This is a short set but I’ll post it now to keep things ticking over. I’ve lost nearly a week to the upper respiratory virus from hell, and haven’t felt up to sitting at my computer for any extended periods of time. I had to request extensions on a few of my work deadlines; I’ll hope to be back to normal blogging next week, too.

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 down on scraps of paper or input them immediately into a file on my PC desktop; otherwise, they would flit away! Feel free to join in with your own.

The following are in roughly chronological order.

• Ayot St Lawrence as a setting in Q’s Legacy by Helene Hanff and Flesh by David Szalay.

• A man who has panic attacks in Pan by Michael Clune and All the World Can Hold by Jung Yun.

• Two of my Shelf Awareness PRO (early) reviews in a row were of 2026 novels set on a celebrity/reunion cruise: All the World Can Hold by Jung Yun, followed by American Fantasy by Emma Straub. In both, the narrative alternates between three main characters, the cruise is to celebrate a milestone birthday for a passenger’s relative, and there’s a celebrity who’s in AA.

• A teacher–student relationship develops into a friendship in The Irish Goodbye by Beth Ann Fennelly (with Molly McCully Brown, whose Places I’ve Taken My Body I’ve reviewed) and Lessons from My Teachers by Sarah Ruhl (with Max Ritvo, about whom she wrote a whole book).

• Someone becomes addicted to benzodiazepines in The Pass by Katriona Chapman and All the World Can Hold by Jung Yun (both 2026 releases).

• A New York City event scheduled to occur on September 15 or 16, 2001 is postponed because of 9/11 in Joyride by Susan Orlean (her wedding) and All the World Can Hold by Jung Yun (a cruise departure – it’s moved to Boston).

• A 1960s attempted suicide by putting one’s head in a gas oven in The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson and The Soul of Kindness by Elizabeth Taylor.

• A plan to eat cheese to induce dreams in The Reservation by Rebecca Kauffman and Slags by Emma Jane Unsworth.

• An author is (at least initially) aghast at the liberties taken with an adaptation of her book in Spent by Alison Bechdel and Joyride by Susan Orlean (the film Adaptation, one of my favourites, bears little relation to her nonfiction work The Orchid Thief, which I also love).

• A North American author meets her British publishers, André Deutsch and Diana Athill, in Book of Lives by Margaret Atwood and Q’s Legacy by Helene Hanff. (Atwood also mentions Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, the title reference in the Hanff.)

• An older white woman feels compelled to add, as an aside after a memory of slightly dodgy behaviour observed, that cultural appropriation was not a thing in those days in Book of Lives by Margaret Atwood and Winter by Val McDermid.

• I read two books in 2025 with a title taken from a Christian Wiman poem: A Truce that Is Not Peace by Miriam Toews, then Some Bright Nowhere by Ann Packer.

• A special trip undertaken for a younger sister’s milestone birthday: a road trip through Scotland in a campervan in Slags by Emma Jane Unsworth for a 40th; and a boy band reunion cruise to the Bahamas for a 45th in American Fantasy by Emma Straub.

• A reference to Sartre’s “hell is other people” line (paraphrased) in Two Women Living Together by Kim Hana and Hwang Sunwoo and The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas.

• The clock-drawing test as a shorthand for assessing a loved one’s dementia in Book of Lives by Margaret Atwood (her partner Graeme) and Joyride by Susan Orlean (her mother).

• A sexual encounter between two men is presaged by them relieving themselves side by side at urinals in A Room Above a Shop by Anthony Shapland and The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas.

• An older man who knows he’s having a stroke just wants to sit quietly in a chair and not be taken to hospital in Book of Lives by Margaret Atwood (her partner Graeme) and The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr.

• A man who’s gone through Alcoholics Anonymous gets dangerously close to falling off the wagon: picks up a bottle of gin in a shop in The Names by Florence Knapp / buys a drink at a bar in All the World Can Hold by Jung Yun.

• I was reading two nonfiction books with built-in red ribbon bookmarks at the same time: Book of Lives by Margaret Atwood and Robin by Stephen Moss.

• Homoeopathy is an element in The Names by Florence Knapp and The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas.

• A character named Sparrow in Spent by Alison Bechdel and Songs of No Provenance by Lydi Conklin.

• A mention of special celebrations for a Korean mother’s 70 birthday in Two Women Living Together by Kim Hana and Hwang Sunwoo and All the World Can Hold by Jung Yun.

• Some kinky practices in Songs of No Provenance by Lydi Conklin and Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood.

• A girl from an immigrant family reads Greek mythology for escape in Visitations by Julia Alvarez and The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson.

• “View halloo” (originally a fox-hunting term) is used as a greeting in Talking It Over by Julian Barnes and Arsenic for Tea by Robin Stevens.

What’s the weirdest reading coincidence you’ve had lately?