Happy #ILCD10 to all who celebrate (and that includes me)!

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the annual February mood-lightening event that is International Lego Classicism Day, hosted this year in the UK by the University of Warwick.

For those who are new to ILCD, the instructions are simple: just share your classical LEGO (whatever that is!) on social media with the official hashtags #ILCD10 and #InternationalLEGOClassicismDay. Or simply browse the hashtag on your social media platform of choice. Throughout the day you’ll see all kinds of classical stuff from all kinds of Classics folks, all over the world. Anybody can take part!

You can find out more at the official website of the Brick Classicists Empire: https://www.brickclassicists.com/ilcd

This year I’m thrilled to be part of the BCE Pantheon once again, and in excellent company too!

Every year I do a little LEGO project – well, it usually starts out little, and then unaccountably expands in a way that is definitely Not My Fault. If you’d like to check out my previous projects, I have a whole page of collected LEGO silliness: https://classicalstudies.support/classics-and-lego/.

So what did I come up with this year?

Drum roll please….

LEGO Katabasis Book Nook

As a book lover and a lover of all things miniature (from N-gauge to 1:12 dioramas), I’ve watched with approval the growing popularity of ‘book nooks’.

For those who don’t know, a book nook is a miniature display that fits on your bookshelf – typically as tall and as wide as a chunky book, but with the front cut away to show a scene inside. The scene is usually wired so that it lights up. So the book nook, sitting on your bookshelf, looks like a tiny glowing window into another world. But then when you pull it off the shelf, you can open it to expand the scene.

I’ve been browsing book nooks on the internet longingly for ages.

And then… last year LEGO started to bring out book nooks – combining my love of books and miniatures with my love of LEGO! How could I resist?

Well, it turned out to be quite easy to resist, because the LEGO kits (which so far cover Sherlock Holmes, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter) are too pricey for my budget. But they gave me ideas for this year’s International LEGO Classicism Day. Maybe I could build my own Myth Nook…

So for International LEGO Classicism Day 2026, let me take you on a tour – a katabasis, if you like – of my very own shelf-sized miniature light-up Underworld.