I really admire the eye for detail shown by Bookish Beck in her feature Book Serendipity. She notices everything! I am not so observant, it turns out. Rather than notice that I had two characters named Rachel, I would only notice if they were named “Amadeus,” or “Auryandry.” (This is a name I made up in my twenties, which I used when drunk men would try to pick me up in a bar. I would say my name was “Eurythice Auryandry Guggelheimer,” which ended up with me having a repeat myself a lot, as you can imagine. Somehow none of them could remember my name.)
Anyway, here are my pitiful three serendipities, collected over three months. This time I have one true book serendipity and two cross-media serendipities:
Here’s my one true case of book serendipity:
Encountering for the first time the name Aylwin in No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym and a few books later in Harvest Home by Dorothy Lambert.
My two cross-media serendipities are
Reading a novel set in Svalbard, A Woman in the Polar Night by Christianne Ritter, and three days later having a trip there be a prize on Wheel of Fortune.
Publishing a post on the Classics Club blog about 19th/20th century Yankton Dakota writer and activist Zitkala-Šá (Red Bird) a week before encountering her as a character (named Miss Redbird) in the novel To Save the Man by John Sayles.
The third one in particular is crazy! I love your fictional name, that’s crazy too, mine was and is Pandora Wilcox!
That’s a great name!
Of the 4 books mentioned, I have only read 1 – A Woman in the Polar Night, and absolutely loved it! I did not make it to Svalbard (I decided it was just too expensive!) but have been to the far north of both Norway and Finland, if that counts as serendipity.
Well, that’s really cool anyway, even if it isn’t serendipity (I don’t know if it is or not).
Well, Eurythice, you did pretty well, I think! I never notice serendipities – but I’ll look out for the name Auryandry and let you know if I see it… 😂
You cracked me up again! I hope you don’t find the name Auryandry, because then maybe I didn’t make it up!
These are really cool; I wouldn’t call them “lame”!
A Woman in the Polar Night is a fantastic memoir.
Your fake name is quite something!
I guess I mean it’s a lame attempt because there are so few. I’ll be mentioning A Woman in the Polar Night several times during Nonfiction November. It seems like every year I get stuck on one book. Last year it was Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands. See a theme there?
The Svalbard book sounds interesting. I’ve put it on my wish list and discovered the author is Austrian.