Jump to content

The First Book You Ever Read?


Lord of the Night

Recommended Posts

Title is self-explanatory. What was the very first book you ever read? Is it still important to you? What about it convinced you to read on with other books? And what do you love about it? (Also show the cover for it if you want to.)

I remember my first novel very well. It was two or three years ago, not counting this year, when I was in Games Workshop looking at the latest Chaos Space Marines and I spied the novel section. One novel that I had read a bit about took my eye, Fulgrim by Graham McNeill. It was the 5th book in the Horus Heresy series and as we were leaving I mentioned that I was interested in it, so my mam went back in and got it for me. I read a few chapters in the car ride home and was interested quickly, the characters were fascinating and the story was brilliant. Throughout the novel there was an ongoing question, is perfection attainable? The novel made great cases that perfection is indeed something that can be attained, and that perfection dehumanizes life and that it is the flaws that make something beautiful, eloquently shown through the Primarch Fulgrim's sculptures that lack something, despite being perfect in every detail.

http://www.blacklibr...rge/Fulgrim.jpg

One of my favourite scenes, and one i'll never forget, is when the 2nd Captain Solomon Demeter comes across his fellow loyalist Lucius fighting against a group of traitors in the Precentor Palace and helps him kill them, only to realise afterwards to his horror that they too were loyalists and that Lucius has turned traitor. He is fatally wounded before he can kill Lucius and Lucius mockingly informs him that the loyalists are doomed before escaping, and Solomon in his final moments sheds a tear and reaches for the sky.

Though I think the best scene is when the Primarchs Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus duel. Throughout the novel the Daemon that has taken root in Fulgrim's mind has been poisoning him against his closest brother Ferrus, and when Fulgrim finally wins and decapitates Ferrus he realises the truth of it all and is horrified by what he has done. The Daemon then reveals its lies, without revealing it was the one who lied, and offers Fulgrim an escape, to hide in the corner's of its mind. Fulgrim accepts, and one moment later realises the true depths of the mistake he has just made. He is trapped within a painting of himself that has been touched by Chaos, in the darkness, unable to do anything but watch as the Daemon leads his beloved Legion against his brothers and his Emperor and further into the depths of depravity that is Slaanesh worship.

The final line of the novel still makes me shiver when I imagine it. "The daemon turned from the portrait and made its way from the theatre as the last of the footlights guttered and died, leaving the last phoenix forever shrouded in darkness." One of the darkest and most tragic things i've ever read.

A brilliant novel that will always be dear to me. Without Fulgrim I would never have discovered The Dresden Files, Sword of Truth, A Song of Ice and Fire, Honor Harrington, Sherlock Holmes, Vampire Hunter D and all the other books, comics and manga that I now read.

So what are the first books you ever read? And as I have put above, why do you love them? And what about them convinced you to take up reading?

LotN

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been reading continuously since I was three, so I really can't remember. The real influences that made me a voracious reader in my early days would have been Koziolek Matolek (Silly Billy), a sort-of-comic, Pan Kleks, a work of demented genius for kids, the Moomin books, the Bullerbyn kids, and the works of Karol Maj, which means I share that with Hitler. :eek: All in Polish.

My first English book would have been Duncan Dragon though. And then the Biffer and Chip or whatever they were called. Novel wise, I'm not really sure. Most of my really early influences are Polish. Narnia and the Hobbit are probably the only major ones that I still remember from before I really got into English fantasy and SF at about age 9/10 (at which point I was stealing my mum's David Eddings and Arthur C Clarke and Asimov and nabbing Feist off other people), followed by LotR at 11 (but I didn't really 'get' it till I reread it at 14).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I read tons of little-kid books growing up. I don't remember when I started like Sideways Tales from Westside or Goosebumps or Animorphs, etc. It might have been before the 3rd grade, but in the 3rd grade is when I got Harry Potter #1 for my birthday, and it's still a vivid memory, because I remember crying my eyes out that I got a god damn book for my birthday. Anyway, it was after Harry Potter #1 that I realized books could be fun, and started reading everything I could. But, I still might have read Goosebumps/Animorphs before the 3rd grade, don't recall. I definitely read smaller kiddie books before that point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember that the moment I realised I could read entire sentences (presumably sometime in 1st grade), I picked up some little kids book (one of those with a picture and a single sentence on every page) and read through it. I think it was about a woman who was a plumber, and I remember thinking that reading it by myself went way quicker because adults reading it to me always made me look at the pictures much longer than I deemed necessary.

I quickly moved on to stuff with no pictures whatsoever.:P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had to switch languages in the 3rd grade, and while I was learning English and going through the picture books again, I read everything I could still get my hands on in hebrew. Adult book, magazines, horror that left me terrified for years afterwards, college text books, etc. Very frustrating experience.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Absolutely no idea what the first book I read was. It would have been when I was around three. Can't remember the first novel i read but it was likely one of the Famous Five or Secret Seven books by Enid Blyton and I would have read it aged four or five.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The first books that I read would have been things like Dr Seuss or The Very Hungry Caterpillar I guess, but I remember falling in love with Narnia and eventually Harry Potter, so I guess those might be the first. I read Animal Farm when I was quite young too, far too young to actually understand it, so maybe that would count!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First book: something about a clockmaker - my mother realised I could read when she found me going over a kiddie's library book she'd been reading to me. I was two and a half, and I don't remember it.

First book I remember reading: one of those books full of interesting facts for children. I remember sitting on my bedroom carpet with it, and reading the Interesting fact that the youngest person to have a book published was four and a half. I was three and a half at the time, so I decided to write a book to beat the record. (I didn't.)

First adult book read: assuming The Hobbit and Watership Down are filed under YA, LOTR would be the first. I was six.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good Grief, Lord of the Night, how old are you? You actually NEVER read a novel until about three years ago? Didn't you ever have to read a novel in school? What's the world coming to if we don't have kids required to read books in English class (or the class in whatever their native language was in their country) way before high school?

I'm 60 years old and certainly don't remember what the first novel I ever read was. I know I learned to read in school initially with the "Dick and Jane" books, but certainly my parents read children's picture books with me even before I started school.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't know the first book, but the first series I had as must read were the Great Brain books by Fitzgerald. I ate them up around fourth grade, and now that they are out of print, I check our used book stores for them to give to my son in a few years(Have three of them now).

First adult novel I read was Jurrastic Park, sixth grade. Everyone was going dino crazy, including me, and my grandma bought this one for me when I went shopping with her at the mall(remember book stores in the mall?) Of course some of it went over my head at the time, but the book was an easy enough read even at that age. I am sure I read it five times strait through.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I read the Narnia books at a pretty early age. The first book I remember loving was 'A Wrinkle in Time'. I don't remember anything about it now though, I've actually been considering re-reading it.

edit-

SkynJay - I had to read Jurassic Park in an English class in 7th or 8th grade. I remember thinking that it was awesome that we got to read something so cool as an assignement. Probably one of my first grown up novels as well, though I know I read the above books slightly earlier.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First book on my own was something about a trip to the farm, basically a one sentence per page first grade book.

At that point, I knew I was on to something.

First novel? Hmm, possibly an enid blyton book, or one by Neal Barret Jr. By grade three I was reading fairly advanced material, AND stuff like Dr Seuss.

Omg - the Great Brain books were so much fun. Mind you, confusing gentile, for genital, made some parts odd, and I then just assumed Mormons were some funky brand of Jew.

Well, they lived in a friggin desert, right?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good Grief, Lord of the Night, how old are you? You actually NEVER read a novel until about three years ago?

Heh, heh, that was exactly what I was wondering too.

I don't remember my first book or when I started to read. It could probably have been one of the "Village with Three Corners" series when I was circa five years old. The Village was one of those series where the books become correspondingly more complex as they progress so book number one presumably was about Billy Blue Hat and would have had sentences like: This is Billy. He has a blue hat. etc. I was certainly comfortable with short childrens novels, the kind of things up to about 150 pages, by the age of eight, probably would have been Henry Treece or Rosemary Sutcliff, again adult novels I don't know, must have read LOTR at nine/ten. So a slow learner compared to Elosia, the shining light of youth literacy!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It could probably have been one of the "Village with Three Corners" series when I was circa five years old.

:thumbsup:

Probably not my first ever, cos they were school books and my parents definitely introduced me to eg. Meg and Mog beforehand, but they were definitely a prominent feature of my early reading. A few years ago I tried to collect some of them off eBay and they are fun stuff, some sneaky class-consciousness (how we hated the middle-class Mrs Bluehat!) and a bunch of very decent fairy tales in the later books in the series. Quality!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't remember the class consciousness (so a case of unconsciousness in class?), just how Jennifer Yellow Hat with her straw boater was young loves true dream :love: . Roger Red Hat was probably your ragamuffin lumpenproletariat type though. I can definitely see that.

Remember The Stepping Stones which lead to The Island where The Robbers stashed their gold and other loot though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not remotely. Roger Redhat was a product of the decadent rich, he was a young fratboy trustafarian in the making. The Bluehats were the staid and uptight middle-class, and the Yellow-hats lived in a tiny rustic cottage and were poor, cheerful and hard-working, the heroes of their every story.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My mom got me hooked on book as soon as I could read, so there's no way I can remember the first one I read myself. Might have been a Disney animated movie tie-in book. I remember having a couple of those. I read a lot of books about girls and their ponies, Enid Blyton, science books (there's a German book series called Was ist Was, which explained everything a kid could know about a certain topic in each volume. I had tons of those). Got started on sci-fi/fantasy/horror in my early teens when I pinched my mom's Ayla books (which were quite a revelation in er...some regards), a trilogy by Nora Roberts about 3 witches on a small island in New England, and Stephen King novels. I got Lord of the Rings when I was 12, I think, as my first "proper" fantasy novel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Arrghhh! Betrayal! He was a wolf wearing the red cap of liberty to deceive my trusting youthful heart! Didn't the Yellow Hats live with their grandparents?

My non-school reading at that stage would probably have included Harry the Dirty Dog, The Tiger Who Came to Tea & Mog the Forgetful Cat.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...