Just before we finished school for the summer, when I was thirteen and we had moved to a new neighbourhood, our English teacher showed the class a book. She said, "I don't expect any of you to pick this book up and read it, but I recommend that you do." That book was not one book, but a trilogy, Lord of the Rings.

I had never bothered too much with reading, preferring to be outdoors or playing with friends. That summer, I had no friends, they all got left behind when we moved. That summer I lost myself in the universe created by Tolkien. I was still outside, in the sunshine, but now I was reading. Those books had a big influence on things from then on - they also took much longer than one summer to read.

Thanks James and William for sharing your experiences of the great things that can happen when the words of an author reach a receptive mind.

I too was profoundly effected by the LOTR. - Lol Both my pen-names are LOTR references.

Perversely, although I've been a bookaholic since childhood, I didn't read Tolkien's stories for many, many years. I blame this on some some misguided acquaintance who described it as a children's fairy-tale and not something an adult would find interesting. This perception stayed with me till someone else insisted, with passion too strong to be ignored, that my impression was misguided and that I should at least try reading part of the book to make my own judgement.

And so I was introduced to the story that has had more impact on me than any other book I have ever read.

I agree completely with Jame's viewpoint of the movies cf the books.

One sad effect I've noticed from the movies is that all my own mental images of the characters have been replaced with those from the movies.

My favorite character, Tom Bombadil (aka Iarwain), wasn't even in the movies and I now think that's a good thing because to do him justice would need pretty much a whole new movie. - and I also still have my own image of howhe appears.

I've actually never read Lord of the Rings, but I've been meaning to do it. I also never saw the movies, but not without trying, I always fell asleep during the first one, and it's not because I found it boring! 

I could read before kindergarten but I don't remember actually learning. I was also able to read musical fairly basically. A lot of people thought because I had cerebral palsy and leg braces, that I was some sort of slow, but nope. I couldn't ride a bike or run around like a psycho, so I read books instead. I was especially sucked into reading when Harry Potter started making waves, then I found Anne McCaffrey books. Phew.  

Yes, they are classics.  Fortunately, when my third college roommate told me to read the books, he also warned me that, "It will take 50-100 pages for you to get fully into it because there is so much descriptive details which has to be set up for best understanding."  He had never steered me wrong on reading before, so I took the books on vacation with me and while the adults were visiting on things which did not interest me, I read.  I loved them!

I have to agree with Arpeggio, also, about the Anne McCaffrey books as well, especially the Dragonriders of Pern series, and the Talents/Tower and Hive series, as well as singletons such as "No One Noticed the Cat."

Alan E. Nourse, Andrew Norton, and Robert Heinlein also influenced me a lot.

15 hours ago, Arpeggio said:

I could read before kindergarten but I don't remember actually learning. 

I never really read anything much until going on eleven years old and apart from one book about Edmund Hillary's assent of Everest, Lord of the Rings was the only serious book I read, well that and some books we had to read for school. Guess I was a late starter... these days I'm sure there is a medical term for that, other than lazy... lol

I was given The Hobbit by UK friends of my family when I was around 12. I was already an avid reader at the time, and I had started reading books in English (which at that time wasn't taught in Danish schools until grade 5. Danish kids today start in grade 3 and sometimes in grade 1 or 2).

The Hobbit was too difficult for me, so my mother bought the Danish translation, and when I loved it, I was given the LoT books later. When I was around 15 or 16 I read all four books in English (and had to get used to Bilbo Baggins instead of Bilbo Sækker, lol). I've probably read LoT in original more than 10 times, and my favorite parts innumerable times.

I've heard many teachers praise the existence of well-written fantasy books like HP as a brilliant way of getting especially boys to read. When I think of the meager selection we had in the 1970'ies, I couldn't agree more. Thanks for sharing your experience, James.

I have always been a reader and tend to gravitate towards Sci-Fi/Fantasy though as I get older I've noticed I read most anything, fiction or non-fiction if the topic is interesting.  I have actually never read any of the LOTR books and read the Hobbit only once.  As much as I love Fantasy/Middle Earth, (definately a fan of the LOTR movies VS the Hobbit installments but that is another post), I always found Tolkien writing to be pretty boring and not enough story progression to keep my mind interested.

I guess when I was younger Sci-Fi was captured my imagination more, Heinlein was a favorite along with Jules Verne, its wasn't until I was 15 when I first fell in love with Fantasy.  Much like you James, I was always getting in trouble in my English class, mostly due to the fact that I always finished my work long before the other students and I was bored.  After countless trips to the office and serving detention, my teacher gave me a book to read one day in class to keep me from distracting the other the students.  

It was Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings.  From the opening line, "The first thing the boy Garion remembered was the kitchens at Faldor's Farm." I was hooked.  It was book one of the Belgariad and it started my journey of fantasy.  Filled with magic and centuries long war with gods and men, and love, love between family and friends.  It has one of my all time favorite characters, Silk, a prince that is also an assassin and spy, befriending a young boy.  It was amazing, so much so that once class was finished, I begged her to let me bring home the book, she said I would have to wait until the next class to continue the story.  

I was rather upset upon reaching the end of that book to find out that it was only one book in a series that would eventually grow into 12 books starring the young Garion as he learns his destiny.  Not sure what this post means, but this reminded me of a great memory that I figured to share.  

J

Oh yeah, the Belgariad is a great 'young adult' fantasy series.