What book(s) kindled* your love of reading?
- Thread starter Retyred.life
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Cycleops
Legendary Member
- Location
- Accra, Ghana
If you enjoyed those you'll certainly like the books. He's a very good writer and goes into the characters in more detail.
You can buy on the Kindle app on your tablet or computer if you don't want the paper book.
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
Some familiar names cropping up here. Stig of the Dump, Just William. Wind in the Willows. I think Enid Blyton was persona non grata either in our house or maybe in our local library - which was where all my books came from. I never came across her books at all.
When I got a bit older I read a lot of PG Wodehouse. In my airfix phase I read a lot of WWII / RAF history - Dam Busters, Reach for the Sky etc
I did plough through Lord of the Rings, which was an achievement just because it was so long, not because it was good or interesting or actually worth reading.
When I got a bit older I read a lot of PG Wodehouse. In my airfix phase I read a lot of WWII / RAF history - Dam Busters, Reach for the Sky etc
I did plough through Lord of the Rings, which was an achievement just because it was so long, not because it was good or interesting or actually worth reading.
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ebikeerwidnes
Guru
- Location
- Z’ha’dum
WOOO
I had totally forgotten about Willard Price - read everything I could find about him at one point
Also Famous Five at an earlier age
I do remember when I was at Prep. School (yes - one of those schools) out 6th Form (in old money) teacher had a circulating set of books. Every week we had to read one book and write a "synopsis" of it in a very small exercise book - maximum 2 small pages summarising the whole book
Every week everyone had to get their current book out and pass in on to the next person in the class
SOme books you could see progressing around the class like the ticking of the Clock of Doom - think books full of small print!
One was especially feared (he said desperately trying to remember the title!!) and it finally arrived at my desk
That evening I took it home and thought I had better make a start. Some time later my Mum came upstairs to check I was OK because it was getting on for bedtime and they had hardly seen me all evening!
Loved it - finished it in 2 nights and had the synopsis done and dusted early!
The teacher was quite clever as the set of books contained a very wide variety of topics and authors - gave us a good idea of the wide variety of books available!
I can;t imaging that working with my grand-daughter - who is in the same year at school. I doubt she would even see herself as being capable of reading most of them - too grown up!
a.twiddler
Veteran
My mother was an avid reader who took myself and my younger brother to the local library once a week from an early age. From the Janet and John books at school, through the Ladybird books, various illustrated books then somehow a jump to the magic world of "proper" books with occasional or no pictures. The Famous Five, Secret Seven, Just William, Biggles, even Billy Bunter though I didn't enjoy that so much. Beatrix Potter? I wasn't too keen on that kind of thing, similarly The Wind in the Willows, though it was a few years before I learned that it was called anthropomorphism. Yet I enjoyed cartoons with the same theme of animals in clothes doing human things. Paradoxical, or what?
I particularly remember "Swallows and Amazons" thinking how could their parents let kids loose in a boat without an older person about to supervise them? Surely they would all drown? Obviously, they didn't. In the last year or so at primary school we were allowed to take books from the Book Cupboard. Some of them were Time-Life type books with colourful photography of wildlife and exotic places with adult levels of language, but plenty of other stuff for our reading age. In the final year we had to write a mini review of each one, a bit more than "I enjoyed that", before we were allowed to take another one.
There were comics, and when visiting my grandparents during school holidays there was a stack of Readers Digests going back years to wade through.
The Hornblower series, Jules Verne, George Orwell, even Dickens, which showed me that even older writers were still vey readable. Then I discovered modern Science Fiction. We went to live in the Middle East for a year, in a place with no English Language TV so in the afternoons when everyone retired to their air conditioned bedrooms due to the heat, myself and my brother would read to the accompaniment of the rumbling air con. We got through a lot of books from the local library that year. Our fate was sealed.
Ever since, dear reader, I've been a reader.
I particularly remember "Swallows and Amazons" thinking how could their parents let kids loose in a boat without an older person about to supervise them? Surely they would all drown? Obviously, they didn't. In the last year or so at primary school we were allowed to take books from the Book Cupboard. Some of them were Time-Life type books with colourful photography of wildlife and exotic places with adult levels of language, but plenty of other stuff for our reading age. In the final year we had to write a mini review of each one, a bit more than "I enjoyed that", before we were allowed to take another one.
There were comics, and when visiting my grandparents during school holidays there was a stack of Readers Digests going back years to wade through.
The Hornblower series, Jules Verne, George Orwell, even Dickens, which showed me that even older writers were still vey readable. Then I discovered modern Science Fiction. We went to live in the Middle East for a year, in a place with no English Language TV so in the afternoons when everyone retired to their air conditioned bedrooms due to the heat, myself and my brother would read to the accompaniment of the rumbling air con. We got through a lot of books from the local library that year. Our fate was sealed.
Ever since, dear reader, I've been a reader.
AndyRM
XOXO
- Location
- North Shields
I love that series! Great shout.
Mo1959
Legendary Member
- Location
- Perthshire,Scotland
One of my primary teachers did something similar, but he made us stand up at the front of the class and speak about the book we had read. I hated it.
- Location
- Somewhere wet & hilly in NW England.
The 'Biggles' books as a kid, and then as a teen, the Gollancz SF books at the local library followed by 70's teen staples, LOR, Catch 22, Shardick, Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance etc.
Still a prolific reader today.
Still a prolific reader today.
AndyRM
XOXO
- Location
- North Shields
I really liked comics when I was young, still do. What properly got me hooked on reading was the warped and the existential.
wiggydiggy
Guru
Enid Blyton, Franklin W Dixon and Alfred Hitchcock (Slight cheat on the last one!)
Blyton I loved, there were a couple of series I didn't get into but Secret Seven, Famous Five, Adventure series and more I forget I was heavily into. I never noticed the now supposedly controversial language but a lot of the older words like 'galoshies' (a type of waterproof pants I think) are a mystery to to me to this day.
Franklin W Dixon was a pseudonym used by several authors for the Hardy Boys series. It's still going today I think. Again like Blyton a lot of the older language especially the American terms sometimes confused me but they were all exciting stuff. The stories have a trait of ending every chapter on an exciting g event or cliffhanger.
Hitchcock I'm cheating as technically he didn't write these books, he introduced them via a short note at the start and he also featured occasionally in them. I forget the author but I think think it was called The Three Investigators, 3 young lads getting into all sorts of scrapes solving crime and being too clever for their own good.
There's a whole bunch of other books whose authors I forget right now but the stories were The Falcons Malteaser, Bobby Brewsters Torch and The Adventures of Barmy Jeffers.
I'm lucky enough my parents kept most of my old books and I have them still today, I'll grab some pictures of some of them later
Blyton I loved, there were a couple of series I didn't get into but Secret Seven, Famous Five, Adventure series and more I forget I was heavily into. I never noticed the now supposedly controversial language but a lot of the older words like 'galoshies' (a type of waterproof pants I think) are a mystery to to me to this day.
Franklin W Dixon was a pseudonym used by several authors for the Hardy Boys series. It's still going today I think. Again like Blyton a lot of the older language especially the American terms sometimes confused me but they were all exciting stuff. The stories have a trait of ending every chapter on an exciting g event or cliffhanger.
Hitchcock I'm cheating as technically he didn't write these books, he introduced them via a short note at the start and he also featured occasionally in them. I forget the author but I think think it was called The Three Investigators, 3 young lads getting into all sorts of scrapes solving crime and being too clever for their own good.
There's a whole bunch of other books whose authors I forget right now but the stories were The Falcons Malteaser, Bobby Brewsters Torch and The Adventures of Barmy Jeffers.
I'm lucky enough my parents kept most of my old books and I have them still today, I'll grab some pictures of some of them later
As a kid I recall, literally, crying laughing at the Just William books. No idea which one but I clearly recall 'him' describing his school lunch and battling through the custard fields.
Aged 8 upwards I used the library a lot (junior section)
Back in approx 1957 I read The Brendon Chase by BB....... I read and re-read it.
About 10 years ago a friend bought me a copy as a present.......I really enjoyed reading it again, a wonderful book.
As a young adult I read westerns.
I still read but like easy crime/detective type stuff now.
Back in approx 1957 I read The Brendon Chase by BB....... I read and re-read it.
About 10 years ago a friend bought me a copy as a present.......I really enjoyed reading it again, a wonderful book.
As a young adult I read westerns.
I still read but like easy crime/detective type stuff now.
Legs
usually riding on Zwift...
- Location
- Staffordshire
Ditto Adventure series! I loved Tiger Adventure particularly. I'm sure they'd seem very dated if I re-read them - I think many of the attitudes were 'of their time'.
Also a big fan of the Hardy Boys. It was only recently that I discovered that Franklin W. Dixon was not a real person.
lazybloke
Priest of the cult of Chris Rea
- Location
- Leafy Surrey
I went through a lot of Enid Blyton, and particularly enjoyed the Secret series, once I reasised it was different from the Secret7.
Also like the Adventure series.
One of my fondest book memories was my Dad reading my the Hobbit at bedtime, particularly the chapter "Riddles in the Dark".
And I enjoyed Doctor Who books from my junior school libarary; they had quite a selection and I tried to read the whole lot until a teacher had words about my limited choice!
The Ogre Downstairs by Dianne Wynne Jones; that was interesting.
Also enjoyed some books by C S Lewis and E Nesbit, but my children would disagree.
Also like the Adventure series.
One of my fondest book memories was my Dad reading my the Hobbit at bedtime, particularly the chapter "Riddles in the Dark".
And I enjoyed Doctor Who books from my junior school libarary; they had quite a selection and I tried to read the whole lot until a teacher had words about my limited choice!
Stig of the Dump!! That was a good one; better than Catweazle.
The Ogre Downstairs by Dianne Wynne Jones; that was interesting.
Also enjoyed some books by C S Lewis and E Nesbit, but my children would disagree.
Rusty Nails
We remember
- Location
- Living in the slow lane
I was brought up in the 50s before the days when everyone had a TV so reading and the radio were important parts of my childhood. My reading after a couple of years of primary school was mostly such books as Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, my grandfather's Zane Grey and western novels and,bizarrely, Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopedia set, which my parents paid for in instalments, and which I read cover to cover over the years. Just William and Biggles books were also good but I never really got on with the, to my mind, rather twee Secret Seven, Famous Five or Swallows and Amazons books.
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