- Nine Worlds counts as bookish, right? Yes. Nine Worlds. See here for many, many reasons why it was awesome.
- The British Library/Forbidden Planet with the Circumlocutor. I think that was our first proper trip together (as in, before that we just sort of mooched around Oxford), and then the Treasures Gallery at the British Library had a Shakespeare first folio and a Hobbit manuscript and many other wondrous things and it was also my first trip to Forbidden Planet. And then we missed our train home so the Circumlocutor had to cook me dinner. (I’m still not sure entirely how those things were connected.)
- Going to see The Lord of the Rings musical. It was utterly, properly magical; I know it attracted a lot of critical flak for various reasons, but there was nothing I would have changed. Even now, “The Road Goes On” can move me to tears.
- Tolkien Society bonfire nights. Every year in November on the banks of the Isis there is a bonfire and mulled wine and singing and sausages wrapped in tinfoil and woodsmoke in all your clothes and I think it may be as close to living in the Shire as it is possible to get in this world.
- Working in the Bodleian Library. If you ever get a chance to do this, grab it with both hands. I used to love the Upper Reading Room, which has the comfiest chairs, but the Radcliffe Camera is amazing too. (Maybe skip the Gladstone Link, though.)
- The time my tutor told me my dissertation work was “magnificent”. Do I really need to explain this?
- When Hiking Friend got my birthday card signed by actual Terry Pratchett. Actual Terry Pratchett actually signed my actual birthday card!!!! I may have squealed. Plus, it has a cat on it.
- When the Resident Grammarian brought Special Topics in Calamity Physics home for me. Because Special Topics is so thoroughly my book, the book that captures what it feels like to be me – it just seems now like one of those serendipitous moments of understanding.
- When Nnedi Okorafor tweeted a link to my blog fairly recently, actually. I noticed that I had a huge number of blog hits and traced it back to Twitter and a real author person had actually looked at my blog!
- Hay-on-Wye. SO. MANY. BOOKS. Also, I bought my lovely and utterly impractical steampunk opera coat, which I have yet to wear.
(The theme for this post was suggested by the Broke and the Bookish’s weekly meme Top Ten Tuesday.)
The English Student 