Books & Authors : Always Remember Your First.

The Golden Name Day by Jennie D Lindquist was the first chapter book I read on my own in first grade.  So I remember that one.

Before that mom read me Nancy Drew mysteries and Louisa May Alcott books. 

The first "book" I read was Donkey Kong Country (I'm serious). What got me into writing were the Sherlock Holmes books. They blew my mind.

The Hound of the Baskervilles in grade 3. Then Stephen King. 

Oh Jonny... Cute.
I don't remember a time when I didn't read books, but the very first ones that I would read over and over were the Roald Dahl books, and then the Edgar Allan Poe collection my elementary school library had pretty much lived at my house from grade three to six. A little obsessed, I was.

I don't think there was a book that made me start writing. I got good feedback when I did it a few times and then did it more.

I was obsessed with Fight Club but now realise I've moved on from it.

Jane Eyre.  I started reading it the summer before i started sixth grade.  When Jane left Mr Rochester after finding the banshee in the attic i got so pissed at her for abandoning him that i stopped reading the book and didn't pick it up until a couple of months later.  But that was the one book i remember most that really got my 12 year old brain forever in awe of how powerful a book could be and the extent of emotional life that could be contained in a book that was more visceral and real than any interaction had proved to be. 

I read some Goosebumps, but I was very into the Fear Street books that Stine wrote.  I read a lot of those in 5th and 6th grade. 

Then oddly I started to read a lot of John Grisham books. 

I loved Frog and Toad! The best one was the super scary ghost story one, that used to keep me up all night.

I like Frog and Toad Togetehr, the story where they eat cookies.

As far as book series when i was a kid: Beverly Cleary's Ramona, LM Montgomery's Anne, Madeline L Engle's Meg and Laura Ingalls Wilder's Laura

I remember enjoying the hell out of Lorna Doone.

Roald Dahl, like a gentleman.

Invisible Monsters - Chuck Palahniuk

@razorsharp, @wickedvoodoo, @brandon--All YES to da Dahl. BFG, especially. When I was seventeen (seperate story, not the first time I read it!) I was a Junior Counselor at my sleepaway camp, and every night before my campers (7-9 yr. olds) went to sleep, I read them a chapter from The BFG. It was awesome. And I remember after I read it (2nd or 3rd grade?) I had a spell of talking exactly like the Big Friendly Giant, much to my mother's chagrin.

@Rachel: I got obsessed with Anne around 4th grade (which later morphed into an obsession with Emily of New Moon--also by Montgomery, and I like those a lot better). I used to pray at night that'd I'd wake up with red hair. Not kidding.

I also devoured Ramona (and The Mouse and the Motorcycle, and Henry and WhateverTheDog'sNameWas, and all of cleary, basically) around 1st grade. Do you still remember "The Donserley Light?" I do.

As for my first book...gah, I've wanted to be an author ever since I can remember..but maybe The Chronicles of Narnia, which I read in first grade. All of my subsequent writing attempts until about 4th grade or so were pretty much shameless imitations (for those threads asking who you imitate when you're writing, in elementary school, it was C.S. Lewis). Still some of the best books of all time.

See my profile for another childhood favorite that is STILL my all-time favorite (and I'm not ashamed!!)..

Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and polish The Witcher. It's weird because nowadays I'm not much into typical fantasy

It started with Goosebumps and the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series. This sparked a series of attempts at crudely written stories and long afternoons at the kitchen table deciding what monster or ghost to put in my next one page masterpiece.

In 9th grade, our english teacher had us read Slaughterhouse-Five, and I was so blown away that novels like that existed that I began taking writing more seriously.

I, like many other children of the 90s, began my reading adventure with the Goosebumps series (I've still got the whole lot of them in my mom's garage). In middle school, my friend let me borrow a copy of The Transition of H.P. Lovecraft: The Road to Madness, the imagery on the cover is what primarily compelled me to read it. Something that disturbing looking had to have some bad ass stuff in it.

Probably Goosebumps as well. However, Catcher in The Rye, and all Salingers work were my first serious read.

Fun Fact: Final Fantasy VII taught me how to read at a college level in like 4th grade.

I read for a long time before thinking about being a writer.  A lot of comic books made me want to write comic books (Spiderman and Batman).  But off the top of my head, I think it was Stephen King's "Dark Half" that made me think being a writer might be good.

Of course, that's the story of a pseudonym's psychotic character coming to life and going on a murder spree and trying to kill the writer... so I don't know why that made me want to write.  It was probably the psychopomps.  Man, I loved those.

Cut my teeth on Stephen King--The Stand, The Green Mile, and such--but it was Palahniuk's Fight Club that turned my literary world upside down and changed everything about my reading.

You know, I don't remember. I wrote a lot from a young age. My mom kept some of my journals from when I was 8 years old where I had an ongoing series I was writing. I think when my imagination really blew up, and I thought "I wanna write FOR A LIVING" was when I got into Tarantino movies. I even toyed with the idea of film school. Novel-wise, I was reading Stephen King at a really young age (I think maybe my mom got called into a parent/teaher conference about this when I was eight or nine, too)...so I guess I would credit Stephen King and Tarantino. Which is sort of funny, because I don't write horror or crime stories.

It might sounds weird but the first novel that sparked my passion FOR READING MORE was John Dies at the End by David Wong. It's a really recent book. You might know him as Senior Editor at this comedy site called Cracked.com. 

Previous to this book, I was all about watching films and reading articles on the Internet-- although I read short stories and novels in college as part of literature classes, I wasn't enjoying them for their sake (except for some of the controversial ones like Lolita)

The first book I read in English were H.G.Wells's The Invisible Man and the War of the Worlds. I remember diligently downloading them from the Gutenberg project site. 

I know. I'm a late generation reader.

@Dwayne, I have White Fang going on on my mobile. Really regret passing it when I was a kid.

The Silmarillion. It was one of the first novels I read in English (it took me weeks), and it was my introduction to "adult" fantasy.

I wouldn't say my first novel, but I would say my first short story collection. My first books were HP Lovecraft anthologies and Years Best Science Fiction. I gradually moved on to Burning Chrome by William Gibson. I eventually read 1984, and then Neuromancer.

I've found it hard to really get into fantasy, though I wouldn't say I don't like it. I'm not quite sure why that would be though.

All this to say, I'm more experienced reading short fiction.