You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion

These coincidences happen to me all of the time. How about you?

Having finished When She Woke, I began to read Unnatural Fire, a book chosen at random I promise.

Within the first chapter is a reference to Prynne, the protagonist in The Scarlet Letter.

ETA: Having read further, I've decided that the references are not toward Hester Prynne but William Prynne.

"Like many Puritans abhorring decadent celebrations he was strongly opposed to religious feast days, including Christmas, and revelry such as stage plays, and he included in his Histriomastix (1632) a denunciation of actresses which was widely felt to be an attack of Queen Henrietta Maria. This led to the most famous incidents in his life, but the timing was accidental. About 1624 Prynne had begun a book against stage-plays; on 31 May 1630 he obtained a license to print it, and about November 1632 it was published. Histriomastix is a volume of over a thousand pages, showing that plays were unlawful, incentives to immorality, and condemned by the scriptures, the fathers, modern Christian writers, and the wisest of the heathen philosophers. By happenstance, the queen and her ladies, in January 1633, took part in the performance of Walter Montagu's The Shepherd's Paradise: this was an innovation at court. A passage reflecting on the character of female actors in general was construed as an aspersion on the queen; passages which attacked the spectators of plays and magistrates who failed to suppress them, pointed by references to Nero and other tyrants, were taken as attacks on the king, Charles I."]~ Wikipedia

I often find myself reading books with similar themes back to back (without it being intentional on my part) - parents dead in accident/ memory loss etc.

Let me know how it goes Almeta. I bought it on a whim years ago and now it will be my u read. If I ever get there.

Things like that happen to me, too, Almeta. I started reading Incendiary by Chris Cleave this week, which is about a bombing of a soccer match. I knew it was a book about a London bombing, but I only selected it because it fit my ABC challenge requirement. As I was reading, the parallels to the Boston bombing were so similar that it was eerie. I felt creeped out reading the book.

Connie wrote: "Things like that happen to me, too, Almeta. I started reading Incendiary by Chris Cleave this week, which is about a bombing of a sporting event in London on July 7, 2005. I knew it was a book abou..."

That would be creepy.

I've called Almeta repeatedly to tell her about my reading coincidences. I wish I could remember at least one! It goes in spurts for me.

My friend and I went to a second hand book fair recently and both came out with a stash to last us a while. She finished her first book Too Close to the Falls a biography set around Niagara Falls which she passed on to me, while at the same time I was reading The Falls, quite a different story but set in the same area at the same sort of time. Considering we are in coastal New Zealand, it was a very weird coincidence!

Lynne wrote: "My friend and I went to a second hand book fair recently and both came out with a stash to last us a while. She finished her first book Too Close to the Falls a biography set around Niagara Falls which she passed on to me, while at the same time I was reading The Falls, quite a different story but set in the same area at the same sort of time. Considering we are in coastal New Zealand, it was a very weird coincidence! ..."

That is an odd one.

Almeta - after laughing about your "bite" remark to someone over Anne Rice's book, Interview with the Vampire, I was flipping the channels on TV and guess what was playing on the Sci-Fy channel last night? Yep, the movie with Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. I caught the last hour of it. I have never seen it from the beginning, only the end many times. I never realized Antonio Bandaras was in it before last night. He could bite me. :)

Yum! I could bite Antonio Bandaras. :)

Mmmmmm, yummy!

Here's the type of coincidence I run into quite often. I just finished reading Tell the Wolves I'm Home and there was talk of wolves and finding a wolf in the negative space in a painting.

Now I'm reading Mystic River and a child was abducted by men he refers to as wolves and calls himself (in his mind): The Boy Who Escaped From Wolves.

Wolves in back-to-back books. Weird little coinky-dink.

At some point I read three books in a row that involved an angel in one way or another even though it wasn't apparent for two of the books that that theme would be present.

Stuff like that happens to me too, Josee!

Ok, so I just read The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black where a scientist goes to great lengths to recreate mythical creatures and through vivisection grafts wings onto dogs, and such. Now I'm reading Perdido Street Station where people are punished for their crimes by being "remade" into hybrids with wings, body parts, mechanical parts grafted onto their bodies.

Had no idea that I would encounter this coincidence.

Wow, not something you'd think you'd be seeing twice! Interesting sounding books. How was The Resurrectionist and how is Perdido so far?

Here's my review of The Resurrectionist: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/.... You might want to pick it up at the library just to see how beautiful the illustrations are, but it isn't a very well-written story.

I'm enjoying Perdido Street Station. I found it hard to get into at first, but now I'm cruising right along. Some of the physics stuff drags the story down, because I don't understand that stuff, but otherwise it's quite enjoyable.

Thanks Debra. I'm still intrigued by The Ressurrectionist so I will check it out! Perdido Street Station too. Sigh... and the list keeps growing!

Yes, that TBR list just keeps growing and growing!

So, I'm reading Perdido Street Station and Garbage Man not too long ago. BOTH have sentient beings that evolved in the local garbage dump.

Wow, interesting! And another one added to my list!!

Yesterday, I was looking at pictures online to use in creating the June challenge badge. I found a couple pictures of earrings made out of Scrabble tiles. I had never seen them before.

Today, I was listening to NOS4A2 and a teenager was described as wearing Scrabble tile earrings!

Janice wrote: "Yesterday, I was looking at pictures online to use in creating the June challenge badge. I found a couple pictures of earrings made out of Scrabble tiles. I had never seen them before.

Today, I ..."

We are litening to the same audiobook Janice!

Strange coincidence isn't it, Janice!

Great book, too!

Debra wrote: "Strange coincidence isn't it, Janice!

Great book, too!"

Anytime there's a coincidence with a "King Clan" book, it's cause for the appearance of goose bumps.

Yes, it's a bit chilling!

So, I read The Tooth Fairy and then I read The Dead Path which had a blurb on the back by Graham Joyce the author of The Tooth Fairy. Thought that was a cool coinky-dink.

I am currently reading March and the chapter I was reading in, mentioned Thetis and Peleus. I thought "where did I just read about Thetis?" Thetis is what Seth calls Georgina Kincaid, in Succubus on Top, which I had just read last month. I remembered looking up the name and reading that she was the mother of Achilles. (I should have known that from before, because I did read The Song of Achilles, but I had forgotten. I was thinking of Achilles and turned the next page in March and Mr. March was saying that if their first born had been a boy, they were going to name him Achilles. It made me laugh, thinking that LMA could not have had Jo write Little Women if Jo's older sibling had been a boy.

I am enjoying the book, but I am not sure I can reconcile the Mr. March and Marmee of the movies with the characters in the book.

Cherie wrote: "I am currently reading March ... I am enjoying the book, but I am not sure I can reconcile the Mr. March and Marmee of the movies with the characters in the book. ,..."

I read Little Women as a kid, far before a saw the movie. I couldn't reconcile the book with the characters in the movie (the other way around) but that can also be because I felt somewhat uncomfortable with the women portraits on the whole.

I think Little Women was one of my favorite books when I was young, and I always loved the movies. I read all of LMA's books a few years ago - all that I could find anyway.
Mr. March is not a major player in LW, so the Mr. March in March is quite fascinating. I think it is really due to Geraldine Brooks's imagination though. She can be quite funny, in an unexpected kind of way. The family history she has made up is interesting. The story is split between his early life and his service in the war in 1862. All I ever remembered about him was that he was hurt, and Marmee had to go to him.

I was looking for this thread to write down the coincidence I just came across and reading through the thread found my proof that I had read March before reading it again for my ZZ Challenge.
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My current happening is that after just finishing reading The Pumpkin Rollers today, in which a dog was named Ulysses, I'm reading My Family and Other Animals, the boy in the story just named his young Scops owl, Ulysses.

Fun to revisit this thread. I'm glad that you kinda revived it Cherie.

I still notice a lot of reading coincidences, just forget to post them here.

I think about them for a while and never get her to post them either. I was thinking about it as I was listening to Amelia Peabody #11 last week. I read The Beet Queen, and then went right to The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy and discovered a cat named "Queenie" in The Falcon at the Portal.

Just after I finished My Family and Other Animals,
the author's name Gerald Durrell was mentioned in The Day of the Dead. If I had read the Frieda Klein book first, I would not have known who the author was unless I had stopped to look it up.

Not a coincidence between books, but still. Last week I came back from Japan and for lunch on the train we had bento-boxes there. I had never ever heard of it before I was in Japan, but they are great! Second book I picked up since I'm home, Rivers of London, and in the second chapter someone is eating a bento-box! Cool coincidence, but even more exciting is that apparently you can get bento boxes outside of Japan.

Just finished reading Jude the Obscure and Light in August ..
both have men left by their wives and who suffer( personally professionally and socially) as a result...

I have been reading The End of the Affair, slowly for some time now. I picked up the book today, after not touching it for almost 10 days.

I am at Book Three, section 1 which is page 71 of 160.
The MC has stolen his former lover's diary/journal and is reading through the entries. The date on the entry on this page in the book is 12 February 1946 .

Cherie wrote: "I have been reading The End of the Affair, slowly for some time now. I picked up the book today, after not touching it for almost 10 days.

I am at Book Three, section 1 which is page 71 of 160.
The MC has stolen his former lover's diary/journal and is reading through the entries. The date on the entry on this page in the book is 12 February 1946 ..."

How bizarre is that?!☺☺

Almeta wrote: "How bizarre is that?!☺☺ ..."

I know, right???

That is fun, Cherie.

That is cool!

Cherie wrote: "I have been reading The End of the Affair, slowly for some time now. I picked up the book today, after not touching it for almost 10 days.

I am at Book Three, section 1 which is page..."

Weird coincidence!

I'm reading Britt-Marie Was Here and had to smile yesterday when Pippi Longstocking was mentioned because that is the book I am reading aloud to my kids right now. :)

That is cool!

I love it when those things happen, Sandra.

I was listening to my audiobook while driving yesterday. A character was introduced by the name of Detective Delacruz. A couple minutes later, I drove past a building with a sign, "Delacruz Law Offices". LOL!

Oh, that is fun, Janice.

I had forgotten about this thread. The author of Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird is from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. I drove past this town last weekend (about 2 hours from home) and immediately remembered.

I've had a couple of coincidences lately. A cousin posted a thing on Facebook asking if your remembered your childhood phone number yet forget your recent passwords. My phone number was 362-3633. That is ingrained in my memory. I decided to "drive" down the street of my childhood home on Google Maps. To my surprise, the address was 613 - 6 Avenue. All those 6's and 3's! Hilarious.

I am reading The Relentless Moon.
Every time Nicole Wargin uses long distance to call someone from the moon, she says the name and number that she wants the operator to call after she specifies the city name.

Every time she says her number, I think about my home phone number from that time. She asks for Kansas City and then says "Elmwood eight-zero-four-zero-three".

My home number from 1963, in Garden Grove, California was "Twinoaks three-one-seven-six-four". Before we had to start using area codes, our number was 648-7698.

I freaked out the other day, because I could not remember my password for my Barnes & Nobel account to reset my library on my tablet. I had to call AmyK and ask her what it was, after I realized that I had changed it and did not write it down. She uses my account, so I always call her and tell her when I have changed it.

I'll be in big trouble if I forget the password to my password keeper app.