Shamlessly Stolen from delphipsmith

[teddy_radiator]

delphipsmith, thank you for that fascinating look at your reading history. I was so inspired by it!

Recently over on GoodReads, someone started a discussion on "How Did You Become a Reader?" and kicked it off with the following three questions, to which I have added a fourth:

1) Do you remember being read to as a child?
2) Do you remember when you first realized you love to read?
3) Have you always liked to read, or is it something you developed later?
4) What are some "firsts" in your life as a reader?

Let me say right now off the bat that I'm a philstine when it comes to reading - I'll read something, but if you insist I read it or it's the latest hype, I will wait. I hated being forced to read certain books in school, and don't do it now. If I want to read something, I'll read it and read it fast. I'm also not very careful with books. I have books that are more like collector's items to me, and I take fairly good care of them, but paperbacks or anything else is fair game. I dog ear corners, I crack spines, I take them into baths with me, I eat over them...yeah, don't lend me anything you want back in pristine shape. It won't be.

But that doesn't mean I don't love books. I do; I just think of them as a consumable, and treat them thus. The ones I treasure I don't actually read - I'll buy an e-copy or a paperback of it and read it. My tastes are very eclectic as well. Among my favourites are Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell, The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough, The Godfather, Mario Puzo, The Stand, Stephen King, Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, Alan Gurganus, Beach Music, Pat Conroy, Shogun, James Clavell. I like Frank Yerby and Fannie Flag as well as pulp fiction. I'm still trying to get my hands on a classic called The Devil Was My Pimp by Joe Castro. If you ever run across a copy, money is no object. I'm just kidding; of course it's an object, but I'm really having a hard time sourcing one - I'm in the Bible belt, after all. Classics tend to overwhelm me, and self-help books tend to make me feel inferior, so I tend to stick to the shallow end of the pool.

Needless to say, I love book series - The Dark Tower, Stephen King (totally pissed off about the casting of the film, by the way), The Black Dagger Brotherhood, JR Ward, although her last ones are terribly formulaic and I've lost interest, Harry Potter (of course), A Song of Ice And Fire (of course), the Hunger Games Trilogy (Suzanne Collins) and the Divergent series (Veronica Roth, although again, she really let her story down in the third book and I lost a lot of respect for her), The Plantation Trilogy by Gwen Bristow, and the Arthur series by Mary Stewart.  Tony Hillerman's Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee mysteries aren't technically a series, but since the background of the stories follows a linear path, I suppose they could count as well.

If I read a book and love it, I will read it many, many times - I have actually finished reading "The End" of a book, then turned to the first page and started over. I learned to read quite early, so I don't really remember being read to, but I do remember my mother talking about reading to me as a child. I had a good memory, and when I loved something, I would ask for her to read it over and over (I still do this with music, books, movies, you name it. If I like it, I will enjoy it over and over and over). One of her favourite stories she tells about me as a kid was having friends over and playing a trick on them. She asked me to read my favourite book, which I had learned by rote. She said I picked it up and started reading it word for word, even turning the pages at the right time. Her friends thought I was some kind of prodigy (I was around 2 or 3 at the time). Yeah, a show off even then.

2. I still remember the first word I read in the first grade. It was "Mike", and it was our reading book about Mike and his sister Mary and their brother Jeff and and their Goat Billy. The first book was called Opening Books. Once I started thinking about these I had to go and look them up. I remember them very well, even the back covers identifying colours.









I do remember it feeling quite easy to learn to read, and I must have taken to it well, because I don't remember any 'a-ha' moment of gestalt when it all made sense. It just always made sense to me. And I liked it a lot. My mother is a voracious reader, and encouraged me early on to read. I remember her making a big deal about taking me to the library as soon as I became old enough to get a library card, and it being a cerimonious moment, like a rite of passage.

3. From right off the bat, I loved reading. I also loved reading out loud, and I remember being gutted that I didn't read aloud as well as other kids and was put in the '2nd best' readers because of it. I was reading at a much higher level than most of the people in my grade, thanks to mom and her weekly trips to the library, but the school librarian wouldn't let me check out books above my 'level'. Fuck you, Mrs. Harper. I never really liked you, especially when you made a rather disparaging remark about my mother being one of those moms 'who let their children read anything they want' like it was a crime.

4. I remember the very first book I checked out at the library. It was a biography of Louisa May Alcott. It was one of a series of biographies that were illustrated with silouettes, which I thought was cool. My favourite was the story of Sam Houston, for reasons I prefer not to discuss lest it offend some of my LJ friends. I also adored the HUGE D'aulaires Book of Greek Myths, which I eventually bought myself in the 80's and still own to this day. I also fell in love with Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott O'Dell. The idea that Karana lived on the island alone for so long, and not only survived but made a life for herself was incredibly haunting to me. I think one of the reasons my eyesight is so crap was because I would wake up early on Saturdays and Sundays and read in bed in the semi-darkness (for some reason turning on fhe light was verboten).

Like Delphi, I loved Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, although a book like that would not be published in this day and age, I'm sure. My most vivid memory of the book is the little girl who didn't want to take baths, and her parents sneaking into her room in the middle of the night to plant radishes on her arms.

I don't remember the first book I bought, but I do remember buying the book version of Young Frankenstein, because I loved it so. My parents weren't too snobbish about what I read, as long as I was readng. I read Mad Magazine, comic books by the truckload (oh, if I'd only kept them! Some of them would be worth a fortune!), True Confessions (I snuck reading them at the 'Beauty Parlour' when mom got her weekly hair 'done'. I only remember one person ever actually fussing at me for reading them, but it wasn't mother. They were a bit of an education, I'll tell ya.

I also read mom's cast off Harlequin romances, dad's Playboy, and everything in between, including a smut book I found one day in my mother's dresser. I'm not sure she knew about that one.

Comments

[hbart.livejournal.com]

This was really interesting to read, especially a certain part that has me grinning from ear to ear.

When I was in the third grade, we went to the school library every week to check out books, and while I checked out multiple books each time, there was one that I just kept rechecking over and over. The stories were fascinating to me, and something about the illustrations were mesmerizing. Finally after a couple of months, the librarian told me that it wasn't fair to the other kids that I monopolize this book, and I was forbidden to check it out any more. Being a rule follower, I turned it back in. And week after week, it sat there on the shelf begging to be loved, but no one was interested. I was too timid to point this out to the librarian, so I never read it again.

Years later, I was telling my husband about this. I couldn't remember the name of the book, but it was enormous (in my memory, anyway) and the cover was orangey-yellow with a chariot and white horses. We couldn't find it anywhere (this was pre Internet). Until one day a Barnes and Noble opened here, and to my delight, D'Aularies Book of Greek Myths was on their shelves. And now it is on mine. Thanks for the memory. I may just have to run downstairs and grab it ... *contented sigh*

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

That is wonderful! Yes, the one in my library was HUGE, and weighed a ton. I just loved how easy it was to read, and yet still so lyrical in the way it told the stories. And the illustrations are somehow perfect. I've never enjoyed reading about the Greek gods in any other book - this is my one true reference, and it's here in the Steampunk Library with me! ♥

[lenaa1987.livejournal.com]

This Mike? I'm just now starting to read these to my son. I grew up with them too - couldn't remember anything about them but I saw the cover in a garage sale and knew that nose and red hair!

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm quite a bit older, and the Mike I read about had that real 'See Jane Run' illustrative look to it. These look quite fun, but probably about 30 years later than mine! These were the ones I read. It was Mike, Mary, Jeff, and Billy the Goat. I remember the Goat! LOL

[lenaa1987.livejournal.com]

Bwahahaha it's a memorable goat! I'll have to see if they're around here, always on the hunt for new ones. The other Mike ones are from the 80s I believe.

[lemonade8.livejournal.com]

LOL " Fuck you, Mrs. Harper" Indeed, she sounds emotionally and intellectually constipated. Island of the Blue Dolphins sounds familiar- I had to buy it for class. It was good, and a little devastating.

I had the opposite sort of librarian. My librarian was like "Well, if you think you can read it, you can." I thought that was a pretty good way to go about things, so that's how I lived my childhood in that teeny town. I did stuff or asked to do stuff that I thought I could do.

When I was about 8 or 9 I got permission to go down to the Jerry Lewis Telethon (it was sort of cool, all homemade rides and such). I got to climb into a tethered hot air balloon, got to sit in a helicopter while it was running, (I didn't have any money in order to get real rides in those things, but the people didn't seem to mind if I sampled it for a few minutes), ended up in the local newscast and volunteered to help run some games so the adults could take small breaks. My mother would have shit a brick if she had known the shenanigans that I got up to. But hey- I read Les Miserables and I understood it when some of the high school kids didn't. I could do stuff, you know? What was going to stop me if my mom wasn't there to say no?

I too don't remember others reading to me. I remember SEEING them read constantly. My grandma had a stack of Harlequin romances about as high as I was, so when I got tired of reading my stuff over and over, I just grabbed her novels and got to it. My first novel that I liked insanely was "It Looks Alive to Me" (the book 'Night at the Museum' was based on). My favorite books in high school were a SELECT group of Steven King novels. (The Shining, Different Seasons) The first series that I remember buying by myself was Piers Anthony's "Incarnations of Immortality" books. I think I'm not currently fond of his writing style, but I still really love the concept and the world he built. Oh- I almost forgot about "Flowers in the Attic". My cousin and I were really into those incest-promoting books in high school. I would have cut off my left arm before having sex with one of my brothers, but apparently it was okay for this to happen in a book. I also remember being in Journalism class and discussing the newest book in that series up to where both I and another girl had read up to (I was a little further ahead, I didn't want to give her spoilers, so we discussed up to where she had read). The guy across the table heard us and tried to make fun of it by saying "Those books are awful, I read, like, four of them!" and I just looked at him and said "If they were so awful, why did you read FOUR of them??" After everyone laughed at him, he shut the hell up. You don't mock books around me if you don't want confrontation, lol.

My alltime favorite series before Harry Potter was "The Belgariad" by David Eddings. I had to wait for the damn books to come out and there was no internet to help me through it. You whippersnappers had it easy. I had to walk to Books and Company uphill- both ways- in the snow- every week, just to see if the next book was coming out. I still love that series and hooked my son into it.

The only true porn book I ever read was at a house where I was Nannying three little boys. It was flat-out porn, no softcore anywhere to be seen. I thought it was a little boring. I still told them I read it. :D Hey, it was a book, right? If I think I can read it, I can. "Hope you don't mind, I read this book..."

Thanks for the fun post. I liked reading what you had to say.

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

I had forgot about the Flowers In The Attic series, but yes, I enjoyed it as well. It was another one where I felt it went off the rails at the end, but I did find the first three really gripping.

I am not familiar with the Belgariad series, but I will look it up!

Thank you for sharing your experiences with me - I love posts like this that spark such awesome discussions.

[smallbrownfrog.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I couldn't find you a cheap copy, but this looks like what you are looking for:

abebooks:  http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=castro&sts=t&tn=Satan+was+my+pimp 

eBay past listing:  http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SATAN-WAS-MY-PIMP-Joe-Castro-SLEAZE-GGA-Robert-Bonfils-/380861159793 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tribe/3987805568  

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

That's the one! You would know I'm after the most expensive bit of trash in the universe! :)

A Song of Ice And Fire

[helgeke.livejournal.com]

I have been on ASOIAF wave for some time now, so your comment about liking it made me curious. Any fanfiction in plans? Any favourite characters? :)

Re: A Song of Ice And Fire

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

ASOIAF is one of those love/hate relationships with me! There are things about his world building that are genius and quite clever, but his writing style does my head in. He's created this amazing universe, but boy, I wish he was a better writer.

I think as far as favourite characters, there are the usual suspects, Arya, Tyrion, Varys. I also like Sir Davos Seaworth. I think we all love Jon Snow for being the archetypal dark, brooding hero.

I don't really have any desire to write fanfiction for it; in fact, with the exception of Highlander many, many years ago, I've never written fanfiction about any fandom but HP.

Re: A Song of Ice And Fire

[helgeke.livejournal.com]

I understand the love-hate these books can simultaneously create. :D Sometimes I feel he is trying to force thee vivid characters and this huge intricate world into a story the characters don't want to be in.

Anyway, I was hoping for some great fanfiction but will be then waiting for your original work. :)