I don't remember the book, but I do remember what it was about vwey clearly. It went something like this. A Apple B Ball C Cat etc...
The first book I ever read was seriously a book on biology for children. I even remember the first word I read out of it. It was "Gill," which was right next to an illustration of a fish with an arrow pointing to it's gill. Got candy for that. lol Up to that point I had books like it, only for the illustrations and the others were read to me. Had to learn how to read, though. My father had just got an NES with Final Fantasy. It was an RPG so the dialogue had important clues. At first he would read me what happened on screen, but he eventually got tired of it. So I had to speed things up, y'know? -SIN
God, I can't really remember that far back, but the first book I actually remember reading was Franny K. Stein: Lunch Walks Among Us (the first in the series) by Jim Benton when I was 7. I loved the series so much to the point that I wanted my 8th birthday party to be themed around it. My mom sure had a blast trying to find decorations for it on Amazon that year.
The first proper book I read to completion was 'All quiet on the Western Front' by Eric Maria Remarque. Depicts World War One. A very good book that inspired my writing.
The first book I read was in 2016 and I was 29. It was Jules Verne's Around The World in Eighty Days. It was a collection, I then read 20, 000 Leagues Under The Sea Journey To The Center Of The Earth From The Earth To The Moon Around The Moon
I suddenly recall children's book I read as a child. Little Dracular's Christmas (If not Count Munch, this chocolate eating vampire). I remember I had both of those books. Or perhaps Garfield's pocket book collection. This was this first Garfield book I remember owning, if not maybe the first book? I went on to have a couple of Garfield pocket books, I know that much, but this might have been the first book I read.
"Emily's Run Away Imagination" by Beverly Cleary. Mind you, I read it out loud because I hadn't learned how to read in my head yet. I see tons of Enid Blyton fans here which makes me super happy. Anyone remember "The Island of Adventure" with Kiki the parrot?
The first book I ever read had “look” imprinted on every single page. Guess that’s the first word I even learned to read. I’ve tried to do a search for this book on amazon but could not find it.
I can't remember a first but Captain Underpants was definitely my favorite series as a kid. I wasn't a huge reader back then but that series always had me hyped for the Scholastic book fair every year.
Probably Curious George picture books and later Tintin, Asterix comic book type graphic novels. Scott
I was going to say ‘Janet & John’ series but it must have been ‘Peter and Jane.’ 73/1974. Then Tintin, in Dutch, living in Holland. And then finally living in Iran the only English books available were the NEL classics like Ivanhoe/Tom Sawyer + comics (airmail). School followed the US curriculum so I’m always trying to track down school texts, titles like ‘Lions & Tigers/Dinosaurs - on the edge of my memories...and the school magazine telling us Jimmy Carter cut speed to 55. Then the refinery exploded behind us all and we were thrown from our desks. [text post on the night shift ]
Oh, not the first book I ever read but the book I wish I had read first and that I could re-read again and re-read again..... Terry Brooks "Magic Kingdom.....For Sale" I LOVED that book but one downside is that after reading his "best" work (my opinion) I really didn't like his other work. I didn't hate the other books but they just didn't live up to "Magic Kingdom....For Sale" so it was disappointing. Scott
NO way can I remember either the first book I read or the first one I picked up myself out of actual interest. The earliest one I can remember as a child was called A Child's Garden of Verses, though there were probably others before that. And I really couldn't say for sure, but the earliest one I remember buying was when I was probably around 12 or 13 and my mom took me to the new mall and told me to stay in the book stores until she had finished her shopping. There was a B. Dalton and a Waldenbooks, one almost directly above the other. I remember telling her when she came to get me that I had found a book with 2 of my favorite characters in it, the werewolf and Doc Savage. I had never heard of Doc Savage until I pulled that book off the shelf, but on reading the blurb I decided right then and there he was my new favorite character. Pretty sure I had read a lot of books of my own choosing before that, probably from the library, but for the life of me I can't remember what they were.
- Elli, here's an apple. Lola, here's another. Anna, here's apples. - Apples, Mimi. Come Mimi, come. Come, apples (like) honey. Learning the "M" letter. Oh Mimi!
I never completed a book be it Slash's biography or Goosebumps as a kid / I started reading them, but I never finished.. Unless The Simpsons and Garfield comics count (Futurama too). I also read guitar magazines and running magazines; like Europe's Total Guitar and Runner's World UK. First time I read a book that I finished and was a book (and not a comic) was 29.
That would almost definitely be one of The Famous Five books by Enid Blyton. I couldn't tell you which one I picked up first, but it must have been one of those. I had a thing for George Kirrin. Oh, unless wildlife encyclopedias count. I was obsessed with the close up pictures of all kind of critters and it had a horror element too. Those books were as big as my head then and I could never be sure if the next page opened a full sized picture of a wolf spider right in my face.
I doubt they were the first kids' novels I read, but the earliest I can remember for sure were The Hardy Boys. I must have read a dozen of them, if not twice that. When I visited my grandmother, I would walk to the library with my Walkman playing Weird Al or Michael Jackson and check out a mystery. Wow. That memory just made me very happy.
You've restarted my interest in comics. Doc Savage was awesome. I think they tried to re-introduce the character at some point but he didn't catch on. I have some graphic novels on my shelves and how's a good time to re-read them. Groo the Wanderer. Star Wars. The Hulk series "Hulk World." Hulk was never one of my favourite characters, too one dimensional but I did like that storyline. Regards comics and affordability, DC has "Showcase" and Marvel has "Marvel Masterpieces" (I think) which are black and white reprints of their older titles for about $20. They are around 400 pages so pretty good buy for the story. No color though so the art isn't very vivid. Anyways....my local library has a graphic novel section. I hope most do now.
I think the first was technically a thesaurus my dad and I read together. Although I'm sure there might have been some picture books before then. I don't remember those, so I can't say. The first that I can remember fully reading by myself was the Ranger's Apprentice. Awesome YA series imo.
@Cdn Writer Yeah, there were Doc Savage Comic books too. I remember the big black-and-white ones, and I think there were also regular comic-sized color ones too, but I was talking about the Bantam reprints of the original pulp stories: They were written under the pen name Kenneth Robeson, which included several actual authors, but mainly it was a guy named Lester Dent, who would crank them out like one a week, or at the very least one a month if I remember right. When he wanted a vacation he'd write up three or four in a row and send them in to get some time off. But since you brought up comics in the context of Doc Savage, I gotta spew some fun info now. Doc Savage arrived on the pulp scene in the early 30's. His name was Clark Savage Jr, he was specially trained form birth to be a physical superman and a mental genius, and he had a dome at the North Pole called his Fortress of Solitude where he stored weapons and stuff too dangerous to fall into the hands of the wrong people (usually after he took them from super-criminals). He used to wear a specially designed vest under his shirt with pockets all over it containing all kinds of miniaturized gadgets he used to fight crime (even though no matter how torn up his shirt gets you can never see it under there). His creator said he was supposed to be a mix of Tarzan and Sherlock Holmes (a doctor and a savage). Very shortly afterwards along came Superman and Batman. Both were based in large part on Doc Savage. Similarities with Superman—Both named Clark, both have a Fortress of Solitude at the north pole that's for storage of too-deadly weapons as well as for a meditation retreat of sorts. And Doc Savage was frequently referred to as a superman. Also, Doc was known as the Man of Bronze. 'Nuff said. Similarities with Batman—Batman is often referred to as the World's Greatest Detective. He was also supposed to be a mix between Sherlock Holmes and Tarzan, though he patrols the jungles of the city. Bats' utility belt is based on D. S.'s utility vest (which was called that). After his rather rocky beginning Batman developed his policy of not killing—one Doc Savage had from the beginning. Stan Lee has said Doc Savage really kicked off the whole superhero team thing. He had a team of helpers known as the Fabulous Five. There was an ongoing rivalry between two of them, Monk Mayfair and Ham Brooks. Monk was so-called because he resembled an ape with hair like rusty orange nails all over his body. He served largely as the inspiration for The Thing of the Fantastic Four, always arguing with Johnnie Storm. I haven't checked the timeline, but I wonder if James Bond's miniaturized gadgets owe a debt to Doc Savage as well? Looks like the first 007 book was in 1953. By that time the idea could have filtered through several other incarnations, so Fleming might not have directly been aware of Doc Savage (or maybe he was, no telling without research).
