Back when I was a teen, I read books, but only when I had to for school. I stumbled upon the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.
>inb4 young adult fiction
This book got me into the Greek mythology and such, and then further on into reading works by the Greeks, and reading in general.
What got you started?
>>7501562
>reading
I don't read. I'm just here to shitpost
>reading
Been reading since I learnt how to.
Eragon, Drizzt, Dragonlance, Redwall, and Harry Potter got me into reading in bulk. It was only a matter of time before my dad made fun of me for reading them up through 15, so I made a gradual turnaround and I'm slowly making my way through the Western Canon.
Though I suppose it really all started with Doc Seuss. Thank God for parents that read to me.
>>7501562
Douglas Adams Guide To Galaxy
>>7501600
Hello Reddit
Mostly Stephen King's books
A Series of Unfortunate Events
>>7501640
pic unrelated
>>7501594
based dad
In regards to the most recent and newest, "bookish," era of my life, Miss Peregrine's and mandatory reading for my senior AP Literature course, such as Wurthering Heights. Emma and Catherine will hold a place in my heart for years to come.
As a child I spent most of my waking hours reading, mostly children's classics of which I remember most fondly The Gruffalo, The Secret Garden, David, and Wilde's fairytales.
When I went to school, I got my first phone, and then a laptop a few years later. I started watching TV and by 17 my brain was mush. I pretty much didn't read at all during my adolescence.
Despite this, I was still above average at English, and one day I confessed to my teacher that I hadn't actually read regularly since I was a child. She actually gave me her copy of Huck Finn from when she was at school, and along with Under Milk Wood and Poe's poetry, it started me reading again. I now spend most of waking hours reading.
>>7501691
>era of my life
drug addled retard detected
>>7501562
Holmes.
>>7501703
ayy lmao
>>7501714
nice deflectiondon't think I won't post the pasta
Wanting to write got me back into reading. I spent my twenties being a fucking wanker who didn't read any books.
>>7501720
Nah, I recognize how poorly I worded it, especially after reading it a second time. Should really review the shit that flows out of my fingers before I force it upon others.
>>7501728
I'm just shitposting, your post was more than fine.
Carry on.
>>7501702
I have the same issue. As a child, I also read a lot during my childhood years, and read in both Polish and English, sometimes even translating the shorter chapters from one language to another, then back again from the translated script to see how it matched with the original.
Now I do none of that, I've had difficulty concentrating, though when I do, I read until I'm exhausted and my eyes hurt. It's a good idea to start with very short books; Voltaire's Candide, Camus' The Stranger + Dzuma (Plague in Polish), and I've re-read a few of my classics, Robinson Crusoe being among them. Start short and then build up momentum.
The trick is that you can finish anything below 150 pages in one day even as a slow reader, provided you have enough spare time. The fact that you have 'read a book', will give you instantaneous satisfaction and should make you want to read more.
((DO NOT START WITH NON-FICTION))
As much as lit shits in him, GRRM's books got me into literature as a teenager.
My mom told me about Beowulf when I was a kid and I thought it was awesome so I read it. After that I looked into Tolkien (since his was the translation I used) and got into LotR/Hobbit/Silmarillion/etc. From there I moved on to other folklore from different parts of the world, the Greek stuff (Iliad, Oddysey, etc), and from there just anywhere I wanted to go. Mostly historical stuff, but also stuff like BNW and what would be considered "classics."
I was never into the YA shit nor was I ever at my "reading level" in whatever school level I was at (always way above). Whilst other children read Captain Underpants or Goose Bumps I was reading Moby Dick or The Oddysey. I think it made me somewhat pretentious because when I tried to read Harry Potter I thought it was droll shit and was made fun of for not liking it. When the movies for LotR came out it was a bit better (I in middle school) and everyone suddenly liked LotR, so I could have very few discussions about it. "WEREN'T THE ELVES SO COOL WHEN THEY HELPED AT HELM'S CASTLE?" "You mean Helm's Deep? Oh, and they didn't do that in the book." "WHAT DO YOU MEAN???"
It really does kind of blow my mind that a lot of you like children's books.
>>7501817
please be satire
>>7501562
>I stumbled upon the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series
18+
>>7501905
>whilst
it definitely is
>>7501640
Can't wait to see if the Netflix series is gonna be any good.
>>7501910
The Lightning Thief (the first in the series) came out in 2005.
I'm sure anyone who was a teen in 2005 is an adult in 2015.
>>7501911
it's normal in civilised countries
>>7502373
>civilised
>ised
>s
Muhummad pls
>>7501562
>start with Rick Riordan
>>7502379
>Rick Riordan
Why is he bad?
LOTR, Harry Potter, Dune Series, First Law Trilogy.
Go ahead. Bring on the "PLEB" comments, I know, I'm ready.
>>7502467
I tried The Pendragon Series, but the writing was simply patronizing to read for anyone over 14. And I heard a lot about the Eragon series, but I've heard it's whole plot can be called 'Fantasy Star Wars' with a dragon instead of the Millennium Falcon, which I'm not interested in rehashing.
>>7501562
As a young child, probably Black Beauty...read it so many times.
During the Goosebump years, I borrowed this Greek mythology book from the school library around two dozen times probably. I should just buy it for nostalgia's sake now.
In high school, was mostly my dad's library of weird shit: Trout Fishing in America, Alan Watts books, I picked up Siddhartha on a whim then read a lot of books on Taoism and Buddhism... Animal Farm and Scarlet Letter (outside of Shakespeare) had the biggest impact from the school reading list.
In college, honestly, I was on a Vampire Chronicles binge at first, but once I took my two freshman honors intro courses that were primarily the epics, I was hooked on lit. fiction entirely. Iliad and Paradise Lost are still two of my absolute favorites. After that just took a pile of English for electives and never looked back.
>>7502546
MY MOTHER FUCKING NIGGA!
Your picrelated fucking raised me.
Dulaire in general, is a great time.
The first I heard of the entire Norse mythos was from him...
..Then from age of Mythology.
>>7501562
> he fell for the "start with the Greeks" meme
>>7502568
I know right. I don't think that book even stayed in the library, I just kept renewing it and reading it over and over again. In junior high we had a huge Greek mythology unit, but I proved to my teacher that I knew everything already so she let me draw posters of the Olympians for her class for the next two weeks instead.
I need to look for his Norse shit, never knew it existed.
>>7502591
Yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhh boi!
When I got to college, my Ancient History professor was just like, 'okay, you've definitely heard this before.'
One of the first A's I ever got.
>>7501562
When I was young, my parents were strict whenever I wanted to buy a toy or game, but if it was books they didn't hesitate to shell out cash, and took me to the library somewhat frequently. So books were always around in abundance.
Edge Chronicles was the first series that I really got invested in, with Bartimaeus soon after that. Also remember liking books like Maniac McGee and A Long Way from Chicago as a kid.
>>7502626
Yo! Bartimaeus was one of those few series blessed with the perfect voice talent for an audio book. Same goes for Maniac McGee, Jesus-fucking-Christ, that book was the literal foundation for all my feelings about race/class relations in America growing up.
The whole thing was formative for me too man.
>>7501562
The Great Gatsby.
I had to read it in high school and it was the first book that I read that really hit me with an impactful message. It's one of the first things that got me thinking about how you can apply literature to your own life.
>>7502717
I remember reading The Great Gatsby and not liking the story until I got done writing my essay for class about it.
>>7501817
>My mom told me about Beowulf when I was a kid
>I looked into Tolkien (since his was the translation I used)
His Beowulf came out like last year lmao
I always read a shitton when i was young and my parents read to me loads when i was a fresh cookie out the oven, but I was at the library with my mom one day in junior year, saw a book called "The Catcher in the Rye" and remembered it was really popular. I said "aight let's do this"
Read it in one night, lost my shit, asked my language arts teacher for more like it. Vonnegut and Thompson were up next, and at the end of the school year, my next door neighbor was having a booksale where I got a collection of Kafka's short stories + Metamorphosis
from there, it's just been up
>>7502611
first = easiest
>>7501562
Finn Family Moomintroll in third grade. Followed by Pyle's King Arthur, Narnia, etc.
>>7502852 (me par read LOTR and Harry out loud to me as a kid.)
>>7502818
>>7502626
>>7502717
>>7502757
There are some legitimate memories of an experience in American High School Literature at the turn of the century here, I hope this gets archived lads.
>>7502852
My puny teenage mind didn't think something like Catcher in the Rye could get published. I had always thought books were for academic purposes, or, well, I knew fiction existed like Goosebumps and shit but Catcher in the Rye had a sort of realness to it and it was my first time experiencing something like it.
From then on, I read and wrote regularly.
I recognize it's fedora tier but it is what it is.
>>7502852
Now that sounds like one of the best crash courses I've ever heard.
(Best thing about such an era was that literature bridged the gap between America and Russia better than anything else at the time.) Kafka and Salinger, who'da thunk eh?
>>7502932
Preach motherfucker
>>7502930
When I say I read Edge Chronicles and Bartimaeus, it was in the 3rd or 4th grade. Since when does 'kid' refer exclusively to 14+ years old?
>>7501562
i read jules verne extensively thanks to my dad, i think 20.000 leaugues was my first book ever.
even today he's the writer that i have read the most.
Goosebumps. I wanted a PSone game at the time and my mom bought me Night of the Living Dummy instead. Left it in the room for months until I got really bored one day and decided to read.
/lit/, seriously.
i came here from /mu/ about 2 years ago now, initially proceeded to fall for a few memes like tao lin, then i started with the greeks and i've been reading and shitposting here ever since
i was a dumb kid. after this i started reading harry potter and a series of unfortunate events. inevitably i entered high school and read the great gatsby. which exposed me to edgier themes. now i just stick to philosophy and filmmaking books.
Why are you guys trying too hard?
>>7501562
>What got you into reading
boredom
Twilight sadly. I wasn't a die hard fan or anything, it was just an easy read and I felt really accomplished by finishing them. I read some YA for years with some modern classics in between. Catch 22 is what got me into lit though. Haven't read any YA in a good year (besides the hunger games, it was free on my kindle thing so I figured why not and see what the hype is all about).
Of all things, EU Star Wars stuff in 1st grade.
