I’m not talking about the Barenstein Bears or children books, or required reading in high school like Lord of the Flies. I’m talking about the first book you remember picking for fun because it sounded like a good read. For me it was Jack London’s Call of the Wild and J.R.R Tolkein’s the Hobbit. I considered myself an ‘adult’ after those books and sparked a love of reading ever since. Has it shaped your reading choices since? I’d say it has for me.
by SpinZillaJ
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Stephen Kings Pet semetary. Reading that felt like i was a big girl, no more reading goosebumps
Catch 22 – I head read Frankenstein and some Stephen King and Dean Koontz books but I was into horror so it didn’t feel like idk I was reading something for adults. But I read Catch 22 twice back to back (seriously I liked the cover and someone said it was a comedy and that’s why I picked it up) and was blown away that something was funny, naughty, and devastatingly sad.
Ender’s Game, the reading level isn’t super intense but I took so much away from it that I think it really defined part of my life.
The concept of loving your enemy, of seeing past differences and recognizing that the other person is an individual with hopes and dreams and feelings really stuck with me. It clicked that that was the reason I took bullying so harshly, not because it hurt but because I still wanted the best for my bullies, I still wanted them to like me as a person the way I liked them, because I always saw the best in them.
Imagine my utter shock and disappointment when I found out what an absolute bigot OSC was/is. I couldn’t believe that someone who wrote this beautiful story about acceptance and tolerance was so hateful toward different people.
Anna Karenin, followed by Les Liaisons Dangereous. I remember saying to a friend how much I enjoyed getting those books out while I was travelling on the tube because, ‘people will think I’m so smart’ 😁
The return of Sherlock Holmes. I was around 6 or 7 (I’m 34 now), and I remember choosing it because I’d heard Holmes had inspired The great mouse detective, which back then was one of my favorite movies. Long story short, it was love at first sight. I was already a reader by then (children books, though) but that book was my first real adult book. And it turned me into a Holmes fan.
I was in 2nd grade when I read Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, and I LOVED that I’d gotten all the way through a “grown up book” by myself. After that, I think reading Little Women in 4th grade really cemented for me that I could read long, classic books like that.
It was R.A Salvatore for me. I was pretty young at the time. It definitely shaped my reading, those books hold a special place for me
Michener’s “Hawaii”.
First with direct references to sex (not much in there, but first I had encountered)
I read Thomas Hardy in 8th grade.
I read the First volumn of “Battle Angel Alita” when I was about 8 or 9 years old. It had alot to do about the mind and body problem and alot of brain eating…
For some reason, my parents didn’t stop me from reading Memoirs of a Geisha when I was 10. Definitely left me feeling more grown up…
Albert Camu’s The Stranger , I read it because of the song Killing an Arab by the cure I was 16
But reading it I felt like is a way mature reading than other book I read and felt deeply engage with the idea that the our decision or life doesn’t have to weight a big responsibility on us
I re read it again a year ago and it felt like , damn I did epsually took the advice on the book this last 14 years
The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice. I read it in third grade and felt like a real grown-up.
My first ever book was Rage of Angels by Sidney Sheldon I was 14 and it opened my mind to reading.
Helter Skelter in 7th grade.