I’m not usually one for sentimentality. Most of the things from my childhood have been thrown away, lost, or have otherwise disappeared along the way.

Saying that, while digging through boxes I came across some old books. These are books that are old enough, or memorable enough, to have survived the great Kindle purge of the early 2010s.

I thought it would be fun to show a few here.

First up is Johnny The Tin Tortoise.

This was given to me by my grandparents and the main attraction is obviously the name of the tortoise. It’s a simple book with simple pictures that somehow managed to explain what an idiom is. It didn’t make a lot of sense to my young brain, but is the first thing in my head whenever I hear that word.

Next is an old encyclopaedia. I believe it was owned by an uncle and has always been in a bad state. I used to pore over this as a boy, mainly for the pictures. It’s fun to look back and see the state of the world as it was then.

Another book is the Magic Faraway Tree. Mine is a big hardback edition with lots of lovely pictures.

How many times have I read this book? Well, enough that I decided to mark the number of times I’d read each chapter. Apparently I got to four before giving up on that idea.

This was actually the very first book I read by myself. We were being babysat by a neighbour, and I asked them to read the book. They replied that I should read it myself. And so I did.

It’s surprising how antiquated it feels, casual racism and sexism aside.

Finally is a copy of the Beano annual I picked up from a flea market a long time ago. I also wanted a sword, but my parents wisely wouldn’t cough up the money for that.

I believe it’s the first edition, printed in 1939 or something. It smells like chocolate and the pages are cardboard.

It’s a big tome of a comic annual and some of the characters have survived through to this day (except the overtly racist ones).