Since I finished classes a couple weeks ago (and honestly, during study breaks that last week) I’ve been reading pretty much nothing but novels (so much for my “I’m going to take this break to read up some hard-core theology stuff I’ve been putting off” plan…maybe in May).

Well, as part of this binge, I’ve reread a couple of Rex Stout’s, started a reread of a Parker, knocked off 2 well-written novels I will probably never want to re-visit, and have just started a Science Fiction novel, In the Garden of Iden, as recommended by a chat pal.

In many books there’s something you read that makes you say, “Okay, doesn’t matter what happens in the rest of this book, I’m here to the end.” I should probably have an example of this, but really can’t come up with any but the one I’m talking about at the moment. Anyhow, paragraph 2 of chapter 2 in this book is this moment for me:

Also there, in the enormous cathedral, the Infanta Katherine, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, is supposed to have stopped to hear mass on her way to marry the Prince of England. Now, in this cathedral was a silver censer, big as a cauldron, that swung in stately arcs at the end of a chain; and during the Infanta’s Mass the chain broke and this censer hurtled out of the church through a window and exploded like a bomb on the paving stones outside. Some people would have taken this as an omen, but not the Infanta. She went resolutely on to England and would up marrying King Henry the Eighth. This shows that one ought to pay attention to omens.