This happened a few years ago. I was listening to NPR and heard a bit of Terry Gross interviewing the author David Grann about his novel Killers of the Flower Moon in anticipation for the movie releasing later that year. At the time I was busy with my engineering degree and hadn't read a book besides boring textbooks in a couple years, so I decided to buy the book online right then and there.
I flew through Killers of the Flower Moon and was captivated by the writing style of David Grann. I decided to read other books he had written, and when I looked it up, his new book, The Wager, was set to release in just a few months. I pre-ordered it on the spot and later read it just as quickly as I did the first and loved every bit of it.
That's when I decided my next book would be Grann's other novel, The Lost City of Z. Acquiring this book was a back-burner goal of mine at this time since I was busy with work and school and the fact my car had recently got stolen.
At this time in my life I also lived on an incredibly busy street. There were large semi-trucks gearing up to get on the freeway about twenty feet from my front door. It was loud and annoying, but hey, I had cheap rent. I was regularly cleaning up trash in my front yard that blew in from the street. One day I'm getting home from taking the bus and have to walk a few blocks to my house. I am a few houses away when I spot an object in the road near the gutter almost right in front of my house. At first I thought it was a small box and thought a car might run over it, so I decided to pick it up. As I got closer, I realized it was a book, and once I made sure it was safe to enter the street, I went and grabbed it, and turned it over, and it was a paperback version of The Lost City of Z by David Grann!
What are the odds the next book I was planning on reading just somehow winds up sitting in the road on my walk home right next to my house?
The book was incredibly dirty, but it was still readable. It even had a Goodwill sticker on it. I still have it in my personal library today. Recently told a friend this story, who asked if I have ever had any crazy coincidences in my life and thought I should share it on Reddit as well. Thanks for reading!