I had another of those moments today. ‘Serendipity’ may not be the right word to use but its definition-The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident-fits what I’m trying to describe. Its a premonition, a “knowing”. For example: Off and on over the past year I’ve tried to remember the name of a science fiction novel I read about 12 years ago when I worked at Waldenbooks in Tulsa, OK. I remembered that it was essentially a novel about space pirates and had a vauge notion of a pirate ship being on the cover…that’s it. Not the kind of information that you can type into a search engine and easily find an answer. Before leaving for work this morning I was looking at a book up for auction on ebay and clicked on the link to the ebay store of this particular seller. He is located in Australia and had a HUGE list of books for sale. I scrolled through a few and then it came to me-this overwhelming feeling that if I just kept looking I would find out about the book that had been eluding me. Though running late I continued to look through page after page of tiny pictures of books for sale….and there it was, a serendipitous moment. Though the picture was less than half the size of a postage stamp I immediately knew that was it! The book is Henry Martyn by L. Neil Smith.

This type of thing has occurred several times over the years. During our time in Tulsa there was a certain author that my wife enjoyed and I always knew when the local bookstore had a new book of hers in stock. I’d just know. As my fantasy football team can attest to I have no control over these amazing powers but hey, its fun when it happens.

Incidently, the word ‘serendipity’ was coined by Horace Walpole whose book, The Castle of Otranto, was the last book I read in 2004.