Most of you who know me well know that I read a lot of books.  It’s almost an addiction.  I read pretty much every night, sometimes for 2 hours or more.  Then, a few years ago, I started taking the train to work and found that I had even more time to read.   Happy days!

So now I have my “home” book, which I read every night before going to bed (and whenever else I can sneak in a break).  I also have my “train” book, which I read while commuting.  Believe it or not, I can always keep the two books straight in my head, and don’t find it confusing at all to follow two story lines at the same time.  The thing that does surprise me, though, is how there is more often than not a link between the two books.  And I’m not talking about everyday themes here.

For example, I was reading a book on the train and Faberge eggs were a big part of the story line.  Then, in the book I was reading at home, someone mentioned a Faberge egg.  Really? How often does one of those come up in a book?  It can also happen with names.  My home book had a character named Xander, and so did my train book.  I mean, come on, it’s not like Xander is a common name.  The two books were not written by same author who just happened to like this name.  Actually, this name annoyed me for some reason; what kind of name is Xander anyway?  And I had to deal with it in both books.

Here is another strange coincidence that happened to me just this morning.  My home book mentioned Vidocq, which is a members-only crime solving club.  I’ve never heard of this club nor come across it in any of my previous books, and I read a lot of non-fiction and fictional crime books.  (As a matter of fact, if you look at my book list under Reading Pane, you’ll see that this is my favorite genre.) Now here it pops up in two books that I’m reading at the same time.  I could go on and on.  It happens constantly and I just keep shaking my head at the happenstance of it all.