On a more serious note, reading the Bryant and May books taught me a huge amount of trivia about London, which is always fun.

My oldest son who pre-dates all the Peter Jackson Tolkien movies, is named after a character from the Hobbit. Middle name, but still there.

I was named after a dragon in a D&D game my parents were in when they first started dating

I can't think of anything specific I've learned directly from fiction, but I can think of lots of things I've learned because of fiction. HTML, for example. I originally taught myself HTML to help out some friends of mine from a Farscape fan forum. I've maintained and sharpened my coding skills over the years because of RP interests and the PPC, which all goes back to fiction. I'd be an inanimate husk without a soul full of stories.

~Neshomeh, waxing poetic lately.

...hopefully all the logical thinkers I've been reading about have rubbed something off on me.

Oh! Ah yes! I know somewhat about the concept of breaking strain, thanks to Stephen King's The Eyes of the Dragon. I guess that's it?

-Twistey

I learned to spin thread with a drop spindle because I was inspired by Sandry in the Circle of Magic books.

I've never had formal instruction, but I used a lot of the information in the book to help me learn how to shoot. I somehow managed to take third place at the local Renaissance Fair's archery tournament.

Well, fiction gave us all Google Earth... But I don't think that's really what you meant.

Fiction also gave me a lot of my odd language and such. Clannerscum, BLAM, feth, frak, and so on - fiction is good for swears, insults, and so on.

Fiction is also responsible for my giving out of zorkmids to people who get my references, and my silent cursing of Toey when I misspell words. I firmly believe in THE HEART OF THE CARDS! (or a least the spleen), the Random Number God is not to be messed with, and god help you if you steal my Nat 20.

And I wear a lilac on the 25th of May. Every 25th of May. And if you don't know why, you weren't There.

Only about half of that was joking. I don't know which half.

...a whole bunch of random knowledge that sometimes comes in handy in my life has come from Tamora Pierce books. Also a number of others...most recently, though, I think, was the moment when I was cleaning part of the apartment and remembering Tris teaching Briar how to lift up the things on the shelf to dust them (and under them) rather than just poking around the spaces between them. Also, the bit about dusting before sweeping, though I didn't do that (there wasn't so much dust, though). So that's a thing. And I'm pretty sure I've tried the horse thing, too, though I think I learned it from a different book of hers.

Essentially: yes, definitely. Also, have you read any other Tamora Pierce books? We could talk about it! :) Shared fandoms are always great.

~Z