Books That Got You Started

[Sean Elifritz]

Holla! I too got started with this series, and around the ripe ol' age 8 or 9. I remember my school librarian giving me the stink eye when I would keep returning with more requests for the weird and strange -from hauntings to UFO's to oddities and tales of spontaneous combustion and onward. From that point on, what I was reading just got weirder by topic and by degree.
Communion was a mile marker of sorts as well.

Wow, you got started reading books at a very young age. I didn't care for reading at all when I was a kid. I considered it a chore until I was 16 when one night in a state of utter boredom I dug around in my mom's bookcase and found Skeleton Crew by Stephen King. I started reading The Mist and didn't stop until it was finished. Afterward I was in a state of stunned awe. It was amazing to me that reading could actually be entertaining. Up until that point the only stuff I'd read were things teachers had forced me to, like The Red Badge of Courage or Great Expectations, things like that. Maybe I'm a lunkhead but the classics just didn't do it for me, made me despise books altogether. But King changed all of that and I've gone on to read several hundred of them...voluntarily.

 

[NTS]

Most of what I read when I was a kid besides factual stuff was historical fiction and sci-fi. You could learn a lot about the Roman Empire (say) from an adventure story about a Roman soldier, while also being entertained. But the 'classics' were mainly written for adults and don't really resonate until you've had some adult experiences (besides being hard to read!). I think a lot of that gets pushed on kids before they're ready. A few can handle it, but most just get turned off. It's too bad because some of the classics are worth reading when they connect with things you've been through yourself. They do take time though, and it's been a long while since I've had that much.

 

[Trajanus]

I wish I could remember what the first UFO book I read was but I can't. But the probability is high that it was something by Kevin Randle or Jenny Randles because I've got quite a few by each of them. I went from no knowledge or interest in this subject to utterly spamming my bookshelves with UFO material practically overnight. My interest started around 20 years ago so a lot of my books are from around that time frame, early-mid nineties and down. I've got about 200 of them and I'd say 3/4ths were bought in the first 3-4 years. I still pick one up once in a blue moon but it's nothing like it use to be where I'd often go to Borders or Walden Books and get 5-6 at a time. I was so hooked I even sprung around $250 for Jerome Clark's UFO Encyclopedias (3 volumes in the first edition and they were $70-$80 a piece or something like that!). No way I could afford something like that now.

Despite being green when I bought the majority of these I think my choices were quite good. I had decent instincts for smelling out the junk books (And I had no internet or PC in those days. I didn't become an internet nerd until around my late twenties. And I had no ties to UFO orgs or anyone interested in the subject. I was judging everything solely on my own instincts) But I did end up buying a few by Ed Walters and I'm now convinced he's a hoaxer. I've actually thrown two books in the garbage can: Cosmic Voyage by Courtney Brown and something by some character by the name of Ruth Montgomery. Both looked highly questionable but they were in the bargain bin for almost nothing so I thought, "What the hell?" Montgomery's hit the trash the same day I bought it when I started reading it and just a few pages in she tried assuring me that Benjamin Franklin had been a "walk-in." I held onto Brown's for a little bit solely because it was a hardcover despite knowing it was absurd. But eventually chucked it as well. Those two books were so ridiculous that being in my possession embarrassed me.

I got Cosmic Voyage when it first came out and quickly sent it back for a refund. Just as bad is Brown's Cosmic Explorers

 

[tyder001]

Wow, you got started reading books at a very young age. I didn't care for reading at all when I was a kid. I considered it a chore until I was 16 when one night in a state of utter boredom I dug around in my mom's bookcase and found Skeleton Crew by Stephen King. I started reading The Mist and didn't stop until it was finished. Afterward I was in a state of stunned awe. It was amazing to me that reading could actually be entertaining. Up until that point the only stuff I'd read were things teachers had forced me to, like The Red Badge of Courage or Great Expectations, things like that. Maybe I'm a lunkhead but the classics just didn't do it for me, made me despise books altogether. But King changed all of that and I've gone on to read several hundred of them...voluntarily.

I started reading a very young age. I loved ghost stories and I would order all the mystery and ghost stories from my Weekly Reader. I also would haunt my public library when I could get an adult to carry me there. I do remember having to read the classics in American Lit and thinking "man if this was the first book I had ever read then I would hate reading." So, I do understand how our educational system can actually take the fun out of something. I still remeber reading Salem's Lot by Stephen King for the first time. I was blown away! I have read it a few times since then and I don't read many books more than one time. His depiction of small town in Maine could have been "anytown" U.S.A. It reminded me so much of a small rurual Alabama town that my grandparents lived in. Anyway, sorry to get off topic but where King is concerned I'm a "Constant Reader" and get a little carried away.

 

[Elendil]

Well, the first book semi-UFO related was Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World - based on the series. I think I was maybe 8 or 9 at the time, guess that was the thing that turned me on to anything paranormal. Or just strengthened my already existing interest - I picked up the book from my dad's shelf because it had exotic content.

Many years and shitty UFO books later I got The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects and The UFO Experience, courtesy of uforadio. Now that was good...

 

[brojabber]

Chariots of the Gods for me too. Gold of the Gods etc. I actually got to speek to Von Daniken on a radio show as a kid. Wasn't a great question--just the opportunity came up and I was stuck for words (or questions). I did buy a lot of paranormal genre books after that and still do to this day. Mysterious Valley being one of them -- which coincided a few months later with me and my family witnessing a Triangle. I pulled out the book and read to them a description and they were awed and comforted that we were not alone in both senses.