What book(s) kindled* your love of reading?

[Retyred.life]

* No pun intended.

For me, aged twelve, it was The Catcher In The Rye, J.D. Salinger. Have read thousands since then, classics and pulp fiction, now at 67 I've discovered Tom Robbins.
Tried reading Catcher again when in my fifties, just didn't resonate at all. Likewise D.H Lawrence and H.Rider Haggard amongst others.

 

[Jotheboat]

As a child, 1,2,3 with Ant and Bee.
First 'proper' book memory, I'd be in my teens, was Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlow books, EG, The Big Sleep.

(Nice thread by the way, conjured up some nice memories)

 

[annedonnelly]

I remember getting the Janet & John books from school. You'd have the book for a week but I'd read the whole thing the first day so had to read it again and again until I could get a different one the next week.

I must've been about eight when there was an adaptation of Jane Eyre on TV and I read and read the library's copy of that until I got my own cpy for Christmas. I still re-read it every couple of years.

I think I was fortunate that my mum was a reader and signed me up for library membership very early on.

 

[slowmotion]

Aged about nine or ten, I discovered Ian Fleming's Bond novels while at boarding school. They were strictly banned but it was pure excitement to read them by torchlight in the dorm after lights-out.

A bit later, Chandler took Fleming's place.

 

[Mo1959]

I don’t remember many specific books from school apart from Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies and 1984 as I think they were on the curriculum. I enjoyed reading and read the usual childhood fiction stuff like The Famous Five.

My preferred reading these days is almost entirely crime fiction.

 

[Dogtrousers]

As a child ... I'm not sure what age exactly, I used to love books by "BB", whose name, Wikipedia tells me, was Denys Watkins Pitchford.

Another was Captain Cobwebb's Cowboys and other Captain Cobwebb books by Gordon Boshell.

Like @Jotheboat I remember Ant and Bee

 

[Drago]

2001 : A Space Odyssey.

 

[Chief Broom]

Mervyn Peakes Gormenghast trilogy

 

[Cycleops]

Hadn't read for a long time but about a couple of years ago I picked up one of Alexander McCall Smith's books in the Ladies No 1 Detective Agency series and couldn't put it down. Went on to read all the series.
He has the African psyche down to a T, because he'd lived there. The books are quietly amusing but never mocking. Thoroughly recommended.

 

[Mo1959]

Hadn't read for a long time but about a couple of years ago I picked up one of Alexander McCall Smith's books in the Ladies No 1 Detective Agency series and couldn't put it down. Went on to read all the series.
He has the African psyche down to a T, because he'd lived there. The books are quietly amusing but never mocking. Thoroughly recommended.

Haven’t read them but remember watching some that they televised.

 

[annedonnelly]

I don’t remember many specific books from school apart from Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies and 1984 as I think they were on the curriculum. I enjoyed reading and read the usual childhood fiction stuff like The Famous Five.

My preferred reading these days is almost entirely crime fiction.

I loved the Famous Five and all those tales of girls in boarding schools and at pony clubs. I remember Lord of the Flies being very disturbing when I read it at school. I re-read it recently and it was just as disturbing.

Ditto the crime fiction now.

 

[annedonnelly]

Hadn't read for a long time but about a couple of years ago I picked up one of Alexander McCall Smith's books in the Ladies No 1 Detective Agency series and couldn't put it down. Went on to read all the series.
He has the African psyche down to a T, because he'd lived there. The books are quietly amusing but never mocking. Thoroughly recommended.

I've read some of those and enjoyed them but I didn't like his Edinburgh-based series when I tried that although some friends of mine love it.

 

[vickster]

ditto Famous Five, but also the Adventure series by Willard Price.
I’ll admit to really not liking Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights at school, and later Madame Bovary at uni…still don’t like any sort of pre 20th century “costume” drama!

 

[stephec]

Another one for the Famous Five here, plus the Secret Seven as well.

 

[richardfm]

A few I remember
Stig of the Dump by Clive King
The Family from One End Street by Eve Garnett
Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner
The Just William books by Richmal Crompton