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Cool!
There’s a popular UK reality show called Gogglebox in which you watch people … watching and reacting to television. The mind boggles.
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Yep! I’ve been rewatching it on Hulu and there’s a really fun podcast called Dear Felicity with Greg Grunberg and Amanda Foreman (Sean and Megan) as co-hosts. I was obsessed with that show back in the day.
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I also read about a disintegrating beached whale in a book recently. I can’t remember which one, though, without going to scrounge around.
My weirdest coincidence lately has been reading three Maritime authors in a row who all wrote books categorized as fantasy. First, they were all women (two in Nova Scotia, one in Prince Edward Island). Second, they all had an element of the supernatural. And third, two of them featured flaming ships at sea. And, now that I think of it, they were all debut novels. But the actual stories, structure, and writing styles were all very different.
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That’s the worst, when I know I’ve encountered something recently but as much as I wrack my brain I can’t figure out where it was. I sometimes even go paging back through several books from my stack, but to no avail.
That’s cool! If I were you I would have reviewed them together in a “Three on a Theme” post 🙂
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That’s exactly what I’m going to do! 🙂
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Wowee, this must be your best one yet! The aforementioned daughters, and I’ve also had African countries being badly affected by climate change not caused by them in two books fairly close together.
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