You always remember your first.

[mckitterick]

jaylake recently asked people to respond to a post asking about favorite books and stories. I didn't respond to this at first, because I'm always leery of "favorites" - I might feel entirely different later in the day!

Then I thought, "Hmmm, perhaps I could list the first 10 books (that I can remember) to influence me as a young reader." That's every bit as informative about people's likes and dislikes, methinks, and could be very revealing about who we are - if you accept the notion that what we read forms who we are.

So without further ado, here are the first 10 books that I read as a kid (I define that as pre-college) and that have stuck with me through the years:

1. Dinosaurs! No particular book, but lots of 'em! One of the first I ever wrote a book report about, in Fourth Grade, was a 500-page tome all about dinos. The teacher called my parents in to consult because she thought I lied; no little kid would read 500 pages of nonfiction. Bafangu to her!

1. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle


2. The Grand Tour, Miller and Hartmann (SF art and astronomy - what's not to love?)


3. Rocketship Galileo, Robert Heinlein


4. Dune, Frank Herbert


5. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov


6. DAW Year's Best Anthologies, ed. Donald A. Wollheim (borrowed 'em all from the library)


7. Survive the Coming Nuclear War, Ronald Cruit (Cold-War era nonfiction)


8. 1984, George Orwell


9. The Road to Science Fiction #3, ed. James Gunn


10. Watership Down, Richard Adams

What are yours? Feel free to meme this!

Best,
Chris