Kipling "Jungle Book". I adored it and still do. The whole concept of the wolves, and Bagheera, and Barloo teaching the Laws to the cubs.. The language, the whole ethos of the jungle came alive for me. Then there was Enid Blyton's Adventure series, and The Famous Five with George in them, with whom I so emoted! I was always ending up one of the boys, even when I didn't want to be! Her "Faraway Tree" introduced me to fantasy, though.
Next came the real biographies and autobiographies of WW2 heroes - men who weren't necessarily traditional heroes, just people being brave in awful circumstances. I started reading those when I was 12, asking my Grandad who had fought in 2 wars for stories about them, and getting them to a degree.
Along with them were the real history books - "Everyday life" series for Ancient Egypt, Rome and Greece and as many of the legends and myths of Greece and Rome as I could get my hands on.
Those are the early books that shaped my tastes, my love of heroes, people fighting against odds, and exotic settings.
My first SF book is in storage with all my stuff up in Sacramento sadly, so I cannot tell you title or author. I can tell you the author wrote my school English text books though and when I came across an SF novel where he had a spaceship in his garden shed, and his grandkids found it and flew it off to distant planets to have adventures, I was irrevocably caught by the SF bug!
I also got bitten by Edgar Allen Poe's "Tales of Mystery and Imagination", and many of the original Gothic writers - "Lair of the White Worm" and similar. On particular favorite is "Dwellers in the Mirage" by A. Merrit. If you can find it, read it. And Rider Haggard's "She" and "The Return of She" was awesome. I also grew up reading my Dad's old annuals from when he was a kid at my Scots Grandmother's house, and they were the Boy's Own Adventure omnibuses full of derring do and adventure of the Alan Quartermain type. "Lost World" was another favorite one. The trend, if there is one, is again the hero adventurer in a strange land.
Since then, there have been many but the vast majority seem to have been by women writers, particularly those with my own publisher, DAW Books. Also the Vorkosigan series my Lois McMasters Bujold, Pern books by Ann McCaffrey, Diadem Series by Jo Clayton, CJ Cherry's Hani series, and some of the space warfare/navy ones by Swann and others.
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Then there was Enid Blyton's Adventure series, and The Famous Five with George in them, with whom I so emoted! I was always ending up one of the boys, even when I didn't want to be! Her "Faraway Tree" introduced me to fantasy, though.
Next came the real biographies and autobiographies of WW2 heroes - men who weren't necessarily traditional heroes, just people being brave in awful circumstances. I started reading those when I was 12, asking my Grandad who had fought in 2 wars for stories about them, and getting them to a degree.
Along with them were the real history books - "Everyday life" series for Ancient Egypt, Rome and Greece and as many of the legends and myths of Greece and Rome as I could get my hands on.
Those are the early books that shaped my tastes, my love of heroes, people fighting against odds, and exotic settings.
My first SF book is in storage with all my stuff up in Sacramento sadly, so I cannot tell you title or author. I can tell you the author wrote my school English text books though and when I came across an SF novel where he had a spaceship in his garden shed, and his grandkids found it and flew it off to distant planets to have adventures, I was irrevocably caught by the SF bug!
I also got bitten by Edgar Allen Poe's "Tales of Mystery and Imagination", and many of the original Gothic writers - "Lair of the White Worm" and similar. On particular favorite is "Dwellers in the Mirage" by A. Merrit. If you can find it, read it. And Rider Haggard's "She" and "The Return of She" was awesome. I also grew up reading my Dad's old annuals from when he was a kid at my Scots Grandmother's house, and they were the Boy's Own Adventure omnibuses full of derring do and adventure of the Alan Quartermain type. "Lost World" was another favorite one. The trend, if there is one, is again the hero adventurer in a strange land.
Since then, there have been many but the vast majority seem to have been by women writers, particularly those with my own publisher, DAW Books. Also the Vorkosigan series my Lois McMasters Bujold, Pern books by Ann McCaffrey, Diadem Series by Jo Clayton, CJ Cherry's Hani series, and some of the space warfare/navy ones by Swann and others.