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Books that you bought or retained for nostalgia


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I apparently didn't start reading books as early as all you here, with the well-known classics. I must have become interested in books about age 12 maybe, and then I started with a full-blown novel from my mother's bookshelf, The Wings of the Morning by Louis Tracy. It was a romance, of course, and that has probably colored my reading interests to the present day. So, of course, I bought a collector's copy of it when I saw it not so many years ago in a used book store. Didn't hesitate, even at the price, and it feels good to have the original illustrated edition. :(

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  • 8 years later...

I've thankfully and fortunately kept my Anastasia Krupnik novels, the ones I got as a child, and I've also managed to acquire the ones that I never owned as a kid later in my life. Only the first five were translated to Finnish and so I always thought there were only five novels... It was maybe 5 years ago that I learned there were four more, and I had to buy them in English! :smile2: 

 

I also have a copy of The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, which is very nostalgic for me, as I read that book when I was in the 5th or 6th grade. What else... I also have kept the Astrid Lindgren books I got as gifts when I was a kid, and bought other books by her as an adult. And another Swedish author: Maria Gripe's Shadow books are ones that I've been tracking down for ages and so far I've managed to find 3 of the 4 novels. :smile2: 

 

Oh yes and the Little Vampire series by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg... :wub: 

 

How about you? 

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I bought The Velveteen Rabbit out of nostalgia a few years ago, I hadn't read it in years and it was one of my favourites as a kid. I sent my copy as a present to Kell though for her kids so I need to buy it again at some stage!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've kept all the books from when I was a child :blush2:. And I'm not getting rid of them! It still bothers me there are a couple lost up on the attic somewhere, but I am determined to find them some day if I'm lucky!

 

Oooh, I would love to have an attic where I knew I had some books stashed! :D When have you gone there the last time, and did you look for any books at that time? Or was it only later you realized you must have some of them up there? 

 

I bought The Velveteen Rabbit out of nostalgia a few years ago, I hadn't read it in years and it was one of my favourites as a kid. I sent my copy as a present to Kell though for her kids so I need to buy it again at some stage!

 

The Velveteen Rabbit was mentioned in Friends and I've been really curious about the book ever since then... I think I should look it up :D 

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Oooh, I would love to have an attic where I knew I had some books stashed! :D When have you gone there the last time, and did you look for any books at that time? Or was it only later you realized you must have some of them up there?

It was a while ago when I suddenly remembered where I'd put them! When we moved here, I was a teenager and I was in that "I don't want to read any more children's books" mood, I wanted to be an adult :P. So I put them all in boxes in the attic. Then a while ago I suddenly remembered and had a look up the attic to see what I could find. I also have old toys there and magazines and other stuff (and there's the stuff from my siblings and my parents). There were several occasions where I suddenly remembered about certain books, then went on the hunt for the attic to find them. I am still missing some, but I feel like I've looked everywhere. I'm sure they must be up there though, I never throw any books I loved out (and these were some books I really liked). My dad and I plan to clean up the attic together in the beginning of the new year, so I am hoping I will find them then.

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It was a while ago when I suddenly remembered where I'd put them! When we moved here, I was a teenager and I was in that "I don't want to read any more children's books" mood, I wanted to be an adult :P. So I put them all in boxes in the attic. Then a while ago I suddenly remembered and had a look up the attic to see what I could find. I also have old toys there and magazines and other stuff (and there's the stuff from my siblings and my parents). There were several occasions where I suddenly remembered about certain books, then went on the hunt for the attic to find them. I am still missing some, but I feel like I've looked everywhere. I'm sure they must be up there though, I never throw any books I loved out (and these were some books I really liked). My dad and I plan to clean up the attic together in the beginning of the new year, so I am hoping I will find them then.

 

Ah yes, now that you told me about it, I do remember you telling us about your attic hunt from a while ago. Wickedly cool! Must've been very very exciting :cool: Is it a big attic, are there loads of places and lots of boxes to look in? I'm sure you'll be having lots of fun cleaning it up with your Dad. I'm looking forward to hearing how it went and if you found anything! :smile2: I hope it'll be a success and you'll find all your missing books! 

 

 

It's honestly a beautiful story :)

 

I've just reserved a copy from the library :smile2: 

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Ah yes, now that you told me about it, I do remember you telling us about your attic hunt from a while ago. Wickedly cool! Must've been very very exciting :cool: Is it a big attic, are there loads of places and lots of boxes to look in? I'm sure you'll be having lots of fun cleaning it up with your Dad. I'm looking forward to hearing how it went and if you found anything! :smile2: I hope it'll be a success and you'll find all your missing books!

Yes, it is a big attic with lots of boxes :). Thanks, I'll be sure to post about it somewhere if I have success :).

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I still have all of my Baby-Sitters Club books (probably around 200 books). In my late teens/early 20s I thought of giving them away, but thankfully I was too lazy to follow through. I'm so glad I kept them! I'll never part with them now. In fact, I've started collected them again to fill in the gaps.

 

I've also kept my Goosebumps, Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew books.

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I've kept some books and am trying to find other books which I'd like to read or own again. My childhood wasn't always nice, I was bullied often for being a Pakistani in the Netherlands (there were very few in my town) and because my parents made me wear traditional Pakistani clothing for which I was additionally bullied for years. (which have become popular as 'western' fashion in the past few years in various designs, life is weird like that sometimes). Because of that my books mean more to me than just nice ways to spend time, they were an escape from the bullying and other terrible aspects of life. I don't reread or keep my childhood books to go back in time, it just wasn't nice enough to want to relive that time, I reread my childhood books for the joy and the escape they gave me from a nasty life. 

 

On a happier note, I've read some of those books to my children and they loved them too. It's nice sharing your childhood movies and books with your own children. :)

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Aw, I have barely any books remaining from my childhood.  When I hit my teens, all of my old Enid Blytons (and I had hundreds of them -- the full series of the Famous Five, Secret Seven, Five Find-Outers, and others I can't remember), as well as other books I felt too "old" for at the grand age of 13, went up into my grandmother's attic -- never to be seen again.  I've no idea what happened to them.  I guess they gathered dust, mould and mice, to the point where my grandmother had had enough of shuffling round them to get to her own stuff, and binned them.   :P  

 

I still have my original copy of Raymond Briggs' Fungus the Bogeyman, which I adored with a passion when I was a gruesome sprog.

Also a sweet pop-up book about cats, titled All Kinds of Cats.  All of the pull tabs still work.

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  • 8 months later...

I've had to re-buy a number of books over the years because I just couldn't find my original copies.  Ones I can think of off the top of my head are Charlotte's Web, the Anne of Green Gables series, Goodnight Mister Tom and Roald Dahl's back catalogue. I can't imagine that I've thrown them out or given them away because I just can't see me doing that (and I'm pretty sure I would remember if I had), so I'm hoping that they're in my parents attic space somewhere.  I'm hoping that all my Point Horror and Sweet Valley High books are all up there too because I would love to one day re-read them.  My parents are under strict instructions not to throw anything of mine away that they find up there without me giving them the okay because otherwise I will not be amused!

Edited by Autumn
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Not exactly sure what happened to my various childhood collections, because I just moved around so much that they were inevitably lost in the shuffle. For that reason all of my Lucy Maud Montgomery books, my Baby-sitter clubs, Narnias, children's classics like Bridge to Terebithia, Little Women, Black Beauty, etc, my Dragonlance books, RL Stine books, Christopher Pike novels, etc, are all gone from me now, but I do still look up copies of some of the more memorable ones and re-read. Just like re-visiting one's oldest friends!

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My mum kept all my childhood books, from my early Ladybird books, through my Enid Blyton years, onto the Sweet Valley High series and then all my Jane Austens which were the books I was working my way through when I left home. They're currently stored in boxes, but their normal place is on the bookshelf at the top of the stairs, so I see them every time I go upstairs and feel like a kid all over again :D

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I completely forgot about my Enid Blyton books and the beautiful hardback edition I had of the Narnia stories.  Now I think about it I also had a copy of the complete Han Christian Andersen collection too.  Oh, I really, really hope they're up in my parents attic.  I will really need to get then to check for me - I really would love to to re-read them all again and I bet they're not all that easy to get hold of these days.

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  • 4 months later...

I have quite a few...as a kid I had access to some books that were my Dad's when HE was young - a Roy Rogers annual and some Toby Twirl books - the TT books stayed with me and now sit in my antiquarian bookcase. The Roy Rogers annual got lost many years ago, with younger siblings etc - but I found the same one on ebay so have that in my collection now.

1 more - when I was 10, I remember visiting my Grandad's house in Kenya - he had 60s Pan James Bond novels and I used to read them while over there (we went for a month at a time). I guess I was quite an advanced reader at the time... Anyway, I saw 1 or 2 60s copies in a book stall for a pound each and bought those - and now have a complete set of late 50s/early 60s Pan/Great Pan Bond novels. I love the covers from that time, they're so well done. None are that valuable but that wasn't the point. :)

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