I'm sharing this here, as always, in hopes that it give these words a better shot at surviving for posterity and reaching future audiences.
This is a short thread about the beloved books of our childhood, nostalgia, fate, and the weird and wonderful timey-wimey thing. 1/
— Jo Hogan (@joleHogan) September 29, 2019
2. When we were young, we didn’t have much money. We didn’t (always) have to lick the roads, but there was little money for books, so every Saturday we went to the library to fill our boots.
— Jo Hogan (@joleHogan) September 29, 2019
3. My dad was an ‘unskilled labourer’ but loved to read. He gave us that passion for knowledge, and I still remember the excitement of being 14, which meant I could borrow 4, rather than 3 books from the library.
— Jo Hogan (@joleHogan) September 29, 2019
4. But my dad also had a subscription to Reader’s Digest. Condensed books for families like us - 4 for the price of one. And thanks to RD, I had a handful of precious, treasured books of my own.
— Jo Hogan (@joleHogan) September 29, 2019
5. And I mean a handful. I don’t think I owned more than ten books in my entire childhood, which may explain why I own thousands now. pic.twitter.com/iDpMAjuLG8
— Jo Hogan (@joleHogan) September 29, 2019
Anyway. My mum was lovely, but thought books were ‘clutter’ and was always trying to tidy up and give said clutter away. We lost a lot of books.
— Jo Hogan (@joleHogan) September 29, 2019
7. Today I met my 80-year-old dad for lunch. He had gone for a cheeky pint in a village a few miles from where he lived and found on the book shelves, a book I adored as a child. pic.twitter.com/4hRYQ042Yz
— Jo Hogan (@joleHogan) September 29, 2019
8. He recognised the cover, remembering that we used to have a similar book from good old Reader’s Digest back in the day. Then he opened it up, and saw my name inside. pic.twitter.com/N9eLL3CtUO
— Jo Hogan (@joleHogan) September 29, 2019
9. It was my book, nearly 40 years later, that he was holding in his hand in a random pub (in a village that has over 12 pubs). Of all the gin joints...
— Jo Hogan (@joleHogan) September 29, 2019
10. And so we sat together in another pub today (family tradition) remembering the stories we loved, and the beautiful illustrations. pic.twitter.com/fWWnAoUi0n
— Jo Hogan (@joleHogan) September 29, 2019
11. Treasure Island, The Call of the Wild, Oliver Twist, and the Diary of Anne Frank that broke my heart. This book shaped my childhood, and somehow found its way back to me, almost 40 years later.
— Jo Hogan (@joleHogan) September 29, 2019
12. Which feels more profound this weekend, when I have been reflecting on the loss of my husband and my son leaving for university. So I will take this as a sign, that nothing is ever truly lost. And stories are often all that remain.
— Jo Hogan (@joleHogan) September 29, 2019
This made me cry (surprise?) Thank you so much for sharing.
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