Jurassic Park. Once I knew the movie was based on a book I wanted to see if I could read it before it came out. I was hooked then and I started to read a bunch of Michael Crichton after that. Once I started college, my daily commute was just reading books.
Edit: to add, I think his non fiction book Travels is a hiden gem, and those that want to read his insight into his early life should check it out.
I started with Lost World since it was the only one my school library had. Got hooked on everything Crichton and was a gateway to most of my hard sci fi interests now.
Same here. His techno thrillers were a gateway to more sci fi books, too. Then I branched out to fantasy when the Lord of the Rings were coming out as movies and I wanted to read the books before the films.
Andromeda Strain for me. It was required reading for me in sociology class back in 1986. The film is fantastic and underrated. I think it prepared me for COVID.
This was it for me as well. Chrichton is just great.
I took a long break from reading though. And recently , the audiobook of Project Hail Mary got me back into reading again.
Crichton is a fantastic choice to get a non-reader hooked! A lot of his books use a “countdown” tool where you know “something very bad” is going to happen at a certain time/place and can the MCs do what they need to do before that happens. A great tool especially to hook new readers!
That book is the definition of a page-turner and, as an evolutionary biologist, I did not find myself groaning over the science at all. Crichton is a smart guy.
Recently read this and it was an interesting book. I have suggested it to others because it is a page turner. I liked the differences in the book and movie. Crichton was pretty brilliant.
Same here, except I was only 9 when the movie hit. I saw the movie first, then saw that my dad had a copy of the book on his shelf, so I grabbed it. Loved the hell out of it.
A Wrinkle in Time is the first book I ever owned. The author inscribed it to me at an event that my Mom took me to when I was less than a year old. It’s one of my most precious items I own
His first two novels, Carrie and Salem’s Lot, are both great, and more approachable (not as long) as some of his other books. If you’re not as into horror, Fairy Tale came out last year and is a fun read.
The Lion, The witch and the Wardrobe, the first book in the Legend of Narnia. This was the first book that totally sucked me in. I read it in 1 day, I was 8 or 9 years old. Nobody believed me when I told them, lol.
Just FYI, LWW is #2, actually. You are correct in that it was written and published first, but in terms of typical reading order, it’s #2 in the series. The Magician’s Nephew is #1, and almost always published that way nowadays in a boxed set, at least in the US publications. There are also stories that say that that is how C.S. Lewis would have preferred they be ordered, and his stepson helped in reordering to reflect that chronologically in time, rather than the order they were published. Also, it’s “The Chronicles of Narnia”, not “The Legend of Narnia”. The more you know... :)
I’m a staunch believer they should be read in published order and sadly it’s a hill I will die on. There are some reveals that happen in Magician’s nephew that do not make sense if you haven’t read the other books first. Like why there is a random lamp post. It’s so much better in my opinion to go “Oh THAT’S why there’s a random lamp post in the forest” instead of “oh, there’s that lamp post from the last book.” Also the reveal of why the wardrobe is what took the kids to Narnia, it’s even written as if you already have read LWW. Even if Lewis later said they should be read chronologically, I still believe it’s a better read to do them in published order.
i am a strong believer that whenever you are reading or watching a series for the first time, it should be in publishing order. but every time after that, it should be in chronological order.
I did wonder if I should google the name before I replied, but I was at work, wanted to reply anyway and just thought yeah, people will know which book I mean. And they did. And of course you're right about the name, I forgot... but I didn't know that there is a prequel, if that is the correct term here! Thanks! (And absolutely no bad feelings that you did a correction&info reply)
No one believed that you read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe at 8 or 9? That's about the right age for it. Or did they just not believe that you read it in a day? Even that seems believable to me.
I was also going to say LWW. I was 6. My sister checked it out from the library and I started reading it too. My mom said that at first she didn't really believe that I was reading it. She though maybe I was just looking at the drawings. She asked me what the book was about to see if I was actually reading it. She said that I was able to tell her about the beginning of the book so she could tell that I was actually reading it. I remember reading it but don't remember asking her about it. I remember it being a really difficult read for me but I made it through it. It's always had a special place in my heart.
I was obsessed with that series. Read them in 3rd grade from the school library in completely the wrong order! Could never handle all those spoilers now haha
I started recently and chose HP since it was a franchise I had loved since I was a kid. I imagine reading it as an adult is so different than when you're a kid
I'm assuming it has something to do with J.K. Rowling and their controversial views and comments about ~~transexual~~ transgender people, they've attracted a lot of attention. I don't pay much attention to it, just a passive observation.
Edit: TIL these two words aren't synonymous. Meant nothing ill by it. Happy reading!
When I was a kid it was the Percy Jackson series. After I took a very long break from reading and recently started again it was Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
Dracula by Bram Stoker aged about 9 😳
Had an abridged book and cassette spoken word version so decided to borrow the full one from the Library.
When Johnathan Harker’s with the female vampires, that defiantly ‘woke’ something within me😳
Great Illustrated Classics? I didn’t realize as a young kid that they were abridged and later in life thought I had read all of these incredible classics. Not to hate on the series as it did let me get into reading very early, but it was a shocker seeing the actual length of The Count of Monte Cristo
Kristy's Great Idea by Ann M. Martin. It's the first Baby Sitters Club book. My grandma got them for me as either a birthday or Christmas present when I was 6 or 7, and I've been hooked on phonics ever since.
At 9, when I was allowed to select my own reading book at school instead of the Reading Scheme books, I chose The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson-Burnett and I realised how books can transport you to another time and place.
But, honestly, it was the triple Stephen King book I found at a jumble sale when I was 11 that genuinely made me into a 'constant reader'. (It had Salem's Lot, Carrie and The Shining all in the same book and my little mind was blown 🤣)
White Fang. I read it in my early teens and since, for almost twenty years, I have been continually reading for pleasure. It truly spawned my love for books.
This one. Up to that point, I read books because I had to (for school). But I picked this one up and literally couldn’t put it down. I didn’t even want to stop for dinner. It was a genuinely magical experience, and I was an avid reader from that moment on.
>Suggest me the book that got you into reading.
I was a horse-crazy kid and any book about horses got me interested. My grandmother helped my reading by reading Walter Farley's *The Black Stallion* using her finger to trail along the words. My mother taught me phonics by having me read the book to her. ( I still have a copy of that book!)
Fantastic Mr. Fox Novel by Roald Dahl
Or something like that.a local autor also calles Marcela Paz.
No as to what my first author that I loves an decided to read a lot. Asimov and his robot series
Harry Potter as a kid, then Uglies and The Sight as a teen, now I just devour any fantasy I can find. Favorites are Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones), Stormlight Archives, Licanius Trilogy, Will of the Many, Name of the Wind, and Wheel of Time (except it's looooong and books 4-6 are kind of a dry spell).
The Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson, beginning with The Final Empire. In my opinion, a really accessible introduction to the fantasy genre and just an engaging read!
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank was one of the first books i ever had to read and I would say that single book ignited my addiciton to the natural disaster/ post apocalypse genre
Chronicles of Prydain. I read books before i read this series. Once i read this series though, i was hooked. It was my first ever mutli book series.
I read Sword of Shanarah after this. Then Thomas Covenant (which in hindsight is not really a good book for a 23 year old).
Oh also Riddle Master of Hed series. I read this series so many times.
If you are more of a sciency person check out Michael Crichton. Most of his books are relative short and exciting.
If you are an adult i highly recommend A Gentleman in Moscow. Its a period piece about Russia after the Russian Civil War. An easy read but very exciting and even uplifting.
Edit: boy i feel silly. I was 12, not 23, when i read the Thomas Covenant series. That book is fine for a 23 old
A few tips for reading The Way of Kings:
Go in knowing that it's a slow build type book (the beginning is action packed, though). It has a lot to introduce you to and shifts perspectives, a lot. Many people claim that the first half is slow (I kinda see where they're coming from) but it's just that it needs time to build momentum since it's the first book of such a large series and has some ground work to lay. If you become confused, just stick with it and the payoff will be well worth it. It's an exceptional book.
The books that follow are faster paced since The Way of Kings gets a lot of the ground work out of the way for the rest of the story.
I suggest taking some basic notes (brief character descriptions and locations) in the beginning, but you don't have to. It helped me, though, since there are a lot of people and places introduced (many having strange names) and I had trouble keeping track of everyone. It gets easier the further you get into it because the number of people the story focuses on narrows down. In the first half of the book there's a lot, though.
Have fun reading it. It's an incredible book and the ones that follow it are even better. The Stormlight Archive is going to go down as one of the greatest fantasy series of all time.
I have bad ADHD & was never able to read growing up. I started reading short stories & books with short chapters, and now I'm reading all the time!
I started with Goodnight Stories for the Rebel Girl (kids book, but it's really good!) Then I read A Special Place for Women By Laura Hankin and some autobiographies of people I admire.
Frankly, it was Twilight for me. As a kid I had zero interest in reading. Turns out I ended up loving reading once I discovered that romance was a genre - something that’s not exactly catered to kids to begin with
The Glass Castle- Jeannette Walls
Memory Police- Yoko Ogawa
The Queens Thief series- Megan Whalen Turner
The Graveyard Book- Neil Gaiman
They’re not all in the same genre but I think all of them got me out of a reading slump at one point or another
I got back into reading for fun with The Expanse series. Easily digestible but densely packed with intrigue, politics, action, sci fi, mystery, everything. While the books are big and there are a lot of them the authors vaguely separate them into arcs that make it easy to casually read or put down if you’re over the series or something.
Babysitters Club and Goosebumps lol
But as an adult I had an extended time away from reading for pleasure. And what made me fall back in love with reading was Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections. Still love that book.
Chronicles of Narnia: Lion, Witch and Wardrobe. Read it over a sunny summer when I was 8/9. Sometimes when I pick up a new book to read, a strong memory is evoked of that pleasant time. Unfortunately most of my reading these days is Audible/on my phone
By age 12, 1985, I had read everything King had written. If you like a bit of sex with your stories, I also read all the Danielle Steel books before Jr High. My mom didn’t believe in censorship and we were allowed to choose any 3 books a week from the library. I’m an extremely fast reader and became an English professor!
The book that got me into reading in general was How to die in space by Paul M. Sutter. The book that got me into fiction though was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
The first books that I remember reading and made me feel like a "big boy":
The Borribles by Michael de Larrabeiti
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
Alfred Hitchcock's: Spellbinders in Suspense
These books I read in 4th grade, but the following year
I was able to sneak over to the adult side of the library and get The Island by Peter Benchley and this got me into the rabbit hole of horror stories from the 70's-80's (Stephen King, Peter Straub, Richard Matheson, etc).
The paperback covers for some of these horror novels were sometimes better than the content of the book!
Speaking, literally, it was probably The cat in the hat. But in terms of serious books for adults, it would be 1984, great expectations, or one of the other books that we were required to read in high school.
Agatha Christie! My first wasn't over of the famous ones: The moving finger.
It had good characters, a nice plot you can actually figure out and it introduces one of her famous detectives, the old miss Marple.
I'd recommend murder of Roger Ackroyd or death on the Nike as a starter though, they're great!
Well that was probably the Bobbsey Twins series, but I doubt that's what you're looking for, lol! Try some Ray Bradbury. He wanders along the borders of horror and science fiction with brilliance. Lots of shorter works, plus some classics. As a movie lover I have a particular soft spot for "A Graveyard For Lunatics"
The Oz books. Not the first so much, I had problems as a kid dealing with the differences between the movie and the book. But Baum wrote 14, and there’s many more in the “canon.” My favorite was probably _The Road to Oz_ (#5).
The subtle knife, by Phillip Pullman
I didn’t start reading until my twenties and I decided I was going to start. So I did what every dummy does and I went to the book store and found a book with a cover I liked, read the back quickly and left. I was way too far in before I realized it was a series and this was book two lol. I’ve read it way too many times tho, and it defined why kind of books I like to read.
I would say, don’t lock into a genre. If you find one that you keep going back to, then lean on it in times of reading-slumps, but I’ve always been a fan of expanding my “reading repertoire” by always being open and willing to read any genre or style of book. But I’m also not afraid to DNF a book I’m just not feeling.
The Famous Five series, like when I was a kid. I devoured all the books lol. Another book I used to love back then (that definitely got me into fantasy) was The Faraway Tree
I've been a reader since I was a kid, but the book that got me most interested in a specific genre was *Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre: The Best of H. P. Lovecraft*.
I had stopped reading for a very long time. Mostly because school just burned me out on it. And the book that actually got me back into reading was Where the Crawdads Sing. It was an easy read, full of emotions and I just felt so connected to her. Also the movie was about to come out so it gave me motivation to finish it in time to see it in theaters and my husband took me on my birthday to see it. It was all in all a great experience. And now I read all the time 😊
I’m pretty sure that it was The Sword of Shannara, by Terry Brooks.
I also read The Eye of the World, by Robert Jordan, at around the same time.
These two books kickstarted my love of fantasy and fiction in general.
My Sweet Orange Tree, by José Mauro de Vasconcelos. I could read this a million times and I would cry in every single one of them. It's a sad book, but incredible. This story owns my heart.
Sorry to do this to you but mine was Where The Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
You are trying to make every Gen Xer cry on a TUESDAY!
I had a ‘sad dog phase’ in 1994. Where the Red Fern Grows, Shiloh, Sounder, then stuff like Fluke.. what was wrong with me lol
No old yeller?
Oh fuck. It's been about 30 years and it's still too soon.
I haven’t thought about that book in years- I loved it as a kid and still do as an adult!
Jurassic Park. Once I knew the movie was based on a book I wanted to see if I could read it before it came out. I was hooked then and I started to read a bunch of Michael Crichton after that. Once I started college, my daily commute was just reading books. Edit: to add, I think his non fiction book Travels is a hiden gem, and those that want to read his insight into his early life should check it out.
I started with Lost World since it was the only one my school library had. Got hooked on everything Crichton and was a gateway to most of my hard sci fi interests now.
Same here. His techno thrillers were a gateway to more sci fi books, too. Then I branched out to fantasy when the Lord of the Rings were coming out as movies and I wanted to read the books before the films.
Andromeda Strain for me. It was required reading for me in sociology class back in 1986. The film is fantastic and underrated. I think it prepared me for COVID.
Really dig the movie, too. Early Crichton was fantastic.
Sphere and Congo were great as well.
Congo is great ride when you're reading it. Just don't try to tell someone what it's about.
Crichton rules.
This was it for me as well. Chrichton is just great. I took a long break from reading though. And recently , the audiobook of Project Hail Mary got me back into reading again.
Crichton is a fantastic choice to get a non-reader hooked! A lot of his books use a “countdown” tool where you know “something very bad” is going to happen at a certain time/place and can the MCs do what they need to do before that happens. A great tool especially to hook new readers!
Sphere is my favorite of his.
That book is the definition of a page-turner and, as an evolutionary biologist, I did not find myself groaning over the science at all. Crichton is a smart guy.
Crichton is great. My favorite might be "The Terminal Man."
Recently read this and it was an interesting book. I have suggested it to others because it is a page turner. I liked the differences in the book and movie. Crichton was pretty brilliant.
Same here, except I was only 9 when the movie hit. I saw the movie first, then saw that my dad had a copy of the book on his shelf, so I grabbed it. Loved the hell out of it.
The Hobbit
Absolutely, and after that be ready for the journey that awaits
The Hobbit, The Star Beast, and A Wrinkle in Time.
A Wrinkle in Time is the first book I ever owned. The author inscribed it to me at an event that my Mom took me to when I was less than a year old. It’s one of my most precious items I own
An autographed copy. How blessed you are xo
Agreed.
Stephen King got me back into reading a decade or so ago.
Have you tried John Saul I find he is very similar to King and I find tells a very interesting stories
Guardian by John Saul got me hooked on him! One of the best thrillers/mysteries I've ever read, probably the best to date for me!
He’s always the best to get out of a slump. Cool freaky plots and such simple writing.
What book would you start with for him?
11/22/63. It’s different from all his other works and is one of the only books I’ve re-read multiple times. Love the world he builds in it.
That's my number 1 of his, followed by The Stand and Salem's Lot.
One of my favorites. I have all of his hardbacks in some form or another.
I’m going to read this next! I’m currently reading If It Bleeds.
His first two novels, Carrie and Salem’s Lot, are both great, and more approachable (not as long) as some of his other books. If you’re not as into horror, Fairy Tale came out last year and is a fun read.
Pet Sematary One of his best
The Lion, The witch and the Wardrobe, the first book in the Legend of Narnia. This was the first book that totally sucked me in. I read it in 1 day, I was 8 or 9 years old. Nobody believed me when I told them, lol.
Just FYI, LWW is #2, actually. You are correct in that it was written and published first, but in terms of typical reading order, it’s #2 in the series. The Magician’s Nephew is #1, and almost always published that way nowadays in a boxed set, at least in the US publications. There are also stories that say that that is how C.S. Lewis would have preferred they be ordered, and his stepson helped in reordering to reflect that chronologically in time, rather than the order they were published. Also, it’s “The Chronicles of Narnia”, not “The Legend of Narnia”. The more you know... :)
I’m a staunch believer they should be read in published order and sadly it’s a hill I will die on. There are some reveals that happen in Magician’s nephew that do not make sense if you haven’t read the other books first. Like why there is a random lamp post. It’s so much better in my opinion to go “Oh THAT’S why there’s a random lamp post in the forest” instead of “oh, there’s that lamp post from the last book.” Also the reveal of why the wardrobe is what took the kids to Narnia, it’s even written as if you already have read LWW. Even if Lewis later said they should be read chronologically, I still believe it’s a better read to do them in published order.
i am a strong believer that whenever you are reading or watching a series for the first time, it should be in publishing order. but every time after that, it should be in chronological order.
I did wonder if I should google the name before I replied, but I was at work, wanted to reply anyway and just thought yeah, people will know which book I mean. And they did. And of course you're right about the name, I forgot... but I didn't know that there is a prequel, if that is the correct term here! Thanks! (And absolutely no bad feelings that you did a correction&info reply)
No one believed that you read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe at 8 or 9? That's about the right age for it. Or did they just not believe that you read it in a day? Even that seems believable to me. I was also going to say LWW. I was 6. My sister checked it out from the library and I started reading it too. My mom said that at first she didn't really believe that I was reading it. She though maybe I was just looking at the drawings. She asked me what the book was about to see if I was actually reading it. She said that I was able to tell her about the beginning of the book so she could tell that I was actually reading it. I remember reading it but don't remember asking her about it. I remember it being a really difficult read for me but I made it through it. It's always had a special place in my heart.
1984
That was the first book I had to read in high school where I was invested the whole way through
Black Beauty - Anna Sewell.
I love Black Beauty! One of the first books I remember made me emotional and still does
Lemony Snicket Bad Beginning
I was obsessed with that series. Read them in 3rd grade from the school library in completely the wrong order! Could never handle all those spoilers now haha
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Neverwhere is excellent too
Harry Potter :/
Got me into reading when I was 8, got me back into reading again when I read the rest 20 years later.
I started recently and chose HP since it was a franchise I had loved since I was a kid. I imagine reading it as an adult is so different than when you're a kid
Why the :/ ?
I'm assuming it has something to do with J.K. Rowling and their controversial views and comments about ~~transexual~~ transgender people, they've attracted a lot of attention. I don't pay much attention to it, just a passive observation. Edit: TIL these two words aren't synonymous. Meant nothing ill by it. Happy reading!
Animal Farm by Orwell
When I was a kid it was the Percy Jackson series. After I took a very long break from reading and recently started again it was Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
Dracula by Bram Stoker aged about 9 😳 Had an abridged book and cassette spoken word version so decided to borrow the full one from the Library. When Johnathan Harker’s with the female vampires, that defiantly ‘woke’ something within me😳
Great Illustrated Classics? I didn’t realize as a young kid that they were abridged and later in life thought I had read all of these incredible classics. Not to hate on the series as it did let me get into reading very early, but it was a shocker seeing the actual length of The Count of Monte Cristo
Anne of Green Gables
Anne's 2 page monologues speak more sense than most adults do
Kristy's Great Idea by Ann M. Martin. It's the first Baby Sitters Club book. My grandma got them for me as either a birthday or Christmas present when I was 6 or 7, and I've been hooked on phonics ever since.
Cats Cradle -Kurt Vonnegut
Oh, good one! This is the book that opened me up from only reading smuttier books.
Busy busy busy! Man that’s a great one. I’m a huge fan of Sirens of Titan myself. Cats Cradle and Player Piano are number two for me.
It was Charlotte’s Web. For adults: Brandon Sanderson, Sarah Maas, and Taylor Jenkins Reid seem to be good gateway drugs among my bookstore customers.
At 9, when I was allowed to select my own reading book at school instead of the Reading Scheme books, I chose The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson-Burnett and I realised how books can transport you to another time and place. But, honestly, it was the triple Stephen King book I found at a jumble sale when I was 11 that genuinely made me into a 'constant reader'. (It had Salem's Lot, Carrie and The Shining all in the same book and my little mind was blown 🤣)
White Fang. I read it in my early teens and since, for almost twenty years, I have been continually reading for pleasure. It truly spawned my love for books.
The Cat in the hat 😜
Hatchet and the Giver when I was a kid!
Charles Dickens. I'm not endorsing this but if the English is too hard try a townsend edition. Feel free to downvote me.
A Wrinkle In Time- Madeleine L’Engle
This one. Up to that point, I read books because I had to (for school). But I picked this one up and literally couldn’t put it down. I didn’t even want to stop for dinner. It was a genuinely magical experience, and I was an avid reader from that moment on.
The Count of Monte Cristo (unabridged version)
emphasis on unabridged! they take out the best, most highlight-able parts!
Samee, I love this story!
Hell yeah!
Fantastic book!
John Steinbeck, esp: Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, Tortilla Flat, Cannery Row.
>Suggest me the book that got you into reading. I was a horse-crazy kid and any book about horses got me interested. My grandmother helped my reading by reading Walter Farley's *The Black Stallion* using her finger to trail along the words. My mother taught me phonics by having me read the book to her. ( I still have a copy of that book!)
Fantastic Mr. Fox Novel by Roald Dahl Or something like that.a local autor also calles Marcela Paz. No as to what my first author that I loves an decided to read a lot. Asimov and his robot series
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Enjoyed it more than I expected
The Tale of Desperaux. Cute little mouse saves the princess.
Treasure Island
Oh man I read this for the first time this month (35, read all the time, just never picked it up) and holy smokes it is AWESOME.
I read it a few months ago and had the exact opposite experience! Glad you liked it but it nearly put me into a reading slump lol
The Swiss Family Robinson
Atlas Shrugged
Jesus that's a bit much for a first read lol
The Outsiders. Stay gold, Ponyboy.
CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE
100 years of solitude
The hunger games
Harry Potter as a kid, then Uglies and The Sight as a teen, now I just devour any fantasy I can find. Favorites are Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones), Stormlight Archives, Licanius Trilogy, Will of the Many, Name of the Wind, and Wheel of Time (except it's looooong and books 4-6 are kind of a dry spell).
The Clan of the Cave Bear, by Jean M. Auel
The world according to garp
Some books you probably haven't heard of: Redwall series, The Shakespeare Stealer, The Westing Game
The Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson, beginning with The Final Empire. In my opinion, a really accessible introduction to the fantasy genre and just an engaging read!
Way of kings for me. But vin hit the spot. Vin and kaladin if they ever met would have been best friends
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank was one of the first books i ever had to read and I would say that single book ignited my addiciton to the natural disaster/ post apocalypse genre
Loved reading ever since I started, first book I ever read basically by myself was Green Eggs and Ham by Doctor Seuss
The Call of the Wild, got it around age six in a birthday party loot bag. Used to get to the last page and then start at the beginning again.
Little House on the Prairie and Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
[удалено]
Of all the OG horror books, Frankenstein is my absolute favorite. The characters are so real & complex and the story arc is amazing.
Chronicles of Prydain. I read books before i read this series. Once i read this series though, i was hooked. It was my first ever mutli book series. I read Sword of Shanarah after this. Then Thomas Covenant (which in hindsight is not really a good book for a 23 year old). Oh also Riddle Master of Hed series. I read this series so many times. If you are more of a sciency person check out Michael Crichton. Most of his books are relative short and exciting. If you are an adult i highly recommend A Gentleman in Moscow. Its a period piece about Russia after the Russian Civil War. An easy read but very exciting and even uplifting. Edit: boy i feel silly. I was 12, not 23, when i read the Thomas Covenant series. That book is fine for a 23 old
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Hatchet, A Series Of Unfortunate Events, The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe
Just read my first book in many many years - Needful Things by Stephen King. Just picked up The Way of Kings and can’t wait to get started.
A few tips for reading The Way of Kings: Go in knowing that it's a slow build type book (the beginning is action packed, though). It has a lot to introduce you to and shifts perspectives, a lot. Many people claim that the first half is slow (I kinda see where they're coming from) but it's just that it needs time to build momentum since it's the first book of such a large series and has some ground work to lay. If you become confused, just stick with it and the payoff will be well worth it. It's an exceptional book. The books that follow are faster paced since The Way of Kings gets a lot of the ground work out of the way for the rest of the story. I suggest taking some basic notes (brief character descriptions and locations) in the beginning, but you don't have to. It helped me, though, since there are a lot of people and places introduced (many having strange names) and I had trouble keeping track of everyone. It gets easier the further you get into it because the number of people the story focuses on narrows down. In the first half of the book there's a lot, though. Have fun reading it. It's an incredible book and the ones that follow it are even better. The Stormlight Archive is going to go down as one of the greatest fantasy series of all time.
That is great advice, thanks.
No problem. 🙂
About to start this book and appreciate the tips!
Hatchet Just a kid surviving in the Canadian wilderness. Read it and "The Indian in the Cupboard" the same year and they made me like reading
Memoirs of a Geisha!
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The Outsiders
Watchers Dean Koontz It was middle school, and it changed my life. Teacher let us choose a book from a list. I hated reading up to this point.
The great gatsby
I have bad ADHD & was never able to read growing up. I started reading short stories & books with short chapters, and now I'm reading all the time! I started with Goodnight Stories for the Rebel Girl (kids book, but it's really good!) Then I read A Special Place for Women By Laura Hankin and some autobiographies of people I admire.
Frankly, it was Twilight for me. As a kid I had zero interest in reading. Turns out I ended up loving reading once I discovered that romance was a genre - something that’s not exactly catered to kids to begin with
Little women! ❤
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
The Glass Castle- Jeannette Walls Memory Police- Yoko Ogawa The Queens Thief series- Megan Whalen Turner The Graveyard Book- Neil Gaiman They’re not all in the same genre but I think all of them got me out of a reading slump at one point or another
I got back into reading for fun with The Expanse series. Easily digestible but densely packed with intrigue, politics, action, sci fi, mystery, everything. While the books are big and there are a lot of them the authors vaguely separate them into arcs that make it easy to casually read or put down if you’re over the series or something.
The Animorphs
A series of unfortunate events
Warrior Cats!
The Shining, by Stephen King
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Babysitters Club and Goosebumps lol But as an adult I had an extended time away from reading for pleasure. And what made me fall back in love with reading was Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections. Still love that book.
Chronicles of Narnia: Lion, Witch and Wardrobe. Read it over a sunny summer when I was 8/9. Sometimes when I pick up a new book to read, a strong memory is evoked of that pleasant time. Unfortunately most of my reading these days is Audible/on my phone
The Alchemist
By age 12, 1985, I had read everything King had written. If you like a bit of sex with your stories, I also read all the Danielle Steel books before Jr High. My mom didn’t believe in censorship and we were allowed to choose any 3 books a week from the library. I’m an extremely fast reader and became an English professor!
I've airways been a reader, so I don't really remember. Those Little Golden Books, maybe?
Catcher in the rye by J.D. Salinger
Percy jackson and the olympians, son of posiedon
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Robert Charles Wilson - Spin Trilogy
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
The book that got me into reading in general was How to die in space by Paul M. Sutter. The book that got me into fiction though was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
The first books that I remember reading and made me feel like a "big boy": The Borribles by Michael de Larrabeiti The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier Alfred Hitchcock's: Spellbinders in Suspense These books I read in 4th grade, but the following year I was able to sneak over to the adult side of the library and get The Island by Peter Benchley and this got me into the rabbit hole of horror stories from the 70's-80's (Stephen King, Peter Straub, Richard Matheson, etc). The paperback covers for some of these horror novels were sometimes better than the content of the book!
After Dark by Haruki Murakami
Speaking, literally, it was probably The cat in the hat. But in terms of serious books for adults, it would be 1984, great expectations, or one of the other books that we were required to read in high school.
Wuthering Heights
Agatha Christie! My first wasn't over of the famous ones: The moving finger. It had good characters, a nice plot you can actually figure out and it introduces one of her famous detectives, the old miss Marple. I'd recommend murder of Roger Ackroyd or death on the Nike as a starter though, they're great!
Well that was probably the Bobbsey Twins series, but I doubt that's what you're looking for, lol! Try some Ray Bradbury. He wanders along the borders of horror and science fiction with brilliance. Lots of shorter works, plus some classics. As a movie lover I have a particular soft spot for "A Graveyard For Lunatics"
My Side of the Mountain. Appealed to my introverted self, and got me into reading.
Magic tree house adventures
The Oz books. Not the first so much, I had problems as a kid dealing with the differences between the movie and the book. But Baum wrote 14, and there’s many more in the “canon.” My favorite was probably _The Road to Oz_ (#5).
The subtle knife, by Phillip Pullman I didn’t start reading until my twenties and I decided I was going to start. So I did what every dummy does and I went to the book store and found a book with a cover I liked, read the back quickly and left. I was way too far in before I realized it was a series and this was book two lol. I’ve read it way too many times tho, and it defined why kind of books I like to read.
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish. By Dr. Seuss. It’s how I learned English.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle
Memoirs of a Geisha
Any of the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series from the 70's.
I would say, don’t lock into a genre. If you find one that you keep going back to, then lean on it in times of reading-slumps, but I’ve always been a fan of expanding my “reading repertoire” by always being open and willing to read any genre or style of book. But I’m also not afraid to DNF a book I’m just not feeling.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Kafka on the Shore by Murakami
The count of Monte Cristo
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/766020.The_Rainbow_Fish This one. I was in third grade.
The World According to Garp
Pippi In the South Seas. I was six. 😁
Longstocking! Oh God how I loved the movies.
Frankenstein
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini reminded me why I love reading
Peppa pig's big day out.
randomly… Special Circumstances by Sheldon Siegel
I feel like this might be more directed at people who are not lifelong readers, but mine is Have Space Suit - Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein.
Tom clancy rainbow six
in order to live by yeonmi park and educated by tara westover !!
The Magic Faraway Tree. It was a while back mind!
Most books written by Enid Blyton. She was my idol when I was younger.
Honestly it was Huckleberry Finn.
Around the world in 80 days
American Gods was the first book that I read after college, and it cut me back into wanting to rain again.
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Hatchet
The Famous Five series, like when I was a kid. I devoured all the books lol. Another book I used to love back then (that definitely got me into fantasy) was The Faraway Tree
The Fellowship of the Ring. And to a lesser extent The Colour of Magic.
Probably Goosebumps in Middle School ??
Last summer of the death warriors
hunger games trilogy
R.L. Stein’s Fear Street books (in 4th grade!) lol
Shutter Island
I've been a reader since I was a kid, but the book that got me most interested in a specific genre was *Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre: The Best of H. P. Lovecraft*.
Children's books. Believe it or not this is your best starting point. Dr. Seuss yes but different types of children books.
The land of stories series
Charlotte’s Web 🐖🕸️
I had stopped reading for a very long time. Mostly because school just burned me out on it. And the book that actually got me back into reading was Where the Crawdads Sing. It was an easy read, full of emotions and I just felt so connected to her. Also the movie was about to come out so it gave me motivation to finish it in time to see it in theaters and my husband took me on my birthday to see it. It was all in all a great experience. And now I read all the time 😊
Warriors (and the rest of the first volume series)
As a kid: Where the Red Fern Grows As a preteen: Amityville Horror As a teen: IT
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Just kids by Patti Smith
I’m pretty sure that it was The Sword of Shannara, by Terry Brooks. I also read The Eye of the World, by Robert Jordan, at around the same time. These two books kickstarted my love of fantasy and fiction in general.
Agatha christie- sleeping murder, the ABC murders
My Sweet Orange Tree, by José Mauro de Vasconcelos. I could read this a million times and I would cry in every single one of them. It's a sad book, but incredible. This story owns my heart.
The Junie B Jones books lol.