Finding Books Serendipitously

Sometimes we find intriguing books we weren't even looking for. I have stayed at borrowed or rented lakeside cottages, for example, perused the odd mishmash of books on the bookshelves there, and serendipitously found books that kept me reading late into the night. Once - going much further back in my history - for some reason I looked in a dark and little-used cupboard under the stairs in the lounge of the dormitory I lived in when in high school, and found a hidden stash of Agatha Christie mysteries. It was my first discovery of Christie, and soon I was devouring every one of the slightly battered paperbacks I had found, one right after the other. Somehow these books, bought and read by an unknown past resident of the cottage or dorm, and unexpectedly discovered by me, have a very particular appeal - even a sort of thrill - of their own. Here's to serendipity!