Abstract
That was the year everyone was referencing George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. How many times did I hear, “1984 is ‘48 backwards, the year he wrote the book.” All you had to say was Big Brother, thoughtcrime, or doublethink and we were all in on the same joke. It was the first time in my life that I didn’t have to hide that I was a reader, a lover of books. At age thirteen, I kept plenty of other secrets.