Childish Things Book

In 2003 I bought a copy of True Tales of American Life, edited and introduced by Paul Auster. The copy was second hand and was inscribed on the title page

To Fluffykins Bunny

Love from the Rabbit with Medium Sized ears

xxx

I wondered who these creeps were. I tried reading the book and got bogged down around page 50 because it turned out that the true tales were all two pages long and relating wildly improbably co-incidences to which the only possible reaction was "oh yeah? you don't say so" with one eyebrow raised extremely high. I stashed the book on the top shelf of my tall bookcase and forgot it.
In 2005 there was a minor domestic incident, the details of which I do not need to enter into, and I found myself staggering backwards into the said tall bookcase. It shuddered and some books looked like they would fall out but only one did. An edge of it caught my nose quite painfully on its way to the ground. It was True Tales of American Life.

In a rage I packed it and several others up in a box and took them to the Oxfam shop.

In 2008 I was holidaying in Devon (which is hundreds of miles from Nottingham, a very pleasant part of England). Naturally I was poking around the one bookshop in the pretty market town of Okehampton - it was one of those with stone floors and ridiculously narrow staircases to the various floors, and I turned awkwardly and sort of fell against one of the bookcases. Several books cascaded down around me and in great embarrassment I began replacing them. I noticed that one of these books was none other than True Tales of American Life. Whimsically, I opened it and looked at the title page, and there I saw

To Fluffykins Bunny

Love from the Rabbit with Medium Sized ears
xxx

Incoherent with the majestic profundity of this amazing occurrence, I explained to the woman serving in the shop that this very book was the one which had fallen on my nose in Nottingham three years previously. She raised one eyebrow, her left, and said

"Oh really? You don't say so."