Reading Evolution
My taste in books haven’t changed all that much growing up. I didn’t have much of a liking for mysteries right from the beginning. Books like The Boxcar Children didn’t interest me very much.
I always had a love for wordplay and read a lot of Dr. Suess before moving on to Shel Silverstein. I spent many bus rides home reading Silverstein’s books. Later, when dealing with depression, I would come back to The Missing Piece and The Giving Tree and find joy in his books once again.
I read a lot of romances growing up because my mother had dozens of them lining the living room shelves. To this day I count romances as one of my indulgences – especially historical romances. Catherine Coulter comes to mind with her Sherbrooke family of characters.
I touched on slightly science fiction type books with K.A. Applegate’s Animorph series when I was about ten. I stuck with those for a long time before discovering books like the Dragonlance books and The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. I happily entered the world of fantasy books and never looked back.
I immersed myself in David and Leigh Eddings, Sara Douglass, and Anne McCaffrey’s books. I even began writing my own fantasy books. I wandered from ‘younger’ – Tamora Pierce – fantasy to ‘older’ fantasy – Eddings’ Polgara the Sorceress. I loved it all and couldn’t read enough of it.
Mixed in there I read a few biographies and horror novels, and I devoured any historical fiction books based around the Civil War, but my roots in fantasy ran deep.
These days I read just about any genre. By working with online book tours, I have read mainstream fiction, women’s fiction, horror, biographical, science fiction… I pretty much read whatever they send me these days, and I’m definitely the better for it. I’ve found a lot of books I like that I wouldn’t have read otherwise.
So what has your reading evolution been like?
Inspired by: Booking Through Thursday May 19, 2005
November 27th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
I started with a set of classic myths, Baldur & Thor, Ivanhoe & others, contained in a set of 10 books that came with a set of encyclopedias.
At about 6yo, I found The Red Planet by Robert Heinlein & Tunnel in the Sky. From then on, my preferred genre has been SciFi.
I touched in Fantasy here & there, including a swag of Anne McCaffrey, but overall, the harder the science the better.
I went through almost all the Louis L’Amour westerns, read many of the pulp varieties of westerns, many of the Analog & other pulp SciFi magazines, every SciFi collection of short stories in 3 libraries, & when worst came to worst *grins* Romances when there was nothing else.
One year at High School we had to track our reading & I read way over 200 books.
But SF is my realm - Larry Niven probably my favourite author, although David Brin & Greg Bear feature up there beside him.
November 27th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Oh, I forgot - Enid Blyton books, all the Biggles stories, Boys Own books & annuals & comics of Superman/Batman/Flash & others.
November 27th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Oh, myths would be a great way to start out. Given that, I’m surprised that you didn’t gravitate more toward fantasy. Then again, knowing your personality, I’m not too surprised.