Tag: https://www.worldbookday.com/

America, Countries, Europe, UK

Our books bedroom in Portugal

funtime65

The Tidy One despairs at the contestants in Stacey Solomon’s Sort Your Life Out, preferring to leave her own pageturners neatly on the cabinet… so I was surprised she went for the clutter in our Books Bedroom in Obidos in Portugal.

The Literary Man comes to mind today especially when we all channel our inner reader on World Book Day.

When we got to lie back on the mattresses on the floor surrounded by books and think of whatever imaginary world grabbed our fancy then.

Of course, this being Portugal we had dined and wined on the best fish and Vinho Verde.

Now there is something tiimeless about book festivals and the towns which live off them.

The Folio

Read all about it: The Folio

For Obidos, it’s Folio (Festival Literario Internacional De Obidos and see what they’ve done there) an 11-day literary event from October 10.

Divided into five chapters (we like it) – Authors, Folia, Educa, Ilustra and Bohemia – the festival provides many hours of programming.

Including a diversity of activities such as writers’ tables, concerts and  exhibitions, involving a large number of direct participants, including authors, thinkers, artists and creatives. 

Book your festival

Stuff of literature: Obidos

Now for every Obidos there’s an Edinburgh International Book Festival, a Hay Festival in Hay-on-Wye in Wales.

The Jaipur Literature Festival in India (the biggest in the world) and the Brooklyn in New York to name just a few.

Of course we don’t need a book festival to stimulate our interest in reading… book shops, stalls and libraries abound around the world.

And reading is still, despite our obsession with our phones, one of life’s great pleasures.

And for many one of the joys of being on holiday as we relax away from our normal routine and enjoy a latest blockbuster or book we’ve been waiting to read.

Books too are a wonderful sharing experience.

Now admit it, and I’m the first to put my hand up tot taking a book away from me from hotels around the world.

Reading is sharing

Pick your book: The Literary Man

The most recent on a skiing expedition in Val D’Isere after a night of the apres-ski. 

Mind you I have left my fair share of books, and thinking here of leaving Leon Uris’s Trinity in Malta and Boy George’s autobiography in the Maldives.

If you picked them up then you’re welcome.

Wherever you’re reading today, enjoy.

Me, I’m letting my mind wander to our books bedroom in Portugal.

While the Tidy One cusses at the contestants on the BBC show Stacey Solomon’s Sort Your Life Out.

 

America, Countries, Europe, UK

The Dickens of theme parks on book day

funtime65

And a leaf through literature with the Dickens of theme parks on book day and other novel attractions.

We have fond memories of Dickens World in Kent on England’s south coast.

Being a Dickens fan from early days it was, of course, a thrill to sit in Dotheboys Schoolhouse from Nicholas Nickelby.

And the upturned Peggotty’s Boathouse from David Copperfield.

Another era: Dickens’ London

But most spectacularly take the midnight boat ride along the Thames that Magwitch would have done in Great Expectations.

Alas Dickens World has closed its doors these past seven years but on the upside we got to enjoy the Dickens of theme parks.

Dickens, the theme park, not the author, of course, was the brains behind the project.

As Gerry O’Sullivan-Beare had been for Andersen World.

Potter universe

The magic bus: In Orlando

And it all comes full circle with Hans Christian Andersen having been influenced by the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen and Walt Disney too.

Theme park designing, of course, is a specialist subject.

And the architect for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter was under special instructions to recreate JK Rowling’s invention to the letter.

Which meant bringing the exact brick through US Customs from Diagon Alley for the universe that is Universal Orlando.

And we imagine he would have had to conjure up some magic excuse for the guards there.

Our favourite reads have, of course, been natural stories for our favourite rides.

And water splashes so naturally when you’ve got the most famous river trip story whaddya gonna do?

The Huck stops here

Finn’s can only get better: Huck Finn

Mark Twain’s iconic rascals Tom Sawyer and Huck Finnmake a splash at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri.

Riverblast has 80 along the 567ft river channel, making it ‘America’s Biggest Water Battle.’

Child’s play

Hamming it up: Peppa Pig

Of course not everything has to be a thrill ride and here in the UK its child’s play for adults when they pack their kids off to the Thomas the Tank Engine and Peppa Pig parks.

Tam being a carriage is, of course, a touring attraction giving us all a chance to see him and his friends.

While Peppa is the pick of PMs with Boris Johnson waxing lyrical about her adventures back in the south of England in Romsey, Hampshire.

 So while we look back nostalgically on the Magwitch, Peggotty and Pickwick recreations you’ll find the Dickens of theme parks on this literary red letter day.

Just bring your imaginations.