What better way to celebrate my birthday than hanging around the second-hand bookshops of Oxford?
After meeting my brother at Oxford station, we started our mission with bacon and eggs at Mick's Cafe in Botley Road, before doing battle with the booksellers.
Our first port of call was the municipal library at Westgate where I nabbed a hardback copy of William Horwood's childhood memoirs, The Boy With No Shoes, and Ways of Escape by Graham Greene, in which he reflects on the books he wrote over the years.
After a quick coffee in the Nosebag in St Michael's Street, I popped into Arcadia next door and came away with a nice Penguin paperback of Keith Waterhouse's first novel, There Is A Happy Land.
Then we headed over to the specialist Oxfam bookshop in Turl Street where the till was manned by a charming woman who wished everyone "good morning", despite the fact that midday had come and gone.
We picked up a Book of Nonsense, edited by Roger Lancelyn Green, for my five-year-old as a gift for his birthday, and he has already enjoyed some of those crazy Victorian rhymes.
Next and final stop was Blackwell's and, naturally, our immediate destination was the second-hand section on the third floor with those charming wooden floorboards.
My eyes lit up when spotted a couple of Kiplings in blue/green boards. A quick peek inside revealed that Many Inventions (1893) and The Day's Work (1898) were first editions and I lashed out about £8 for the pair of them.
Surely this was a steal? The polite young man working in the rare books section the floor below confirmed that I had picked up a bargain, but Kipling is out of fashion these days and first editions can go for just a few quid. Limits and Renewals (1932) in red Macmillan boards was slightly overpriced at £6.50, but I was on a roll so I dug my toe in, and we headed home.
The Oxford Guide to Literary Britain and Ireland has just come out in a new Oxford University Press edition, and is proving endlessly fascinating. It's one heck of a size — I can hardly lift it — but I know I will keep coming back to it. Perhaps it should stay on the parcel shelf of my car with my road Atlas.