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For me, it all began in the early 1990’s on a hot, humid, sunny day in New York. There I was, poking fun at one of my friends for spending all of her time reading a book while we were hanging out at the pool in FDR State Park. I was full of teenage angst and male bravado, but little did I know that my life was going to change with the following few words, "I dare you to read this book! I bet you can’t put it down!"
What are you kidding me?!!! It’s 85 degrees out, the sun is shining, and there are half naked women in bikinis everywhere. There is no way in hell some BOOK is going to tear me away from all this!!
Well… The book was The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice, and as you probably already guessed, I couldn’t put it down!!!
I haven’t stopped reading since, and my love and appetite for reading good books continues to grow. I think it would be interesting to read some fellow book lovers "first time" stories.
Care to share? I dare you!!!!
February 5th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
First time story. This is difficult because I just might have been born with a book in hand. Seriously, I was very lucky; my parents regularly bought me children’s books. I specifically remember going to Sears (yes, the softer side of) with my folks and in between playing house in the furniture department and staring wide eyed at the Colecovision, my parents would let me pick out one or two Disney books w/cassette combos. I would read/play them over and over and then for good measure, have my dad read them to me.
Later, my older sister took over the job. One birthday, she bought me a bunch of goodies, including Sweet Valley High (SVH)#30 Jealous Lies and when she saw that I read it in one day, every pay day after that, I would have three or four books from the series waiting for me at home. These are cute little anecdotes, but the true moment that I fell in love with Literature was on a Friday a few years before SVH. At school, we received our Troll Book Club orders once a month at the end of the week. After lunch, I had my Watermill $1.25 edition of Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty all shiny waiting for me on my desk. At first, I was really disappointed because there were no pictures. I took it home and let it sit on my kiddy table in my bedroom for a good month. One rainy day, I was really bored; I took a look at the forgotten book and I gave it a shot…it being about a horse after all. I was transported to a world of imagination…self created with the assistance of the writer. Since then, my affair with reading is as strong as ever. I think I have that copy somewhere in my collection. I just might revisit it when I get home.
February 11th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
First time I was exposed to sci-fi was Star Wars. All the action figures (which I have managed to collect all of the original figurines), the movies, and all the extras I could get my hands on made me a sci-fi guy. My first exposure to sci-fi books was a Star Trek book in which you read the story and at a certain point you are asked to decide what happens next. 2 choices and 2 different pages to turn to depending on which you picked. I love books like that as a kid and bought quite a few from tht Troll book orders in school.
Horror is another story. I remember watching the classics such as Frankenstein and Dracula on PBS Saturday nights with my dad. Mom was at bingo, so dad I I watched horror classics on TV. Great memories. As I got older I really got into the Hammer films of the 60’s and 70’s. Christopher Lee is the man. Hands down the best horror movies ever made. As I got older reading was a great way to kill time so I read classics such as Dracula and Frankenstein and while in high school, I took a horror and sci-fi language arts class and was turned on to books such as Interview With a Vampire, Clockwork Orange and others.
Horror and sci-fi are great for the mind. The imagery in the mind while reading a good book or even watching a great movie allow for boring days to pass by happy.
It’s great to have a brother in law to share all my nerdiness with.