I’m always loved reading. I often find myself totally absorbed in the books I pick up, entering almost completely into that universe as if I actually lived it. For example. one of the first books that sucked me in was “Treasure Island”, by Robert Louis Stevenson and bought at a church fair when I was a very small child, no more than five or six years old. Whilst reading in bed at night, I was told by my father to put the book down and sleep. Did I? Not a chance! I found my torch and spent the night racing through the book, transported onto the good ship Hispaniola and living my life alongside Jim Hawkins as he searched (and found) both Ben Gunn *and* Cap’n Flint’s treasure. 🙂
Thru the years other books had a similar effect. Those that come to mind immediately are “Coral Island” by R. M. Ballantyne, and “The Water Babies” by Charles Kingsley. As I grew older I was attracted to more thrilling, if substantially darker stories such as “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding and then “The Day of the Triffids” by John Wyndham. It was reading stories by these latter two which gradually led me towards my favourite genres, i.e. science fiction and fantasy, tho I admit this was greatly helped along by pulp fiction SciFi such as Astounding Stories and Amazing Worlds. That then led me into some of the fantasy worlds where I happily fell into the “Dune” series by Frank Herbert and, naturally both “Lord of the Rings” and later, “The Hobbit both by J. R. R. Tolkien. Books by the latter two authors remain firmly placed in the top three ‘favourite reads’ I’ll regularly pick up to read. The third of my top three is the “Harry Potter” series by J. K. Rowling which is up there with the very best of the series I’ve read in my adult life. Even though the last book (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) was published back in 2007, thirteen years on I *still* collect memorabilia, watch the films (as bad a representation of the storyline as they are) and reread the books. I write this is as I look at my models of “Gollum” and “Minas Tirith” etc from Lord of the Ring films. Perhaps I need to widen my reading a little?
Anyway, there are obviously there are many other books, and many authors authors who’ve influenced my reading but it’s clear SciFi and ‘Fantasy’ remain my preferred genres. I could go on, and probably will at a later date, but for now this will give you a clue about where my head is at any given time, i.e. probably in someone else’s fantasy world.
The Eclectic Interweb 