what was THEE book that turned you into a habitual reader?

[Hell-haine]

I was raised with very little TV and no video games at all.
Books and vinyls were my main entertainment.

The first book that really blew my mind must have been Black Boy by Richard Wright when I was 11.



Richard Wright grew up in the woods of Mississippi amid poverty, hunger, fear, and hatred. He lied, stole, and raged at those around him; at six he was a "drunkard," hanging about in taverns. Surly, brutal, cold, suspicious, and self-pitying, he was surrounded on one side by whites who were either indifferent to him, pitying, or cruel, and on the other by blacks who resented anyone trying to rise above the common lot.

Black Boy is Richard Wright's powerful account of his journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. It is at once an unashamed confession and a profound indictment—a poignant and disturbing record of social injustice and human suffering.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

My mom was one of those crazy Montessori bitches, so I learned to read when I was four and can't really remember a time when I didn't read basically anything I could get my hands on. I think my dad started worrying when I was 6-7 and was reading my sister's pre-teen books - Babysitter's Club, Are You There God...etc... when I ran out of stuff to read, went to his mom's house and gave me a TON of Hardy Boys era but not Hardy Boys books from his childhood, mostly Tom Swift, Tom Corbett-Space Cadet and sports books starring Bronc Burnett and Chip Hilton books, the latter of which you may have never heard of but you'd probably dig, from wiki:

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

The typical Chip Hilton story involved two to three related plots. The Big Reds or Statesmen were involved in a battle for championship glory, but one teammate or another had some sort of personal issue, often selfishness, that impeded himself and thus the team. Chip straightened out the personal issues, allowing the offending player to become a vital cog in a championship drive (never as vital as Chip, of course) and gaining admittance to Chip's buddy list.

Sometimes the secondary plot was not strictly team related, as when Chip's boss took ill, or when he helped a teammate chop down trees to sell for firewood. Other frequent plot devices include coaches who do not understand the style of play of Chip and his pals. A slow start to the season is generally followed by Chip's interceding with the coach on behalf of his mates, a coaching epiphany, and the coach deciding it is best to see things Chip's way while deriding himself as a fool for trying to change the team's style. Championships generally follow.

Plots transpire in chronological sequence. Chip and his schoolmates age during the series, one season at a time. Midway through the series, the characters graduate from Valley Falls High School and are reunited at State University. A discrepancy exists in the original series, where Chip's senior football season in A Pass And A Prayer follows his basketball and baseball seasons, documented in Hoop Crazy and Pitchers' Duel. This discrepancy is corrected in the updated series, and Chip's football season precedes his basketball and baseball seasons.

Probably got into Stephen King and X-Men right after this, used to always read ahead in history and english too.

[mastoman]

of human bondage

[Bored, Esq.]

The old FOTR on Ballantine with the blue cover, probably. It was blue, green, red, I think. But outside of that, these things:



Specifically...the second. I think that was in 4th or 5th grade. This series, too:



I wrote a letter to Lloyd Alexander when I was in 4th grade and he wrote back...carefully typed out on a manual typewriter (with mistakes) and signed. Dude had class.

[skin & bones]

this just popped in my head. but i'm sure there's quite a few that came before that.

[Turd Murder]

The Turner Diaries, when I was 10 or so.

[delmuerte]

I'm not the everyday reader I wish I was, but it had to be either 1984 or Brave New World. I got into Bukowski later which is more along the lines of shit that I enjoy more consistently.

[BUNGVOX]

'the roominghouse madrigals' charles bukowski

i've always been into reading but this kicked it into over drive.

[Nissos]

probably the Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine...

[Glass Asshole]

I wrote a letter to Lloyd Alexander when I was in 4th grade and he wrote back...carefully typed out on a manual typewriter (with mistakes) and signed. Dude had class.

I read that book in 4th grade...maybe 5th grade. Then in 6th grade we had to read a few books on our own and then write a book report about them. I chose this book to review and I never mentioned that it was a choose your own adventure book. Take that, stupid teacher. For some reason we had to draw a picture of the cover(or maybe I just decided to do that on my own?) so take that picture and then pretend everyone on the cover has down's syndrome and you have my book report from 6th grade.

[Whiffleball Ace]

It's probably a toss up between 1984 or The Red Badge of Courage,
but I think this book really sealed the deal for me later in life:

[Glass Asshole]

I loved The Invisible Man when I was a kid but I honestly didn't take up reading books until I was in my late teens. I always seemed to like the idea of reading more than actually reading, so naturally I went to comic books. 1984/Brave New World pretty much turned me back on to books but I think I'm going to go with A People's History of the United States.

[neckbeard]

Hobbit
then my friend in 6th grade was like yeah, i read LOTR and i was like wtf i can do it to then.
he was all into those star wars book but i never read any.
i swear my teachers were on a mission to make me hate reading.

[Bored, Esq.]

so take that picture and then pretend everyone on the cover has down's syndrome and you have my book report from 6th grade.

Hahaha...

Yeah, I remember teachers saying back then "Don't pick a CYOA book for your book report, it's not allowed." Way to squash budding curiosity. What's weird to me now is that most of my teachers back then were in their twenties...they would seem like kids to me. I used to think they were so old and wise. They were idiots.

[Idget Child]

I definitely wasn't much of a reader in my childhood before high school, but this was one of the few books that really stood out.

As far as the book that was the impetus for me to read through high school and on, it was definitely The Hobbit, even though I'm not big on fantasy books. The narration style is just very warm and endearing to me, and the story is still fascinating. It's one of those books that I'll still go back to every year or two to reread.

[Pyrite Medal of Ignorance]

tv guide when i was 2

[hooked on sonics]

I loved The Invisible Man when I was a kid but I honestly didn't take up reading books until I was in my late teens. I always seemed to like the idea of reading more than actually reading, so naturally I went to comic books. 1984/Brave New World pretty much turned me back on to books but I think I'm going to go with A People's History of the United States.

my mom was a librarian, so i would read anything as a kid. I remember in junior high I grabbed Invisible Man and was thoroughly confused when it wasn't sci-fi, ha ha. I was like "wtf is all this stuff about black people problems, when does he turn invisible?"

I think I gave up about 1/2 way through when it became clear it was a real novel, not pulpy science fiction , but the book definitely left a lasting impression... While I didn't grasp most of the themes until much later in life,

I do remember thinking it was REALLY cool at the beginning when the unnamed narrator smokes pot and trips out to his jazz lps...

[Turd Murder]

I remember being a wee lad, reading 'The Keep' by F. Paul Wilson, and when I got to the big sex scene between the protagonists I got the hardest boner, it legitimately felt like the skin of my penis was going to rip I was so engorged with blood. It was before I learned how to masturbate, so all I could do was sit there and read and feel like my erection was going to murder me, that and think about touching a boob. I think in one's life one gets a predetermined amount of monster boners like that, and unfortunately I used them all up as a precocious child, reading and rereading the handjob scene in King's Pet Semetary and the like.

[hipster holocaust]

originally it was



then soon afterward reading became a chore and i kind of gave it up except for classes

then a few years ago i got back into it with this

[Mr. Budd]

I guess S.E. Hinton, Chekhov, Ring Lardner got me interested in reading - but it was Don Quixote and Studs Lonigain that made me a habitual reader.

[Phritz]

i guess i was always a reader. when i was small, i used to always carry huge loads of non-fiction stuff home with me from the library and of course comics (i always loathed the kids who would say something like "what? you read the lines? i just look at the pictures.") and also cheesy girly animal stories.
later i got into fantasy stuff ("forgotten realms", "dragonlance" etc. ) because of highschool friends. my entrance to real literature were Thomas Bernhard and Dostoevsky. i really started enjoying to read that stuff when i was about 20.

[Bored, Esq.]

i guess i was always a reader. when i was small, i used to always carry huge loads of non-fiction stuff home with me from the library and of course comics (i always loathed the kids who would say something like "what? you read the lines? i just look at the pictures.") and also cheesy girly animal stories.
later i got into fantasy stuff ("forgotten realms", "dragonlance" etc. ) because of highschool friends. my entrance to real literature were Thomas Bernhard and Dostoevsky. i really started enjoying to read that stuff when i was about 20.

Do you like Thomas Mann?

[Phritz]

nope. not at all.
i was supposed to read something from him (i think it was "mario und der zauberer") in school, but i skipped it out of laziness. about 5 yeats ago i read half of "dr. faustus" and absolutely hated his style, it's so cheesy and pompous. i had to stop after a while. i liked the story though and it was definitely interesting, but i just couldn't stand it.
i am planning to give "charlotte in weimar" and "magic mountain" a try some day, but it might take some time, since i'm not exactly looking forward to it.

[Hell-haine]

Oh now I remember getting the happy chills when reading Huckleberry Finn when I was 7 or 8.
I fell in love with Mark Twain.

Then obviously I went through Jack London, J. Fenimore Cooper and the like... Hence my desire to visit North America and Canada.

[Bored, Esq.]

nope. not at all.
i was supposed to read something from him (i think it was "mario und der zauberer") in school, but i skipped it out of laziness. about 5 yeats ago i read half of "dr. faustus" and absolutely hated his style, it's so cheesy and pompous. i had to stop after a while. i liked the story though and it was definitely interesting, but i just couldn't stand it.
i am planning to give "charlotte in weimar" and "magic mountain" a try some day, but it might take some time, since i'm not exactly looking forward to it.

I believe a lot of "Dr. Faustus", at least the parts on music theory, were actually written by Adorno. I wonder what it's like in German...

I really like that book, The Magic Mountain and the Death in Venice stories. I understand why people don't like his style, though...but that was another time...