Richard Hogan: Tell your children — life is an open book

After years of avoiding them, Richard Hogan eventually fell under the spell of books and says Ireland Reads Day this month is a great opportunity to captivate the next generation

Getting your children into the world of reading could be one of the most important gifts you give them, says Richard Hogan - ahead of Ireland Reads Day on February 28. iStock

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

I still remember lying down on my bed and reading those opening words to JD Salinger’s Catcher In The Rye for the first time. They reached out from somewhere and dragged me into a world I didn’t know existed at that young age.