Now, I know that I said that I wouldn’t buy any more books until Christmas, but, really, it wasn’t my fault! I went to visit a friend in Port Lincoln over the weekend, and she took me to her local second hand bookshop, and really, it would have been rude of me not to buy anything, right? AND this bookshop had a very large children section, AND the books were only $2 each, so really, I only spent $8, which is basically less than buying lunch, and I got four books out of it, so I’m not sure that it counts… right? I bought a lovely old edition of Kim by Rudyard Kipling, What Katy Did and What Katy Did Next by Susan Coolidge, and The Haunting by Margaret Mahy.
I wonder if there are certain activities that we enjoy more because we affiliate them with stories. I felt like my friend Steph and I had a very Famous Five like weekend – it involved fishing for squid, foraging in the woods, walking through the countryside (all right, through the bush – but countryside is a bit more Famous Five-like) and, since we are both a bit obsessed with food, lots of eating and baking and lots of tea. I had never been fishing before, or foraging, and I wonder if I enjoyed them because of the activities themselves, or because of the bookish nature of these activities – they reminded me instantly of things Enid Blyton characters would do.
Do you have pastimes that you have picked up from books, or are inspired by books?
1001 Children's Books 
The main pastime I’ve picked up from books is reading more of them — though I don’t think that was the answer you were looking for!
I suppose my adult self is inspired by all those avuncular and grandfatherly figures (often quite grumpy now I think about it) who seemed to spend most of their day reading in their study, whom the active children in the story had to creep around — usually unsuccessfully — so as not to disturb his Great Work.
Yep, that’s me, studious, grumpy and old (like Uncle Quentin in fact).
When faced with “new” books on the 1001 list it is utterly impossible not to buy them. I have a growing stash of 1001 books waiting to be read. Your Famous Five weekend looks fabulous.
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