[Tyrion]

Been a reader from the year dot but the first books that left me desperate for more were: On Her Majesties Secret Service by Ian Fleming
Monte Cassino by Sven Hassell
and Tarzan Of The Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Earthsea Trilogy also made a big impression especially in retrospect.

[Cougar]

Must have been like; the Lenny and Jake books when I was 7 or something.

I can remember staying up all night one time to read the whole of Red Dwarf when I was about 12

Fantasy, well it was the Hobbit closely followed by Wolf in Shadow.

[globish rip]

the cancer ward or those richard scarry books. man, i loved those.

[Vicodin&FantasyBooks]

The first would have to be The Count of Monte Christo.

And then Terry Pratchet's Discworld series - I would devour a novel in two days at my summer house by the sea. It used to be wonderful in winter sitting by the fireplace the sea raging through the big windows just 50 meters away.

This post has been edited by Vicodin&FantasyBooks: 23 October 2008 - 04:34 PM

[Chance]

I remember the never ending story and narnia...didn't read them myself but read to me...

First book that made me start devouring books was one of the WoT books not the first one and read entirely out of sequence...still made enough of an impression to make me read all fantasy I could get my hands on which sadly was Brooks, Eddings (whose first series is decent intro series), more WoT and Feist (still really like the Empires Daughter sequence...)...but the book that I still return to is the first elric book no clue how many times I've read just the introduction scene...

I know there are a lot of Tolkien enthusiasts out there but it never did an impression on me...he was never intrested enough in telling a story and fantasy often boils down to storytelling...especially back then...

Now that I think about it the WoT book was in english to...and my teacher barely belived I had read it at elven or so...

EDIT: Damn nearly forgot Verne I can probably still write an summary for most Verne novels truely good stuff especially the less known one like the Iron Elephant (whatever its called in english) and some of the others...

/Chance...

This post has been edited by Chance: 23 October 2008 - 04:55 PM

[bwgan]

Why haven't I seen this thread before? Tis inspired, but very difficult in that I have always loved reading, and I loved Enid Blyton's Magic Faraway Tree when I was tiny...and then lots of others. BUT the book for me, when I was about 10 or 11 was Wuthering Heights. It absolutely sent me a bit round the twist, in a good way. I still and will always love that book.

[teholbeddict]

I would have to say the Chronicles of Narnia, which I ordered through scholastic in the 3rd grade. I picked it intially because I thought reading and owning a box set was a very grown up thing to do! Luckily I ended up loving the series and still have the now battered box set today. It really sparked my love for reading but I think more importantly the genre as a whole.

[Imperial Historian]

Cougar, on Oct 23 2008, 05:16 PM, said:

Must have been like; the Lenny and Jake books when I was 7 or something.

Hazel townsend was the author who got me hooked on reading when I was younger, her and dick king smith addicted me to books.

Fantasy wise I think it was LLoyd Alexander and the chronicles of prydain, closely followed by the hobbit.

[Cougar]

I liked reading Hazel Townshend and Mr Magica etc so much that I told my mum and dad I was scared of the dark and that I couldn't sleep so they put in this night light thing which was just bright enough to read by, so I could read till like 11pm, I'm sure they knew but they must have thought it was good for me to read. I can remember the first book I read more than once, it was called 'The Hunting of Wilberforce Pike' I forget who by.

Also when I was very young, maybe 5 my dad read me Robinson Crusoe and The Lost World, which must have been hell for him because he is massively dislexic, I'll have to thank him for that next time I see him

[iscariot]

Some of the Brits might know this guy:

EW Hildick - creator of the truly wondrous Louis Lay, the greatest milkman ever.
- Louie's Lot
- Louie's SOS
- Louie's Snowstorm
- Louies Ransom

He also wrote the McGurk series [which just rocked ].

---

I would also note:

- Madeline L'Engel
- Dr Seuss
- K M Peyton [especially the Pennington series]

This post has been edited by iscariot: 23 October 2008 - 08:01 PM

[Stalker]

When I was 6 or 7ish, my dad started reading to me each night. So I'd have to say the Hobbit and whole Lord of the Rings trilogy, even though Lord of the Rings may have been abit overkillish, as there is a lot a 6 year old wouldn't understand

[frookenhauer]

Douglas Hill - Legionaire of Moros series, followed by the huntsman trilogy and the exiles of Colsec trilogy cemented my love of books, but it was Roald Dahls books that were read to us in story time in junior school that paved the way for it all.

[Lisheo]

Roahl Dahl's the Witches. I was, oh, 6? Enough said. Those books were godly.

[Shadowthrone]

The Hobbit closely followed by the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien laid the ground work for all fantasy authors today... Steven has merely perfected it!

[Ganymed]

Has been mentioned several times, but with me it was definately LotR. I got lost in that world for several years and was intrigued by it's vast depth and sense of history and despair. Subsequently I devoured The Silmarillion and The Hobbit, of course. These have been the first books I read in english out of class.

LotR still means a lot to me. It's part of my childhood and will never be taken from me.

[Terez]

I don't remember. I've always loved reading, and my mom tells me I was reading at age 3. The first books I remember getting into were the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books that were at my grandma's house - my mom and uncles used to read them as kids - and the Chronicles of Narnia. I had a thing with Sweet Valley books and Babysitter's Club books in elementary school. In junior high I graduated to John Grisham, Stephen King, and Anne Rice. I didn't get into fantasy, not counting Tolkien and Lewis, until after I dropped out of college (about 10 years ago).

[chitman13]

I've been reading on and off for years - I had a huge spurt in my early teens when books from the Point Horror series were all the rage in the school I was in. After that it died down a while, although one book that I remember as one of my first proper sf books was one called Space Ark, a story of Earth dying due to a supernove in a nearby star system and the travellers that left Earth on an ark ship. More recently though it was Peter F Hamilton's Pandora's Star that got me into reading big time. After reading that and shown what sort of scale books went to I shot off and read everything else by him. After that it was a few queries here and there on what else I could read that would be similar before heading down the route of space opera. I'm still trying to catch up with all the classics that I've still not got around to while trying to read as much newer stuff as I can get my hands on.

There is never enough time in the day...

[Use Of Weapons]

While I also loved the Chronicles of Narnia, the first books to really give me the SF/F bug were Susan Cooper's 'The Dark is Rising' sequence. We had to read _The Dark Is Rising_ in school, and I quickly picked up all the others, and then anything else she'd written, and then anything else by authors with a similar name (Louise Cooper -- Adept trilogy).

[stone monkey]

I've been reading as long as I've been conscious (my mother tells me that she had me reading at 2 years old) so I don't actually remember what got me started, I only remember who was responsible.

I do vaguely remember certain books from my early reading (it is rather a long time ago after all) - Roger Lancelyn Green's Tales of the Greek Heroes, Alan Garner's The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising, Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain, Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea - which may have influenced my later reading habits... Although as I read far more sf than fantasy, maybe not.

[Cougar]

stone monkey, on Oct 27 2008, 04:17 PM, said:

Roger Lancelyn Green's Tales of the Greek Heroes.

Oh yeah I think I read this when I was 8 or 9 on a day off I had from school, great book, looking back it was an early infatuation with myths that informed my reading fantasy I suspect. Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece, Rome and the Near East was also a big read for me, as was a companion tome on celtic, British and Norse myth