What book turned you into a reader?

[Krazy Kat]

already collecting Overlord series by Kugane Maruyama

 

[Big Finger Jim]

I can't read but Part 8 ain't get animated for at least 15 years.

 

[Aisf]

I used to own this book but I don't own it anymore.

 

[SolemnlyDoc]

The first book I ever willingly read was the Harry Potter series, I was in grade school and would go to the midnight movie premiers whenever they came out.

The book that turned me into a reader was the Percy Jackson series, I was still young and it was my first introduction into a world of books, from the PJO series to the Kane Chronicles, all interconnected.

My favorite book is one I didn't find until adulthood, If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio. Second place is a tie between Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and The Odyssey by Homer.

 

[Deleted member 288390]

Really enjoy the Nevermoor / Morrigan Crow books a lot, got my fingers crossed that Silverborn doesn't get delayed again for a fourth? Fifth? Time in a row. Recently also read Bram Stoker's Jewel of the Seven Stars. The 1903 version is pretty good. The 1912 version sucks.

 

[Yousef Yousef]

May come off as a boring pick, but Romance of the Three Kingdoms!
My other favorites are all non-fiction, however. So im not sure if they’re eligible for the thread.

 

[Deleted member 288390]

Eric, by Terry Pratchett. My parents had a bunch of Discworld books, I picked the smallest one to give them a shot. Got hooked, read every other Discworld book we had, been a reader ever since then. Shame the series went downhill sharply towards the end, but I guess that couldn't be helped given ... y'know.

 

[Konatalzumi]

When I was in elementary school, my teacher handed us copies of Der kleine Vampir in Gefahr by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg.

It was supposed to be a month-long project designed to get us used to the idea of reading foreign literature through a fairly easy entry point... but the fact was that I just couldn't put that book down as soon as I got my copy. I'd re-read it week after week during the duration of the project, and I even surprised my parents by asking for more books on the series as Christmas and birthday gifts that very year. Suffices to say, I was hooked.

What about you? Which book held the magic for you?

Probably has to be either diary of a wimpy kid or the walking dead. I had wanted to read the walking dead comics since elementary school which was around 2011-2013 because I saw PewDiePie play the telltale TWD game that's based on the comic and mention the comics and I bought the compendiums in early 2022

 

[Adrastia]

When I was 11 I borrowed two Stephen King books from a friend. Cujo and Night Shift. I was probably too young to read those. But my friend was younger than me and she was reading them. After that I just wanted books all the time. Mostly horror.

Before that I read whatever I could find. I borrowed a copy of Dinosaur Tales by Ray Bradbury from my uncle. It had really great art. My siblings destroyed it though. I had trouble with the school library because the librarian kept putting my chosen books back and giving me kiddie books I was bored with. So I just turned to the city library.

One of the school library books I managed to take out without trouble back when I was about 8 or 9 was Cry Of The Heart by Mary Patchett. It's about a cat. It looks like Patchett was very popular in Australia but I really haven't seen her books here. I assume the book was donated as it was very old. My memory matches the version printed in the 50s.

 

[DaxterDotEXE]

Vurt by Jeff Noon

 

[DaxterDotEXE]

Anything by Jeff Noon, but his Vurt trilogy is Zenith Fiction tbh:
Vurt, Pollen, Nymphomation

Also:
The Fifth Head of Cerberus, by Gene Wolfe.
Daemon, by Daniel Suarez.
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World, by Haruki Murakami.
Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits, by David Wong.
Sam Dunn is Dead, by Bruno Corra.
Ack-Ack Macaque, by Gareth Powell.
Welcome to the NHK, by Tatsuhiko Takimoto.

Currently reading The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway

 

[trickybus]

Post books that you own that you really like.

Unfortunately, I lost all of my physical books during a low point in my life. I'd still like to contribute to this thread if that's alright.

I read this right out of high school and I remember it still because while the premise relies on the amnesia trope to give the protagonist a reason to travel, the payoff is interesting and quite unique. The only other book I've read that has done something similar is Ella Enchanted, another fantasy book I adore.

The main character is as the title describes: a mute, horribly disfigured boy who was found wandering aimlessly by an elderly scullery maid. He remains with her in the castle that she lives and works in, trapped in an abusive environment where he's subjected to royal cruelty and habitual abuse regarding his appearance. His caretaker is the source of his self-loathing as she berates him anytime he removes the hooded robes she makes him wear. The abuse affects him so much he refuses to look at his own body as he bathes.

As depressing as the opening chapters are, the rest of the book has a far more hopeful tone. The narrative mostly focuses on the boy's recovery from his trauma: regaining his sense of self-worth, undoing the self-hatred that was beaten into him, and learning to become a person that isn't defined by his physical scars or his disability. It touches upon difficult topics in a surprisingly mature way, my favorite being the way it portrays grappling with the complicated emotions that come with experiencing abuse at the hands of a parental figure. The emotional journey accompanies a literal one: the boy eventually leaves the castle, makes new friends, and gets into all sort of high fantasy hi-jinks as he searches for his lost memories.

The book is part of a trilogy but I can't recommend the other two. They introduce a love story that is painfully dull and the mute boy's characterization takes a nosedive in quality. Ill-made Mute is best experienced as a standalone novel.

 

[Yousef Yousef]

This and author thread are stickied. That’s it for today.

 

[leoflannel]

I had a giant collection of Geronimo Stilton books when I was like 10
...And for some reason I gave them all away. But thankfully, I got some of them back!

 

[pipolaplaya]

It's not the first book I've enjoyed, but I clearly remember that reading Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express was a turning point for me.
The cover was extremely simple, with the black title on a yellow background and the logo of the “Le Masque” collection. This made the whole thing very mysterious and left plenty of room for the imagination.

 

[Stingy Perry Stingy Perry]

Alexander Dumas’ The Count of MonteCristo.
I used this as a reference for a book report back in HS. At first I was look for a classic that has been turned into a movie. At first there’s the obvious ones The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask but those were already taken. And when I red the I was in awe it was a hundred times better than the movie adaptation.

 

[pipolaplaya]

Alexander Dumas’ The Count of MonteCristo.
I used this as a reference for a book report back in HS. At first I was look for a classic that has been turned into a movie. At first there’s the obvious ones The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask but those were already taken. And when I red the I was in awe it was a hundred times better than the movie adaptation.

It's courageous because this one is a whopper

 

[Jimbo_McDumbo]

For me (recently) it was A People's History of the Vampire Uprising. Its World War Z, but with vampires instead. There's an interesting section in the book where vampires try to use the ADA act to sue their employers for firing them, since they can only work at night or need heavy modification to the buildings. And it works because the author actually has a law degree, so he really goes in depth

 

[Deleted member 179251]

As a child the Dead Famous Series used to be my favorite one.

They were like the first proper books I read, and they were very fun in telling lives of real life historical figures in a funny manner.
There was also a pocket book edition of the famous fairy tale "The Bremen Town Musicians" that I read when I was eight, and I absolutely loved it as well. I guess I would credit these two into making me a reader.

 

[Deleted member 179251]

My Top 5 are very generic choices, but eh, will share them anyway:
1) To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

- This one always makes me cry for some reason.

2) Kafka On The Shore By Haruki Murakami

- I mean, in my humble opinion, this is Murakami's finest and most intelligent work to date. It is the type of book where you learn or notice something new with every read that you might've missed the first time around.

3) Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostyovesky

- The plot still stays with me (i read it in winter of 2021; and I would wake up early in morning at 5AM just to read this. lol)

4) Salem's Lot by Stephen King

- My favorite King, and also my favorite Vampire novel (and yes, I have read dracula, lol)

5) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

- I actually read this one to write a college entry thesis into a foreign university. Never got into the university because of the events that happened in 2020, but still, the plot stays with me till this day, and Shelley managed to give me great existential crisis by the end.

 

[Fray Guillermo]

There's more, but here's my top three off the top of my head. Not sharing covers or pics because I'm at work right now

• Los Santos Inocentes (The Holy Innocents), by Miguel Delibes
• Cien Años de Soledad (A Hundred Years of Solitude), by Gabriel García Márquez
• The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco

 

[Deleted member 257420]

Diary of a farting creeper.

 

[Deleted member 322096]

Probably biased because I'm still reading it but Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. It's pretty hard and time consuming but god damn what an amazing book it is. Super recommended if you want to start programming. 10/10
Fiction books honestly idk, there are a lot of light novel series I really love so it's hard to say.

 

[Strategist Strategist]

Probably biased because I'm still reading it but Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. It's pretty hard and time consuming but god damn what an amazing book it is. Super recommended if you want to start programming. 10/10
Fiction books honestly idk, there are a lot of light novel series I really love so it's hard to say.

Interesting, I was a computer science student back in the day. I'm curious, what's so good about that book?

 

[Deleted member 322096]

Interesting, I was a computer science student back in the day. I'm curious, what's so good about that book?

Nice! I love how well it explains the CS fundamentals. It focuses very much into making you actually understand the underlying concepts behind things rather than just teaching you a language. It also uses Scheme, a LISP dialect to explain stuff, which makes life way easier rather than starting with other languages because the syntax is easy af so you don't have to waste time learning language-specific syntax stuff, which could be confusing as a first programming language. The book also guides you through building a lot of stuff, with a simple language like Scheme. Overall I really just love the book's style of explaining things. It's the textbook MIT used for their introductory courses from 1984 to 2007. It's a CS fundamentals book but it really covers all aspects of programming. It's often regarded as one of the best books in programming.