Joy H. (of Glens Falls) wrote: "What was the first fairly long book you remember enjoying as a youth (beyond books for very young children)? Mine was one of the following (I can't be sure which it was):

_Little Lord Fauntleroy..."

I remember the point in first grade when I moved from struggling with "Dick and Jane" to rolling right through "A Fly Went By"--it seemed very long at the time. Sometime in second grade ('61-'62), I graduated to real books, the first being "Old Yeller." Why that? I have no idea why anyone would suggest something so sad to a seven year old. I probably grabbed it off the library shelf, liked the first page and just went for it, with no idea what I was getting myself in for. By ten, I read "Gone With the Wind," probably the longest up to that time. Motherhood was my introduction to truuuly looong books. In pregnancy, I read all the parts (3-4?) of Kristin Larensdottir (sp?) straight through, and then spent all those nighttime nursings reading "War and Peace." I guess I was practicing for being in for the long haul.

You too Ilyn.

Hello Sowmya,

Thank you. Have a marvelous day. Happy Independence Day!

Best regards.

Happy Independence Day Ilyn and everyone here!

Hello Dana, Daniel, and everyone. Have a wonderful Independence Day weekend.

I also tried reading the Grapes of Wrath and Moby Dick in high school--didn't really work out so well. Maybe the maturity level wasn't there. Or maybe the books were just boring. I remember Moby Dick had a lot of information on whaling I just didn't want to know.

i think it would have to be reading catch-22 in the eighth grade that really solidified my love for reading.

I don't know if people are still responding to this discussion, but I like the question so much I'm going to write something anyway. I don't think I've ever truly enjoyed long books--attention deficit, I suppose. That being said, I was fairly into Stephen King's IT (1000 some odd pages) for quite a while in high school before ending ruined it for me. All in all, I like to read short, well-crafted things slowly. That way if it has no ending I'm not too disappointed. Now that I've been writing for a while I get fairly impressed when anything has a well formulated beginning, middle, and end.

I know this isn't really enlightened much but The Stand. I just really liked the book and couldn't put it down

Peggy wrote: "The book I remember most from my pre-teens is FOREVER AMBER by Kathleen Windsor [1944:]. Now, over 60 years later I can still see some of the scenes in my head."

That was a good one, I need to read that one again.

Another toss up, because both were in 6th grade...A Wrinkle in Time or From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

Really? Cool! I thought they were too adult-ish for me by that time but I really liked it. It was from those books that I learned some French words. Hehehe!!

I read many Barbara Cartland books many years ago.

Oh now! I remember some of the books I'd read when I was younger.

Elementary and High School Days:
Nancy Drew series
Fear Street
Christopher Pike's books
Barbara Cartland's books (my mom owns them and I found it amazing.)
Sidney Sheldon's books (this came in late high school and early college days)

thats really awesome :)

When I was a Junior.
What attracted me to read the book aside having all the time in the world is it's cheap price of 10 pesos, which maybe is roughly 10 cents in dollars. Yeah, I'm a sucker for cheap and vintage books.
I have the one where in the cover of the book it featured the painting done by Rand's husband.

Jzhunagev, you mean you read it when you were a Junior? Or a Thrird Grader? Sorry, I was confused :)

Hello Amber & Jzhunagev. Hi everyone. Happy New Year.

No one believes me, but I've read "The Fountaihead" when I was only a third year high school student by Ayn Rand which really is one hefty book. At my young age I can't fathom yet the philosophy of Rand and just only after reading this book found out what objectivism is and for that matter what philosophy is). This is the first long book that's never been assigned by our teacher to read but anyway i read it for I thought back then that it had a compelling plot( but yeah it surely have). My fave character is Elseworth Toohey (boy what a name!) in case you want to know.. ^_^

Harriet The Spy. :)when I was in 6th grade

Good morning, Steve. Have a great week.

Hi, Ilyn!

Thanks for joining us, Chris & Rhonda.

Hello everyone. I have not read nor watched To Kill a Mockingbird - I will, soon.

Great thread. I read all of the Nancy Drew mysteries when I was 12 and 13. I thought that made me the best reader out of all my girlfriends. Then, when I was 14, I found Louisa Alcott's Little Women and To Kill a Mockingbird. Those two books hooked me into reading for content and both affected me greatly. I began to view books as elements for growth rather than entertainment.

I love the movies and try to watch both at least once per year. I have two versions of Little Women, one with Hepburn and Taylor, and the other with Wynona Ryder. Can't make up my mind which one I like the most. Gregory Peck was fabulous in To Kill a Mockingbird. He was a true talent.

Chris, great books you listed. I'd forgotten about Where the Red Fern Grows but I just caught part of To Kill a Mockingbird with Gregory Peck on the tube. Wonderful book & movie.

Don't forget about The Yearling. One of my all time favorites & I would guess most every kids.

This is such a cool topic. Brings back a lot of memories.

I had to think for a bit. I loved Charlotte's Web (still do!) Where the Red Fern Grows (My all time favorite) and the Hobbit. All three on on my children's reading list. :)

Oh, How could I forget To Kill a Mockingbird. Also a classic that has to be in the top 5!!

I intend to check out your book. Who can't be blessed with new info on spirituality. Good for you to write about your inspiration. nina

Thank you so much, Ilyn,
Pam

Sandy, good fortune on "Stepping Off the Edge" and the book party.

Pam, good fortune on "Death in December" and "Justice in January".

Steve, good fortune on all your books.

I wish everyone good premises & good fortune.

I always say I read Peace because I tried to read War and Peace and only ended up reading the parts of the book which were the discussions of the romances of the characters, not the battle scenes.
Pam Broderick

Hi, Ilyn,

I'm a great fan of DH Lawrence and loved Lady Chatterley's lover. I recently read all three versions of the book. Lawrence, a perfectionist, wrote 3 manuscript versions before settling on the third as "the one".

I was prompted to do read all three versions when my husband and I got a DVD of "John Thomas and Lady Jane", the second manuscript version. I was so awful––missing the power of the characters and the class struggle and decimation of England as due to industrialization. This was nothing like the book I loved.

I ran across the print version of John Thomas, etc., on eBay and snagged it. Whoa! This is my favorite of the three by far. Constance and Oliver are less jaded and cynical, though facing the same obstacles. It's 20,000 words longer than the final Lady C and contains searing (not sexy, but painfully real human confrontations as Lady C meets Oliver's family and friends) scenes that the Lawrence cut in the final version.

The major critics, NYT and so on, proclaimed this the best book on the book's DJ back. One said, "Having read this book, I don't know why Lawrence expended so much of his waning strength on the third version." Amen.

This book is out of print. If you can get one somewhere at a semi-reasonable price, get it. It will be in my library forever.

But not the French DVD adaptation. No. Shun that.

All the best,
Sandy Nathan

PS I'm adding a link to my first book, Stepping Off the Edge: Learning & Living Spiritual Practice. I'm going to be doing a book party with Stepping on December 9th. I did not intend to write Stepping Off the Edge: I was working on my series of novels and had plenty to do. A force that I could not deny grabbed me and hauled me across the country from my home in California to Tennessee's Cherokee National Forest.

I went to a Native American spiritual retreat led by Bill Miller, the magnificent Native musician, artists and singer. He's a multi-Grammy award winner, a lifetime Nammy Achievement winner, and one of the most spiritually moving people I've ever met. The retreat turned me in a whole new direction.

I ended up writing a book on spiritual practice which features the retreat, the Gathering. Several chapters are occur at the retreat in its magnificent forest setting.

This is not your, "Oh, no, I've got to go to Sunday School," type of book. It's nondenominational and respectful of all religious creeds. I do stay faithful to my own, but this is a book you could give to anyone.

And I mean anyone--it handles spiritual challenges faced by modern people. Got an eBay addiction? Infatuated with a rock star? Facing evil? This book contains everything I learned getting my two Master's degrees and more.

It has a Christmas tie in, which is why I'm doing the book party in early December. I finished the manuscript for this book on December 22nd a couple of years ago. Something happened that day that rocked my world. I share it with you in Stepping Off the Edge.

Oh, yeah––it also won six national awards, including being a finalist for the Benjamin Franklin Award, winning a bronze medal in the IPPYs, & being a finalist in the Best Books Award of USA Book News as well as the Indie Excellence Awards. It's won in spirituality, memoir and self-help. This is a great Christmas gift for yourself or a loved one.

Stepping Off the Edge: Learning & Living Spiritual Practice

Hi, Nina. I loved those Terhune books. Still do. I've got a couple printed in the 50s or 60s. I should reread them.

And your friend bought his house? What good vibrations must live in those rooms! Thanks for sharing that.

All the best to you.

Sandy

PS. I just thought of something that might be interesting to you: I'm adding a link to my first book, Stepping Off the Edge: Learning & Living Spiritual Practice. I'm going to be doing a book party with Stepping on December 9th.

I did not intend to write Stepping Off the Edge: I was working on my series of novels and had plenty to do. The book was born when force that I could not deny grabbed me and hauled me from my home in California all the way across the country to Tennessee's Cherokee National Forest.

I went to a Native American spiritual retreat led by Bill Miller, the magnificent Native musician, artist and speaker. (Look at /billmillerofficial on MySpace.) He's a multi-Grammy award winner, a lifetime Nammy Achievement winner and one of the most powerfully spiritual people I've met. The retreat turned me in a whole new direction.

I ended up writing a book on spiritual practice which features the retreat, the Gathering. This is not your, "Oh, no, I've got to go to Sunday School," type of book. It's nondenominational and respectful of all religious creeds. I do stay faithful to my own, but this is a book you could give to anyone.

And I mean anyone--it handles spiritual challenges faced by modern people. Got an eBay addiction? Infatuated with a rock star? Facing evil? This book contains everything I learned getting my two Master's degrees and more.

It has a Christmas tie in, which is why I'm doing the book party in early December. I finished the manuscript for this book on December 22nd a couple of years ago. Something happened that day that rocked my world. I share it with you in Stepping Off the Edge.

Oh, yeah––it also won six national awards, including being a finalist for the Benjamin Franklin Award, winning a bronze medal in the IPPYs, & being a finalist in the Best Books Award of USA Book News as well as the Indie Excellence Awards. It's won in spirituality, memoir and self-help.

This is a great Christmas gift for yourself or a loved one.Stepping Off the Edge: Learning & Living Spiritual Practice

Hello Bob. Welcome to the group. Thank you for joining us.

Kudos to your teacher - Victor Hugo is superb. Though I usually change his endings in my mind.

The first book that I actually read other than a book about sports or sports figures was Les Miserables. We had an old hag for a Junior Literature class and she made the call read Les Mis. It opened my eyes to the joy of reading.
god bless her for making us read some classics. We also read "A Clockwork Orange" in that class. Pretty cool.

I remember, too, that my early reading included comic books. I loved "Wonder Woman", "Captain Marvel", and IIRC, a funny comic with characters named Nancy and Sluggo. See:
http://www.bcdb.com/cartoon_synopsis/253...

Hello Nina.

Hi SAndy,

I was so interested to hear that you read Albert Payson Terhune. I was thrilled with Lad,long before Lassie came on the scene. Also, back in the sixties I had a good friend who bought the house where Albert P. T. lived when he wrote the dog books including LAD. It was a charming old house in Croton on Hudson. it was sort of tumble down when I visited it but I could have moved in the next day. nina

Hi Steve.

BTW, my OWN favorite "long" book?? Well, the first book I remember finishing was a Bobbs-Merrill biography of Babe Ruth. Then it was "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" by Ian Fleming. My first CLASSIC was "Candide" by Voltaire, however. Ages nine and seventeen, respectively.

Stephen Turner
The Last Voyage of the Cassiopeia
Almagest: The Adventures of MarsShield
3700
The Avedon Question

Hello Arthur. Thank you for joining us.

Hi everyone. Have a marvelous day!

Good question. Know how I solved that enigma of books? I couldn't read, I knew that much. I hadn't read a thick fiction until high school. But I did read Uncle Otto, and later others like graphic picture books, and Dungeon & Dragon's manuals, until high school, so I was always making up stories, until high school because reading was more compulsory. I'm glad of that. And by then I like philosophy of astronomy, that was it in my mind, it was difficult to even understand. But my friend saw that as my problem, and so she introduced me to YA novels, like Pamela Dean or Phyllis Whitney. That poses a challenge to challenged readers. But then suddenly I had hit new heights in creativity.

Hello Sandy & Steve.

Hi Donna - I'm smiling about "Lady Chatterley's Lover". Joy's question evokes fond memories.

Thanks. You, too, and everyone - have a nice Sunday.

Hi All,
Joy that was a thought provoking question. I remember reading the Bobbsey Twin series, Nancy Drew and Spin and Marty series (from the Mickey Mouse Club(of The Walt Disney show). I also remember,in the 6th grade, a friend bringing in her Mother's book "Lady Chatterley's Lover", so we could read the sex scenes. The only problem was we got caught and we didn't understand most of it. Oh, to be so naive, again.
Thanks for the memories, Joy.
Everyone have a nice Sunday.
My Best, Donna

Thanks to all for your great replies. I wish I had started reading earlier as a kid. I remember going to the bookmobile and looking for only picture books. I couldn't imagine how people read all those "thick" books on the adult shelves.

If I had begun reading books earlier, I would probably have a better vocabulary now and would be more articulate. I've improved with age but I always feel lacking when I try to find just the right word. Thank goodness for Thesaurus.com!
You can find it at: ===>
http://thesaurus.reference.com/

I use it all the time! :)
It's wonderful!
Er... I mean it's: ===>
admirable, amazing, astonishing, astounding, awe-inspiring, awesome, brilliant, cool, divine, dynamite, enjoyable, excellent, fabulous, fantastic, fine, groovy, incredible, magnificent, marvelous, miraculous, outstanding, peachy, phenomenal, pleasant, pleasing, prime, remarkable, sensational, something else, staggering, startling, strange, stupendous, super, superb, surprising, swell, terrific, too much, tremendous, unheard-of, wondrous

<very big grin>

What a great question! So much fun to think back. I've been a book-a-holic as long as I can remember. I remember reading Robert Louis Stevenson as a child. And Albert Payson Terhune, Lad and all his other dog books. And then I discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs and his Tarzan series. I loved the Tarzan books! They're way different than the awful movies made of them. This was in the 1950s, before anyone had a glimmer of a glimmer about the book world today. The Tarzan books were out of print even then. My dad had a used book store send me Tarzan books when they came in. I had a whole collection that I think were early editions of it. All have disappeared over the years. All but the memory, which your question invoked.

Thanks for letting me recall those days.

Sandy Nathan
Numenon

Thanks, Randi. Enjoy Halloween and the weekend.

Hi Ilyn. Happy Halloween. Talk to you next month.

Hello Randi. Good fortune on all your endeavors.

Actually, I just thought of three books I actually really liked as a youth, and I read them over and over. I don't know which came first,though, so I will give all three:

The Road to Agra
Mrs. Coverlet's Magicians
Wind in the Willows