booking through thursday

This is an old BTT I found in my drafts list...oops :)  No other BTT from this week...which is actually last week...

What, if any, memorable or special book have you ever gotten as a present? Birthday or otherwise. What made it so notable? The person who gave it? The book itself? The “gift aura?”

I'm going to cheat, and talk about the memory book my Grandovie gave me. It's not exactly a 'book' book - more like a bound, published scrapbook kind of thing.

She made this book for me when I was very young.  It has all kinds of information in it - things about her family, her interests as a girl, her relationship with my grandfather and their young married life, and then later on about her life when she was my grandmother.  There are photos and stories in there that I wouldn't know otherwise - she died when I was 8 and my grandfather had died when I was 6, so this memory book is my main insight to the history of that side of the family.

This is, by far, one of my top 3 most valuable possessions.

(The other two are my elephant box from thailand and my 2005 national championship poster.)