(This article was originally released on marcoolivotto.com on April 13, 2013.)

By uncanny coincidence, it’s been exactly five-years-and-a-half ago, because the day was October 12th, 2007. The place was Foyles, Charing Cross Road, London – maybe the largest bookstore in Europe, and I was with my mother. It was the beginning of a trip delayed for years which I sort of forced her to take before she became too old to enjoy it. I had always wanted her to visit London, and we had left in the morning of the previous day: October 11th, her birthday.