My Aunt: So your uncle, who doesn’t read much, actually bought a book awhile ago.
Me: Oh yeah? What was it?
Aunt: “Leavenworth Train”
Me: Hmm, that sounds familiar. What is it about?
Aunt: blah blah something about the wild west and a train robber and a prison blah blah
Me: [thinking: that definitely doesn't sound familiar]
Aunt: So anyway, he gave it to [your cousin] and we don’t know where it went from there.
Me: Weird, it sounds so familiar, even though I know I’ve never read it…

I couldn’t shake how familiar that title sounded, so I called Brad and asked him to go through my bookshelf at home. Sure enough, there it was, buried in my stack of “To Read” books.

Turns out my cousin gave it to my grandpa, an avid reader, who didn’t realize it eventually needed to get back to my uncle. When he was finished, my grandpa gave it to my dad, who used to be an avid reader but is now too busy raising two young kids and trying to keep up with the lives of his five grown children. So the book sat at his house for a couple months before he eventually gave it to me.

My dad has been known to pass along to me any books that he doesn’t have time to read. I, however, also have a stack of “To Read” books I plan to get through, and that’s where Leavenworth Train got lost. I, of course, didn’t distinguish this book from any of the other books that get passed to me, and I had no idea it had become “the mystery book” to others in my family!

When Brad found the book, I immediately told my aunt, and thus the mystery was solved. And if you look to the right under Currently Reading, you’ll see that I’m giving it a try. I won’t see my uncle until Christmas, so I have plenty of time to give it my stamp of approval. Or not. Maybe it’ll totally suck, but I figure a book with that kind of story deserves to be read.