At the suggestion of sundry commenters, Troppo is pleased to present a poll on books that you read as a kid that had a great impact on you. It's quite a nice exercise in nostalgia and reflection, and seems appropriate to me because today's my birthday! Please nominate ten. If you want to be specific about books that you read before the age of 13 and between 13 and 17, that's fine, but I'm happy to give people free rein to post what they like. I'll leave the thread open for a week and then collate the results.
I loved Asterix and Tintin when I was in Primary School, the first "literary great" I read was Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, and I devoured science fiction and fantasy books through High School, including some by authors whom I still love such as Michael Moorcock, Mervyn Peake, Ursula LeGuin and Philip K. Dick. My first published work was a letter to the editor of the venerable science fiction mag Analog in 1981... I lost my copy, but it was really excellent to find it by chance in a second hand book shop late last year!
One of the neat things about Asterix and Tintin was that they were both available in French, which I started learning in Grade 7 - Asterix also in Latin! I also loved Antoine de Saint-Exupery's Little Prince, and later in High School, Camus and Baudelaire. Reading the New Testament in French was also profoundly fascinating for a kid.
NOTE: Image source - Montreal Extreme.
ELSEWHERE: Georg has some interesting reflections on kids' books (including the politics of children's literature) over at her book blog, Stack.
UPDATE: I might leave the post open for a few more days, because I'm too tired tonight to compile the results, and because I think it's been an extremely interesting thread and I'd like to give any latecomers the chance to add their thoughts.
Mark, you can do this however you like, of course, especially since it's your birhday. But I think Nabakov and Rob had a particular reason for limiting it to when we were children. If you go up to 17, it will become a discussion of books in general. And there will be no obvious cut-off. I read Anna Karenina when I was 17 and The Brothers Karamazov when I was 20. Was the former childhood reading and the other not? 12 is a good cut-off if we want to focus on pre-adolescent influences.
Point taken, James, but I think asking people to nominate books up to the age of 12 and afterwards preserves the intent, as the categories are clearly delineated. I think it's also interesting to note how books we read as kids (eg Anna Karenina) can often be experienced and understood quite differently when reread later in life (and indeed this is one of the joys of rereading great books) and I'd like to give people space to comment on that as well if they want.
James, I've changed the post to make two categories - up til age 12, then 13-17.
By a mile: Willard Price's "Adventure" stories.
I really liked the Donald Duck comics by Carl Barks when I was small. Science fiction was very big, too.
By the way, I finally found a Swedish blog that I like:
http://www.spectator.se/stambord/
Herge IS a literary great. So you were reading literary greats in Primary School.
Tintin is a old passion of mine- I will have to post about it this afternoon.
Up till 12: Richie Rich. 12-17: The Target bra & knickers catalogue.
Tintin is indeed a great, I can still read them now and be totally lost in them.
Others that come to mind all these years after having read them: Simon French's Hey Phantom Singlet and Cannily Cannily, Ian Serrailer's Silver Sword and the Encyclopaedia Brown series, the author's name escapes me right now. Are we counting picture books? I remember finding John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat very depressing as a child. I didn't really like it but I can still remember the feeling of loneliness it gave me.
Great, Scott - really looking forward to reading your post. That's after I've gone to the Merthyr Bowls Club for a few beers and out to dinner tonight to celebrate my birthday!
Mark, I read Asterix for the puns in the characters' names: Unhygienix, Fulliautomatic and Dogmatix come to mind. Better than the French originals, I think.
I also liked Graham Oakley's stories about Church Mice (and one Church Cat too!).
Happy birthday Mark. For under 12, I throw in the Phantom and the Dr Syn series. Subversive stuff!
Under 12: Little Black Sambo. Took years to get over the effects of that charming little number.
13 - 17:Beat you to Anna Karenina by two years and the Brothers K by 5 Mr Farrell .
Before 12yrs - Reach for the Sky by Paul Brickhill about Douglas Bader
Teenage Years - George Orwell, LOTR
An interesting discovery. The first time I tried to post this I got this error message: 'Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: Lol*ta.' Another reason for Nabakov to call his blog Lalita.
I'll list authors, with favourites in brackets.
Before 13: Dr Seuss (If I Ran the Zoo*); Ruth Manning Sanders (Red Indian Folk and Fairy Tails); Herge (Destination Moon); Conan Doyle (The Lost World); PG Wodehouse (Psmith Series)
13-17: PG Wodehouse (Blandings Series); Huxley (BNW); Camus (The Plague); Nabokov (L);
Tolstoy (AK).
*GT take note: I read this at four.
Here's my ten (up to age 12), in no particular order.
1. Richmal Crompton's 'Wiliam' series. My brother and I defended William against sceptical parents by arguing it was social commentary. Mybe, maybe not. But a great window into English social mores from the 20's with its flappers to the 60s with its pop stars.
2. Padraic Colum's 'The King of Ireland's Son'. A wonderful compilation and re-telling of Irish folk stories, marvellously illustrated by Willy Podgany. Taught at the Rudolf Steiner School I went to in England until the age of 9 but great anyway.
3. The 'Biggles' books. Can't claim to have read them all by age 12, but a fair few of them, including 'Biggles Flies East' - a well-coonstructed story of WWI intrigue - and 'Biggles Hits the Trail' - quite imaginative stab at science fiction, featuring a sinister Asian (of course!) plan to conquer the world using death rays and invisibility. Most of the post-WWII stories are markedly inferior in style and content. The real nature of Biggles' relationship with Ginger remains the subject of heated debate in some circles.
4. As Tony T says - the Willard Price 'Adventure' series. Stories of two teenagers doing Indiana Jones type things without the metaphysics. There was one set ihn the Amazon that I thought was particularly good.
5. 'The Weirdstone of Brisingamen' by Alan Garner. Along roughly the same kind of lines as The Lord of the Rings but for my money much better told in a fraction the space.
6. Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.
7. A retelling of the Mahabarata by Donald Mackenzie. Also the Ramayana. Can't pretend I understood either but loved the stories.
8. The 'Carey' series of historical novels by Ronald Welch, espeically 'Knight Crusader' and 'For the King'.
9. Twelfth Night and Hamlet - my parents were Shakespeare nuts.
10. Barbara Leonie Picard's retelling of European folk stories, especially ''Scandinavian Legends and Folk tales', which later led to a life-lonf love of the music of Sibelius.
Yes, I was a book-wormy little snit.
Up to 12 it was the typical boys diet of Biggles, Secret Seven and Boys Own Annual, etc. We weren't allowed to buy comics, so you stored em and read em at the mates who could. Among the plethora of war comics at the time, 'Battler Briton', the Spitfire ace was a favourite. The Phantom was mandatory and Archie and Jughead comics appealed to your age group, for what you could aspire to as a teenager. (I was fascinated at what the funny sounding and looking 'pizza' was at the time.)
Got an interest in the classics from the family 'Newnes Pictorial Encyclopaedia'. The exquisite lithographs, paintings and drawings accompanying the great historical tales of ancient Greece, Rome, etc as well as the great fables and myths, couldn't help but fire the imagination and life interest. They would impress another generation in my son and daughter(King Midas'Touch one of her favourite bedtime stories)
WARNING: contains sherlock holmes spoilers.
sherlock holmes of course
vampire stories
ghost stories
ripley's believe it or not
UFO stuff
sci-fi/fantasy generally (more in my summative years than formative)
I like the fact that sci-fi/fantasy is philosophy guised as fiction but most don't get it I find.
I couldn't remember all that for a while
oddly enough a few months back I read the Holmes story where he "died". I read it on the web.
When read in older age it is quite clear his "death" is an opium induced psychosis and there was no Moriarty and no mystery or anything, just a goose chase.
Primary school - Mister Men books (Mister Topsy Turvy was really cool), Asterix & Obelix (well past my bed-time), Choose your own Adventure books (It always bloody took me several attempts to finish the story as I'd pick the wrong option and my character would be killed or captured. Mind you you could cheat and look for good ending and think backwards looking for the connecting page linkage. But all those failed choices that would emulate my life. Those books are so like the Kierkegaard dictum that life could be understood if only it was lived backwards.)
Also had my obsessions of buying every book on dinosaurs (Y1-3), explorers (Y3), bushrangers (Y4), astronomy (y5), rocks (y6). I was a real non-fiction person until about Year 10 when we got to the real stuff
High School - (Y8) The one exception, Greek mythology, greek mythology and more greek mythology. I still have many of these books too. I didn't realise at the time that many of these were the classic Greek stories, they were just so entertaining. I mean if the God I was taught about at high school had turned out more like Zeus than the spiteful creature from the wowser brigade I might have taken to him briefly. Mind you my scripture teacher I had makes the one in Joyce's "Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man" seem timid. I've often wondered were they found this nutter, whatever the case it certainly prejudiced my view of religious people for many years. He came across as shifty as one of those time-share salesmen using every rhetorical and fear-inducing tactic possible. He went from scary pronouncements of lake-of-fire to becoming a figure of ridicule in a matter of months. Looking back, he must have ruined a lot of vinyl records playing them backwards, and he didn't even realise record-scratching was so the 80s, Morris Major's "Stutter Rap" was meant to be ironic wasn't it. Needless to say, my reading of the Bible was limited to the passages to gain the reward of Mars Bars and Cherry Ripes from the nicer Scripture teacher.
What else, I remember "I am David" was quite a good piece of childrens literature providing many young people with their first knowledge about the Holocaust and "Harp in the South" about old Sydney I can recall reading. I read a couple of James Bond novels though I can only remember "Goldfinger" as I was to play Oddjob in the re-enactment. I read quite a few Dungeons and Dragons spin-off novels as I was playing that game fanatically - mind you after a while the novels wore a bit thin, still enjoyed the roleplaying on the weekend however.
Umm, my parents made me read Jeffrey Archer, which I don't think I ever finished. Fortunately, I don't take much notice of my parent's tastes anymore, and from that experience you can see why.
"Frankenstein" was probably my first major literary book (about Y9 I think). Then of course in advanced years you start to hit the good stuff, and once you hit Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, William Blake, Arthur Miller and so on there is no turning back.
Must admit now being a big Melville fan that at 17 I was too young to appreciate "Moby Dick", the same goes for Patrick White. Mind you novels like "The Vivisector" and "Riders in the Chariots" probably appeal to a more mature reader, Vivisector in particular is an extraordinary novel.
Asterix. Tintin. Lots of Doctor Who novelisations. Untold numbers of comics. Comics by Disney when I was really little (liked Donald Duck best, always have done too), after which I latched onto British comics like 2000AD. Never took to American comics in the same way. I liked sci-fi, which I mostly absorbed through comics and TV and films. Didn't read many actual SF books, though I did read Asimov's Foundation series when I was 12. To be honest, I wonder now just how many books of any sort I did read back when I were a little 'un. Have I just forgot all the ones I did read, or did I just not read that many? Certainly I know I never read any of your standard "children's lit" like the Narnia books. Those corrupting 32-page things from the UK with stories of 5-6 pages per issue seem to have been my real reading material back then more than those rectangular objects of paper, cardboard, ink and glue.
Not until I latched onto H.P. Lovecraft when I was 14 did I have a real defining, life-changing experience with literature, though.
Incidentally, when I first tried to post this, I got the following message:
"Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content"
...the questionable content being the first three letters of the word "comics" after the word "Disney".
Oh -- and LOTS of Choose Your Own Adventure books, and books like them, e.g. the Steve Jackson stuff. I did forget about those until I saw Stephen's comment.
Until 9: The Amazing Spiderman, Uncanny X-men and Fantastic Four.
What I learned:
1) Science is cool
2) With great power comes great responsibility
3) Difference can be cool (i.e. mutants)
4) A little bit of radioactivity can't kill you. If you're lucky it might even give you superpowers.
And they say comics aren't educational!
9 onwards - The Hardy Boys, Ivanhoe, The Black Arrow, Robin Hood, Treasure Island, Sherlock Holmes
Aesop's Fables, The Hobbit, Charlie Brown's Cyclopedias.
Strewth, did I read a lot.
Blyton, Magic Pudding, Mary Grant Bruce, Arthur Ransome, some Biggles, Little Black Sambo, the Brothers Grimm, Kipling, Conan Doyle, Haggard, a huge range of fifties and sixties SF, Just William, Peter Dawlish, Alistair Maclean, CS Forester, horrifying boarding skool books, Molesworth, Swift, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Mee's Encyclopaedia, Dan Dare, the cornflakes packet..
And later: Orwell, Alfred Duggan, Wilkie Collins, Naomi Mitchinson, Tolkien, Joseph Heller, John Wyndham, Isaac Asimov, J.G. Ballard, Flashman, Shakespeare, Dryden, Tennyson, Grimmelshausen, GB Shaw, Conrad, Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Mervyn Peake, Fred Hoyle.
I had an imperial education.
How could I forget "Hobbit", "Lord of the Rings"
Also, for some reason the comments refuse any discussion of the "Lone Star State". You will have to call it Txoos like a Kiwi or somefing.
Before the gae of twelve it was pretty hard to get me away from anything Enid Blyton. Though Brer Rabbit got a look in from time to time.
Vee, I love the way you're able to distinguish between formative and summative. At some point, they made it compulsory on unit outlines (now by administrative decree called "Week One Documents" following a lawsuit by full fee-paying international students) at QUT to state whether any given piece of assessment (for instance a research essay) was "formative" or "summative". None of us academics understood the difference, so we could work out that end of semester exams were probably summative but in the absence of being able to make a meaningful distinction, informally decided to call every other piece of assessment "formative and summative". Whatever!
Stephen, I should have remembered the Doctor Who novelisations. Everyone I know is so excited at the moment that Leila is on the ABC again. I know C.L. knows what I'm talking about...
But did the writers ever quite capture the televisual Dalek?
And James R, Asimov's "Foundation" series actually inspired my younger sister and me to replay the death of the Roman empire in an endless series of fascinating games in the sandpit - possibly helped along by the fact that "I, Claudius" screened on the teev just after we got colour tv. Which led me to Robert Graves, and my first reading of Seutonius when I was ten and Brian took us on holiday to Canberra and the Snowies. I also had a brilliant illustrated book of Roman history - the pictorials of the Rape of the Sabine Women (from some neo-classical artist - it didn't look at all violent - but amazingly enticing marble coloured women with big breasts do stuff for ten year old boys) and then to reading Graves himself, and a continuing obsession with Empires which probably informs my political take and my academic work to this day. I was also given a 19th century illustrated version (in folio size) of Dante's Inferno (pics by Dore) which I still have and which badly needs rebinding - which got me thinking about heaven and hell in very stark terms. It's so fabulous to reminisce about all this, and I suspect that we are all - those of us at least who love reading which I assume is true of all blogosphere denizens - are marked by what we read as kids in far more ways than we know.
Oh, and fellow Tolstoy fans - I read (or tried to read) Anna Karenina when I was 9 after I saw the BBC series on the teev (see above remark about the wonders of colour tv) and fell absolutely in love with the actress playing the eponymous heroine.
I'm also fondly reminiscing about discovering Tolkien - who is always tied up for me with the 'Tres Riche Heures de Duc de Berry' because when we (my sister and I) used to go to Brian's flat at Clayfield when I was 9 I used to salivate over his partner (now wife and mother of my brother) Margot's illustrated copy of the said book as well as her edition of LOTR (the cool one volume 70s paperback).
Can I reiterate my total agreement with Georgina's motto - on her excellent blog Stack - "There's more to life than books you know, but not much more". I wish Georg would write more about politics on Terminological Inexactitude, but I fully understand the way she's directing her blog love...
Did I mention Sherlock Holmes - I was so excited when I bought a volume of the stories at the bookshop in the Kenmore shopping centre for $1.95 in 1979? I can still remember how new and glossy it looked (OUP volume from memory - I still have Asimov, Delany, some Moorcock, Anna Karenina and sundry sf paperbacks in my library from primary school days) and how I couldn't wait to read it after paying my 5c for the bus fair home along Kenmore Road...
Spelling bee:
Suetonius
Les Tres Riche Heures du Duc de Berry.
Spelling bee part II:
bus fare.
ps - Re - spam filters blocking comments. The Lone Star State attracts massive spam due to a certain card game allegedly originally played there. Nothing to do with its famous sons such as George W. Bush (or LBJ for that matter)... as to James Russell's problem, I can only assume that RWDBs have induced Movable Type to block any mention of commies anywhere on blogs.
And David, how did you pick Grimmelshausen? I bought myself a copy of Golo Mann's biography of Wallenstein for my birthday and have been fascinated for a long time by the thirty years war. I think I first heard of "Simplissimus" through a book by John Le Carre where a childhood friend quotes Grimmelshausen to the effect of "I might not always be your friend, but I will never be your enemy". If anyone can remind me of the name of the book (when you're in your mid 30s as I now am, your memory seems to decline precipitously) I'd be so grateful. Perhaps because the thirty years war is related to my thesis, I've thus far only read historical treatments of it, despite Grimmelshausen and Gunter Grass' "The Meeting at Telgte" both being on my bookshelf and marked "to read urgently".
My list for 13-17 would be:
* Anything I could find by Charles Dickens
* The comedies of Thorne Swift (e.g. 'Skin and Bones' - great prohibition era writing)
* Arthur Conan Doyle's non-SH stuff ('The Lost World', the historical romances)
* Two really good books by a probably forgotten (by everyone else) author, Su Walton, called 'Here Before Kilroy and 'Horace Sippog and the Siren's Song' - has anyone else read these? I've never come across anyone that has....but they're great. She wrote a third book called 'The Grasshopper' which was nowhere near as good
* Angela Carter's 'The Infernal Desires of Dr Hoffman' - first encounter with one of the 20th century's most imaginative writers
* Any book with old maps in it
* 'Tell Them in Sparta' by Roderick Milton, about the Spartans at Thermopylae and subsequent battles between the Greeks and Persians
* Paul Gallico, especially 'The Man Who Was Magic', 'The Snow Goose' and 'The Hand of Mary Constable'
* The early Alistair Maclean books (the later ones are dire)
* Leonard Cottrell's popular archaeology books (e.g. 'Lost Cities').
There are a number of books, mostly boys' adventure stories I would have read around ten, but whose authors and titles I can't remember after 30 years. Particular images and strong remain emotions persist but the key data swim tantalisingly out of reach under the surface, like the details of powerful dream you try to recall after waking up. Someone complained, on the thread that inspired this one, about his parents' secretly disposing of loved books. It's a crime. Does anyone remember:
A book about lost gold bars with a vilain who tossed sultanas in the air and caught them in his mouth?
A book about a Viking adventure, where the main characters are mostly killed off one by one, and the charasmatic young hero reveals himself in a battle at the end to be a 'berserk'?
A book about a young boy growing up in a village on the Congo?
James, can't help with 1 and 3 but the second sounds as if it could have been by either Rosemary Sutcliff or Robert E. Howard.
Ouch - should have been 'The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr Hoffman'. Sorry, Angela (sadly now deceased).
i see this formative fiction poll goes up until the age of 17
well, ages 12-14 was occupied with arthur c clarke (have read almost everything he's written), stephen king, isaac asimov (the foundation series of course, and the robot stories), agatha christie (particularly hercule poirot). dipped into ayn rand but at that stage found her revolting, though i liked her atheistic writings. dipped into hayek too but at that stage, still wasn't receptive, found him boring. my one excursion into 'literary' fiction at that age was erica jong - fear of flying. that book certainly marks a formative influence on my adolescence. also remember reading irving stone's fictionalised biography of the great defence lawyer and secular humanist clarence darrow and that had a strong effect on me too.
15-17 - that was when i discovered nietzsche in a public library in australia and things changed - read his genealogy of morals, followed by beyond good and evil, then read a collection of existentialist writings by walter kaufman (who was the translator of the nietzsche books i read). after discovering the delights of philosophy in nietzsche i went back in time substantially and read all of plato's dialogues that i could find. also read and was briefly an affictionado of john kenneth galbraith, then i discovered skidelsky's magnificent biography of keynes, the one called 'The economist as saviour') and that was also a great formative influence.
i didn't really discover literary classics and classical liberal literature until my late teens.
And Thorne SMITH - aaaagh, not my day.
Mark you might know there's a new Annotated complete Sherlock Holmes out, edited by Leslie Klinger with an introduction with John Le Carre. Magnificently annotated and illustrated in deluxe package and paper. i just picked up one the other day though i already have a complete sherlock holmes - must have for holmes fanatics.
Thanks, Jason. Sherlock Holmes was one book from my childhood which disappeared somewhere along the line!
Jason, I agree that Skidelsky Vol.II is a surpassing masterpiece, but if you really read it before you turned 18, then you are the greatest little smarty-pants I have ever heard of, and I hate your guts. I suppose this sort of showing off by prodigies like Jason is exactly what I dreaded when I urged Mark to keep it to under 13.
hmm i just realised again this is supposed to be about formative fiction so technically my comments about skidelsky, etc are disqualified tho i suppose a postmodernist could argue all narratives are fiction unless experienced first hand.
yes, i do remember picking up skidelsky's bio all nice and shiny from blacktown public library and it influenced my final high school year and uni choices. if it's any consolation, james, i also checked the General Theory out from the school library but couldn't make much sense of it except for the first few chapters so i couldn't list it as a formative influence.
Before 13: Catch 22 Papillon and Banco Tove Janssons's "Moomintroll" series. The Narnia books The Hobbit Sword in the Stone Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time" Coral Island Lotus Caves The Lost Prince
In that case I'll have an extra five pre-13:
The Coral Island, The Swiss Family Robinson, The Wooden Horse, The White Company, The Woman in White*.
*This may have been the abridged version but I I've no doubt Jason Soon read the complete one (at seven).
Sorry, I didn't realize it was 10 distributed over the two age brackets. Mine were in more or less descending order of "formativeness".
Gaby, no, you can have ten of each.
excellent poll, Mark! Here's mine: 1.Tintin books 2.Asterix books 3.Leon Garfield novels--esp Black Jack, Smith, Devil in the Fog; 4. Katherine, by Anya Seton(a gorgeous, romantic, intelligent historical novel) 5. Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier 6.The Hill of the Red Fox, by Alistair Campbell McLean(started me off, at the age of 12, on a life-long love affair with all things Celtic) 7. Alan Garner--The Owl Service 8. Tove Jannsson--Finn Family Moomintroll 9. Capitaine Fracasse, Theophile Gauthier--a fantastic, swashbuckling 19th century French novel 10. The Blue Book of Fairy Tales--not the Andrew Lang version but a Little Golden Book comprising Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty and Toads and Diamonds, which was the first book I ever read in English, at the age of 5 or so.
I'm surprised only one person (that I noticed) mentions the Narnia books. Reading The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe when I was about 10 was a revelation to me (of the non-religious type). I read the rest of the series within the next week. I felt euphoric. So they were certainly formative for me. I also had a big passion for Biggles books when I was 12, collected an entire shelf-full. And I read Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series and many many Rosemary Sutcliff books. I read a lot of Australian books - my mother usually gave me the Children's Book of the Year for Christmas and I still own them today, but I can't recall all the titles - there was 'February Dragon' by Colin Thiele (a bushfire tragedy) and some books by Eleanor Spence. I would recommend a book by Francis Spufford called "The Child that Books Built', a personal history of childhood reading - it's brilliant.
I read Narnia too - starting with The Magician's Nephew one beach holiday. My mother read 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' to 3 of us - that's the best, isn't it? Alice in Wonderland. Milly-Molly-Mandy. Books that belonged to my mother. They seemed like Ancient texts. Blyton by the dozen. The Faraway stories were the most enchanting. Seven Little Australians. Coles Funny Picture Books Magic Pudding. "This book belomgs to boynton. Age seven and a half" A Beautiful Encyclopeadia that was my absoloute fave for about a year. An obsession with Charlie Brown. Second hand Girl's Crystal books - for the picture stories. All the Anne and Emily books by L.M Montgomery took me out of childhood.
I was just about to mention Francis Spufford''s "The Child that Books Built'. It's a great and original read, as is his "Backroom Boys: The Secret Return of the British Boffin" (with Dan Dare panels for each chapter heading).
As to my childhood reading list, I'll have to wait until I get home and consult my bookshelves.
"Backroom Boys"
At last! A title I recognise! Though come to think of it, I think I picked up the movie version in Fyshwick when I was much older...........
For real readers, like many who have posted already, who would have read anything and everything that came in sight or could be begged or borrowed, it is a huge ask to stop at 10 memorable books or authors. First some strange gaps, Tintin which I only found when buying books for my own children and the Nania series (thanks susoz) the same story. Anyway, here goes, Tanglewood Tales (Nathaniel Hawthorn's modification of Greek myths), Baa Baa, AA Milne, The Marmalade Cat, Arthur Mees Encyclopedia (purchased by a thoughtful aunt), big bound volumes of Boys Own Paper (circa 1905-1918), Biggles, CS Forester, Donald Duck and friends, the ABC Children's Hour with the Argonauts and the Muddle-Headed Wombat, Banjo Patterson's ballads and Rudyard Kipling, especially the Just So Stories. The Cat that Walked by Itself was probably formative, although living on an isolated farm there was not much alternative to walking by myself. A footnote to the Muddle Headed Wombat stories, some time later I met and married a daughter of Ruth Park, Kilmeny, now the Webmistress of the Rathouse, a versatile and brilliant artist in her own right as you can see from her website (click signature to access). Sometime on Catallaxy I will post on the importance of libraries, with a meditation on formative libraries that I have known, starting with the strange collection of old books at home and moving on through the library at Hytten Hall (Tas Uni) where I encountered Jacques Barzun, Graham Greene, Arthur Koestler, Aldous Huxley, Balzac's Droll Stories and much else. The age group 12 to 17 takes in my secondary school years where cricket books dominated but I want to pay tribute to my friend William Gray, now a philosopher in Brisvegas, who introduced me to Mad Magazine and The Lord of the Rings. This comment has been screened to eliminate names known to give offence to cs.
Stuff this ten until then and then ten after then crap. Sounds like a grownup talking. Whaddya gonna do Mark? Lights out early? I have a torch stashed under the mattress. So I'm gonna approach this in loose chronological and thematic order, mainly focusing on fiction so you won't be bored shitless by lists of all my "To The Stars In Von Braun's rocketships"
Oh, Tintin and Asterix (and Lucky Luke) goes without saying. And I've thought about what I just posted and the Narnia books are still crap.
The "Commando" comics were good though.
Up to 13:
All of Blyton
Ian Serraillier - the Silver Sword
Kylie Tennant
Rudyard Kipling
Laura Ingalls Wilder - The little House series
Len Evers - The Racketty St Gang (sticks in my mind. A group of raggedy-arsed, working class kids living in dilapidated harbourside housing in Sydney - now worth about 5 million bucks)
Morris West
Ion Idriess
The Brothers Grimm
Hans Christian Andersen
Banjo Paterson
Mrs Aeneas Gunn
Much more................
This is mostly from memory and my dusty bookshelf
<13 - Tintin, Asterix, Huck Fin, Chales Dickens stuff, A good proportion of the Goosebumps series, Famous Five, standard Paul Jennings and Co. books, Elfking, Bunicula the Vampire Rabbit (I was 6, it scared me cray), anything relayed to King Arthur, a whole lot of religiously-motived fiction (thanks parents).
13-17 - Anything Larry Niven wrote, any Golden Age Classic sci-fi (70s mostly), Earthsea, Daivd Gemmel's Drenai stuff, The Hobbit, Terry Pratchet (still much to read there), The "Pagan" series.
An enjoyable journey, Nabakov. As it happens I eliminated Branestawm to get down to ten because I was trying to follow the RULES. I also deleted Solla Sollew (objectively the best) in favour of If I ran the Zoo (the one whose memory gives me goose bumps). And I'd forgooten all about good old Tom Swift, so thanks for that.
Boynton and Yobbo mentioned Charlie Brown. That was a family obsession in the 70s. Last year I brought down a carton of thirty odd Peanuts books that had been rotting in a cupboard in Brisbane for two decades (all stuck together). My seven-year-old devoured them in about three weeks. He would read them out loud on car trips - with great flair, when he wasn't in convulsions of laughter.
Geoff: I can't think of a delicate way to put this, but isn't Laura Ingalls Wilder for, um, you know...
interesting factoid of the day- Laura Ingalls Wilder was the mother of Rose Wilder Lane, the libertarian activist who heavily edited her mother's books to give them the 'appropriate' political slant:
http://www.fp.ucalgary.ca/unicomm/Gazette/Feb18-03/house.htm
Rose tailored the family's personal history to make it appear more isolated and self-reliant, when in fact her mother's family had neighbors and kin just down the road. Indians have been erased in the Wilder version of the American West
If you want libertarian fiction for the young 'uns, why fuck around with a little house on the federally subsidized prairie when you can have Nemo's "Nautilus" or Robur's "Albatross"
"Geoff: I can't think of a delicate way to put this, but isn't Laura Ingalls Wilder for, um, you know.."
Yes James. I also enjoyed "Little Women" and "Anne of Green Gables" but I never took them to footy practice.
OK, now I can admit I read my sister's Nancy Drew books. I thought it would be bad for morale if I let this out.
Thanks James, now I can admit to scanning some of the readers handed out to kids at the Catholic school, very moralistic, I remember a cautionary tale about a farmboy who played with a gun in the barn and accidentally wounded his sister.
Nabokov mentioned the Moomintroll books. I never read these as a child but have been reading them to my own child and they are indeed wonderful. There is a BBC audio tape of them read by Hugh Laurie which is brilliant. (I recommend checking out an ABC Shop children's section audio tapes/CDs - many of them can be enjoyed by adults.) The Narnia books may not withstand adult scrutiny (as I am finding on re-reading them to my son) but they were perfectly geared to me as a 10 year old.
as a kid i remmeber loving the Bottersnikes and Gumbles series, set in the Australian bush, full of these utterly bizarre characters. anyone else remember them?
Mr Meddles Muddles (the ONLY Enid Blyton I possessed!)
Nancy Drew
Carrie
Jaws
An Episode of Sparrows -- Rumer Godden
The Secret Garden
Little Women
Jo's Boys
Pollyanna
What Katy Did
Jane Austen
Georgette Heyer
Mary Stewart (the romantic adventures, not the Merlin books)
Lots of awful Victorian romances ("The Minister's Daughter' for instance -- they had such beautiful covers!)
Dorothy Eden
Daphne Du MAurier
Victoria Holt
Somerset Maugham (short stories)
Katherine Mansfield
Chekhov
Oscar Wilde
Noel Coward
GBS
Read with torch at night(& stashed under the mattress during the day)
The Story Of O
The Bible
Many many Mills & Boons
'my first reading of Seutonius when I was ten'
I was a little older when I first (ahem) came across him but once was not enough for me either... my mind, and a few other things, boggled. Old Tiberius was a rascal wasn't he? Like Jason I also succumbed to Mum's Fear of Flying, re-reading some pages (the Zipless fuck in particular) several times (for as long as you could separate the pages) and the comparison of bogs around the world has stayed with me too. Left-handed reads, as someone once said. I'm sure there's more to them than that and one day I might get around to discovering what it is.
Blyton blighted my pre-adolescent reading, leavened with some Gallico and then puberty was negotiated with the help of S.E. Hinton (Outsiders etc) After that, I thumbed thru The Hobbit and some other sci-fi and fantasy stuff, enjoying it less than I thought I was supposed to (or 'than my mates did')... R E Howard's Conan exercised a hold for a while and I also recall enjoying Seven Little Australians, but my
fancying one of the daughters in the TV adaptation may account for that. Then Cormier's Chocolate War (chilling from memory) Papillon, Catch 22 (I think picked up from Mum's Uni reading) and Vonnegut, who was perhaps my first 'favourite novelist', at about 14 or so.
The first really good book, the first 'wow' factor book I remember reading was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at about 15 or 16, after loving the movie. I only needed to read a few pages to know it was head and shoulders above anything else so far. Recently read Kesey's next book, Sometimes a Great Notion, and it's even better.
Oh and undie catalogues from whoa to go.
Glenn, I was always barracking for Tiberius against all Augustus' other putative successors...
What a rich reading childhood so many of you had! Most of my life up to 12 years was as a farm boy in the 1940s attending a one teacher Lutheran Day school. We got electricity in 1951 when I was 11 so reading was done around the kitchen table where the 'Aladdin' lamp was, in bed with a hurricane lantern or on rainy days (ie on weekends or school holidays only, we went to school unless the creek was up.)
The fare was Biggles, the William books, heaps of Westerns (Zane Grey et al), books about horses (Black Beauty, My Friend Flicka, Thunderbolt), and some better stuff like Robbery Under Arms, We of the Never Never and something by Ion Idress.
A few reading experiences stand out in the memory.
I recall reading Anne of Green Gables (my sister's no doubt) curled up in the loading ramp at the pigsty. I had my trusty rifle with me and was waiting for crows to lob into the trees above the pig pens. I thought Anne... was very evocative and liked to read a bit to crank myself up if we had an essay coming up at school.
One Thursday the teacher opened up the glass casement and got out the 50 or so discoloured books that comprised our school library, giving us each one to take home to read. I got the Story of Pinnochio which turned me on to works of the imagination for life.
The next week I got Robin Hood. That was good too, but I was so engrossed that I didn't hear my dad tell me to get a load of wood in. When he came back from feeding the pigs and found me with my nose still in a book and no wood brought in the razor strap and my backside got a good workout.
Three experiences from a largely wasted 12-17 period.
First reading Shakespeare in Classic Comics on the 12 hour train trip from boarding school. One character (in Macbeth, I think) said "Twas a rough night!"
Second, an older boy showing me the school library. It was a co-ed school and looking through the louvres on Saturday was the best place to watch the girls play what is now called netball. Then pulling down a copy of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales which fell open at a certain page.
Third reading Emil Brunner's Christianity and Civilisation (he was a Swiss theologian) at 15 and stunning the heavies from the seminary in Adelaide with the profundity of my questions at the Youth Camp in Coolum. The Lutherans had just bought a stunning bit of real estate they still own on top of a hill there.
God was obviously bothering me. But my real reading didn't start until I left the brigalow scrub and went to university. Later I spent a fair bit of time making sure that Qld kids following after me got a better deal.
'Then pulling down a copy of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales which fell open at a certain page.'
My money's on The Miller's Tale.
Glenn's comment on Suetonius has stimulated a thought - did anyone else get inspired to read "great literature" by tv or movie adaptations?
Maybe there's a 13 year old Brian or Brianna out there who's picked up Chaucer after watching the rather silly but fun film 'A Knight's Tale'?
Can't remember any off hand, Mark.
Glen memory fails on Chaucer also. It was over 50 years ago! I did a bit of Chaucer in English at uni, but that was also a long time ago. But, yes, I think it was the Miller's Tale. Anyway it was where he kissed her (in the dark) and he thought she had grown a beard.
I enjoyed Robert Graves' Greek Myths as a kid, but it wasn't until I saw the "I, Claudius" series that I read the Carry On Claude books, and then revisited the Bobby does Olympus tales, picking up stuff that went right over my Pallas Athena-free brow back then.
PS: Currently rereading "The White Goddess" after a couple of decades, so I can talk to trees, or at least leaves.
I enjoyed Robert Graves' Greek Myths as a kid, but it wasn't until I saw the "I, Claudius" series that I read the Carry On Claude books, and then revisited the Bobby does Olympus tales, picking up stuff that went right over my Pallas Athena-free brow back then.
PS: Currently rereading "The White Goddess" after a couple of decades, so I can talk to trees, or at least leaves.
I liked that Graves book where he does the gnostic thing about Christ's life, but I can't remember the name and I leant it to someone in 1991!
'White Goddess' is a good read - nonsense as history/anthropology of religion though.
Up until 12:
Greek myths and fables
Mad magazines
the Victorian Readers (the state, not the period)
all of James Bond
lots of science fiction (Asimov, Bradbury, HGWells)
Banjo Patterson and Henry Lawson
Then I discovered 'War and Peace' and 'Shakespeare' and the world changed.
Woops, I forgot.
Up until 12:
Lots and lots of comics: Superman, Wonderwomen, Batman etc and lots of politically incorrect war comics where men were men. The good guys, us, always won, men never cried or said sorry, women were feminine and the bad guys were always foreigners or communists.
Kevin, on comics, were you old enough, do you remember the Katzenjammer Kids?
My favourite super hero was Captain Marvel, but I think he must have died.
Also I actually liked the stories, poems etc in the Qld School Readers. So did lots of people. About 30 years after they were discontinued we did a reprint and they sold like hot cakes.
I liked the old Victorian (state) pimary school readers too. Lots of good poetry. And in one of them the story of the Marie Celeste that really haunted me. Never een able to find that particular one in any second hand bookshop
I might leave the post open for a few more days, because I'm too tired tonight to compile the results, and because I think it's been an extremely interesting thread and I'd like to give any latecomers the chance to add their thoughts.
Good Mark, leave it open a bit longer. We haven't yet touched on E.E. Nesbit, Captain Scarlett and the whole 21st Century Annuals crew, Frank Baum, Edgar Rice Burroughs and E.E "Doc" Smith.
EE Doc Smith, yes! How could I have forgotten him! The Lensman series pioneered hi-fly sci-fi well before Lucas and Spielberg. Didn't he use the verb 'rave' in unusual ways?: as in 'The death ray raved across infinite space and blasted the deadly battleship' - sort of thing. I have no convenient texts to hand, alas. And has Asimov's 'Foundation' series scored a mention yet. If not, I'd like to score it a mention.
(God, I hate these tiny comments boxes with no spellchecks.)
Yep, Asimov and Herbert too - the originals not the later overlong ones (at least Asimov didn't licence someone to keep writing after his death). And my flatmate and I have been scouring second hand shops for years to build up our E.E. Doc Smith collection...
While pursuing the 'imaginative fiction trope, what about Robert E. Howard? Best known for Conan the Barbarian, of course, but what about Solomon Kane, the austere Puritan who went around the world righting wrongs and stuff? Howard always struck me as a more virgorous, entirely un-self-concious American version of Conan Doyle (in imaginative fiction mode), not to mention a bit sexier. It's adolescent boys we're talking about after all..
On that subject, two new (are they?) entrants: Edgar Allan Poe and Ambrose Bierce. Both brilliant and pioneers in their fiield.
QX, Rob and Mark. Cool your jets.
Nabs - roger that.