Favorite Books From Your Childhood?

[Bullseye 2620]

I read a lot back in the Fifties, but my hands-down favorite was Tom Swift. Yours?

Bullseye

 

[TACC1]

"The God in the Bowl" by Rob't E. Howard, from
AMAZING sci-fi. Had no idea there were a ton of Conan books.
TACC1

 

[Onomea]

CS Lewis, Narnia series. JR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, a coupla years later, at 12 or so. Isaac Asminov, Foundation series, at 14....

 

[ImprovedModel56Fan]

Most of what I read in the fifties was apparently not memorable. Sixties? Donald Hamilton! Later, W.E.B. Griffin, even though he occasionally errs on technical details.

 

[cowboy117]

Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn.

 

[Maximumbob54]

CS Lewis, Narnia series. JR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, a coupla years later, at 12 or so. Isaac Asminov, Foundation series, at 14....

I followed that same route but want to add that I read Ender's Game somewhere in the 80's and it was huge in my mind. I have never forgotten how the book so deftly explained that leaders that make tactical styled decisions really have to take the consequences of their actions into their plans. Of the few times in my life that I have the clarity of thought to remember that, it has always kept my path clear and true. But then I read 1984, Animal Farm, and a book that I'm dying on remembering the name of that was something about scientists that create a super computer that rules our government. It did tests on us like lab animals. Dang it, I can't even find it on Google. Someone help me out. It was horrible in a Pre-Terminator kind of way. I know it had a sequel that wasn't what I hoped for because I think aliens saved us from our own creation of the ruling super computer that merged with the Soviet super computer. I guess it was a Cold War fear of technology spiraling out of control type issue. Fun reading until the alien ending. There isn't anyone to save us from our stupid.

 

[Hofstet]

Old Yeller, and then in high school, Travels With Charley and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

 

[DCWilson]

I followed that same route but want to add that I read Ender's Game somewhere in the 80's and it was huge in my mind. I have never forgotten how the book so deftly explained that leaders that make tactical styled decisions really have to take the consequences of their actions into their plans. Of the few times in my life that I have the clarity of thought to remember that, it has always kept my path clear and true. But then I read 1984, Animal Farm, and a book that I'm dying on remembering the name of that was something about scientists that create a super computer that rules our government. It did tests on us like lab animals. Dang it, I can't even find it on Google. Someone help me out. It was horrible in a Pre-Terminator kind of way. I know it had a sequel that wasn't what I hoped for because I think aliens saved us from our own creation of the ruling super computer that merged with the Soviet super computer. I guess it was a Cold War fear of technology spiraling out of control type issue. Fun reading until the alien ending. There isn't anyone to save us from our stupid.

I think you are talking about Colossus, a mid-'60s novel that was made into a not too stupid movie a few years later called "Colossus: The Forbin Project."

As to what I read, it was all over the map. I remember being stuck on Oz books in third and fourth grades, and Mark Twain (probably editions edited for children) the next year. Ray Bradbury and anything science-fictionish became important in the junior high years that followed. Somewhere in second or third grade I found a volume of Grimm's Fairy Tales, which were so violent and distressing compared to the happy-talk versions that my teachers and parents had read to me that I wondered why anybody would even commit such stuff to paper.

 

[mg357]

anything history you name it i probably read it i love history books!

 

[max]

I spent lots of time in the library and read the Landmark Series which are all about American history. I liked stuff about the pioneers, founding fathers, war heroes, etc.

In the 60's I got into James Bond, Matt Helm and spy stuff. I also remember Exodus and Lord Jim.

I am so glad that I read as much as I did when I was young.

 

[turnerriver]

Favorite books from your childhood?

My father's 1st edition copy of Will James' autobiography "Lone
Cowboy".I read it many times & still have it. I was
a little disappointed when I learned many years later
that it was largely fiction & that Will drank & smoked
himself to death at an early age.Doesn't really dim the
enjoyment of the hours I spent reading it.
Regards,
turnerriver
SWCA 1426

 

[ACP230]

I read everything I could get my hands on.
Got in trouble in elementary school for quoting TIME magazine which contradicted what the teacher was saying. (TIME was a better magazine back then. Haven't read it for years.)

I read a book on the U.S. fliers in World War I over and over. I think the movie "Flyboys" was based on that book.
Later I read Robert Service, Rudyard Kipling, Steinbeck, Ruark, Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald etc.

 

[desi2358]

I read just about everything, loved to read. History books were my favorite non-fiction, especially liked "The Longest Day" and "In Hell Before Night". WWII and the civil war dominated my reading. As far as fiction I liked westerns, James Bond and science fiction. Especially liked "The Forever War" and anything by Heinlein.

 

[brucev]

As a child I had few books. I loved The Bible Story Book and the encyclopedia. The first library I ever saw was a bookmobile in 1st grade. Got Go Dog Go, Are You My Mother. First library I ever saw in a building was when we moved to a town. The elementary school had a huge library. I read everything I could get my hands on. About 1 mile away was a small public branch library. I was deeply impressed by Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, Two Years Before the Mast, Red Badge of Courage, Iron Men with Wooden Wings.

 

[Texas Star]

R.A. Heinlein's SF books, esp. Tunnel in the Sky.

Jim Corbett's Indian hunting adventures and various African hunters' tales.

James Bond and Matt Helm

When very young, Kipling's jungle stories and by my teens, Dr. Roy Chapman Andrews's exploration books.

Any gun books, esp. those by Elmer Keith and Larry Koller.

T-Star

 

[Maximumbob54]

Thanks to DCWilson. Colossus, The Fall of Colossus, and Colossus and the Crab. Very strange but fun reading. I'm forgetting that I read some of the Lois Lamore books. Actually I read everything my grandfather had and it was a big section of the paperback book shelf. I also absorbed some of the Sharpes books by Bernard Cornwell. They were great from what I remember. I know I'm slaying some of you guys with me being a kid in the 80's. Sorry.

 

[jimmyj]

In the 1940s and 1950s mostly comic books.

 

[truckemup97]

I must have read all of the Hardy Boys series several times each. I also read all the classics, Lewis, Tolkien, Twain, Dickens, etc., but I always came back to Frank and Joe.

 

[DeadAye]

As a kid:
The Radio Amateur's Handbook (I'm still reading it)
QST, CQ, & 73 magazines
Big Red
The Caine Mutiny
Solar Science Projects

 

[Maximumbob54]

Red Badge of Courage, Where the Red Fern Grows, A Day No Pigs Would Die... I'm sure I will keep thinking of them. I used to read just about anything but the good ones keep popping back into mind.