At our Wednesday Book Group, attendees each get a chance to tell the group about what they've been reading. One woman had just finished reading The Reincarnationist by M.J. Rose. The premise of the book itself is a bit spooky - after he is nearly killed in a Rome bombing, a contemporary photojournalist starts having flashes of a life as an endangered pagan priest during the Roman Empire, and can't control his lurches back and forth in time - but it was the story she told about her reading experience that gave us all the shivers. As she was reading the book, she was caretaking her two pre-school grandsons, neither of whom yet reads. Finished with their play, the boys came up to her for a hug and a chat. As she interacted with them, she was still pondering the philosophical underpinnings of the concept of reincarnation, when, out of the blue, one of the grandsons asked: "Grandma, what happens when you die?" He couldn't read the title of her book, she hadn't spoken to them of it, there had been no recent death in the family, and nothing in their prior conversation was along those lines. How was he on that wavelength right then? She was quite spooked by the experience, as were we all when she shared it.~ Ann Keefe, Manager, Technical Services and Collection Development, Springfield City Library
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