My first book

The first book I ever bought for myself ... one that wasn't a gift ... was
something by Andre Norton. It was a paperback that I found on a small wire
rack (one of those spinning, circular ones) at the local drug store. I can't
remember how much of my babysitting money it took, but I was thrilled with
it. For the first time, I had purchased something to own, not a library book
that had to go back, and I felt I had discovered something marvelous. Not
just the book itself, but the act of discovery, is something I occasionally
still feel.

Anyone else remember buying their first book? Not their first collectible,
but their first book ever, that wasn't bought for school, but only because
you wanted it?

Alice


--
Book collecting terms illustrated. Occasional books for sale.
http://www.mywingsbooks.com/

Mine was also genre fiction (I guess), the paperback of Bram Stoker's
DRACULA. Only knowing the movies, I never dreamed it was this rich,
thickly-plotted period piece. It's set more or less at the time of the
Sherlock Holmes stories, which I loved, so I was right at home.

Now I have the "fancy" Edward Gorey hardback edition, as part of my
collection.

The first *record* I bought with my own money was the soundtrack of
GOLDFINGER.

Jim

my-wings wrote:
Anyone else remember buying their first book? Not their first collectible,
but their first book ever, that wasn't bought for school, but only because
you wanted it?

Easy: The Fellowship of the Ring, in the Ballantine paperback with the
Barbara Remington cover--this one:
http://members.aol.com/siure/fellowship4.jpg --purchased, like your
Norton book, from a drugstore wire rack.

My sixth-grade teacher read the whole series aloud to us, beginning with
The Hobbit, and by the time we had started on FotR, I *had* to have my
own copy so I could read ahead.


--Jon Meyers

my-wings wrote:
The first book I ever bought for myself ... one that wasn't a gift ... was
something by Andre Norton. It was a paperback that I found on a small wire
rack (one of those spinning, circular ones) at the local drug store. I can't
remember how much of my babysitting money it took, but I was thrilled with
it. For the first time, I had purchased something to own, not a library book
that had to go back, and I felt I had discovered something marvelous. Not
just the book itself, but the act of discovery, is something I occasionally
still feel.

Anyone else remember buying their first book? Not their first collectible,
but their first book ever, that wasn't bought for school, but only because
you wanted it?

Alice



I cannot remember the first book I bought, but I do remember my first book ever,
one that had belonged to my Aunt Helen (she inscribed her name and address on
it, and from the address she must have been a teenager when she got it) and
which my mother read to me until I was old enough to read it myself. I went and
got it after reading your post. I have had it now for close to 50 years. It is:

"In the Court of King Arthur" by Samuel E. Lowe, with color illustrations by
Neil O'Keeffe, published by Whitman Publishing Co., Racine, Wisconsin, 1918.
Cloth covers with an illustrated plate pasted on the front, the spine is broken
and the hinges are loose, but . . . .

The first library book I remember? Albert Payson Terhune, "Lad, A Dog".


Francis A. Miniter

"Francis A. Miniter" wrote in message
...


The first library book I remember? Albert Payson Terhune, "Lad, A Dog".



Oh gosh, that brings back memories. When I was growing up in the 60's, my
local library was miniscule....maybe two store-front's worth of space. One
room was fiction, and the other was non-fiction. I didn't read many of the
children's books, but they had one case (possibly only two or three shelves
of a case) of animal stories. I read everything, including everything by
Albert Payson Terhune. I also ran through all of Walter Farley's Black
Stallion (and Flame) books, My Friend Flicka and every other horse book they
had. When I finished the horse and dog books (my favorites) I even read
books about beaver, foxes, and everything else. Then I discovered
non-fiction, and read all the books about dog training and horse riding.

Once I'd mined the animal books, fiction and non-fiction, I moved on to Zane
Gray and Agatha Christie in the adult section. I loved that little library.

Alice

--
Book collecting terms illustrated. Occasional books for sale.
http://www.mywingsbooks.com/

The first book I ever bought for myself ... one that wasn't a gift ... was
something by Andre Norton. It was a paperback that I found on a small wire
rack (one of those spinning, circular ones) at the local drug store. I can't
remember how much of my babysitting money it took, but I was thrilled with
it. For the first time, I had purchased something to own, not a library book
that had to go back, and I felt I had discovered something marvelous. Not
just the book itself, but the act of discovery, is something I occasionally
still feel.

Anyone else remember buying their first book? Not their first collectible,
but their first book ever, that wasn't bought for school, but only because
you wanted it?

Alice

"Tom Swift and his Ultrasonic Cycloplane." Hardcover. No dust
jacket but a brightly-printed cover picture of young Mr. Swift,
flying what looks like a flying car over a jungle village of
grass-roofed huts. Grosset & Dunlap. Copyright 1957. Supposedly by
Victor Appleton II (I imagine that's a pseudonym). I bought it new
in 1962, when I was eight years old. It cost $1.39. I continued to
buy books of this series for around a year, one every two weeks.
My allowance was $1 a week, so in order to buy a book I had to
save for two weeks. That was agony.

Then, when I was nine years old, a revelation came to me. I
discovered that science fiction paperbacks by such writers as
Heinlein and Clark and Asimov were only fifty cents each, meaning
that I could buy two of them every week! No tax on books in those
days. And the best part was, the novels were superior to the Tom
Swift novels. My reading quadrupled overnight.

My first real adult novel (apart from "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering
Heights" which I'd read at age eight because they happened to be
in the house) was Robert A. Heinlein's "Puppet Masters" published
in 1957. I bought the Signet Paperback edition, second printing,
1963. I still have it, of course -- it's sitting at my elbow as I
type. It was a good choice, or a lucky choice. It got me hooked on
science fiction and fantasy for the next ten or twelve years. I
finally tapered off my SF novel buying when I was in university.

Al Smith wrote:

The first book I ever bought for myself ... one that wasn't a gift ...
was something by Andre Norton. It was a paperback that I found on a
small wire rack (one of those spinning, circular ones) at the local
drug store. I can't remember how much of my babysitting money it took,
but I was thrilled with it. For the first time, I had purchased
something to own, not a library book that had to go back, and I felt I
had discovered something marvelous. Not just the book itself, but the
act of discovery, is something I occasionally still feel.

Anyone else remember buying their first book? Not their first
collectible, but their first book ever, that wasn't bought for school,
but only because you wanted it?

Alice


"Tom Swift and his Ultrasonic Cycloplane." Hardcover. No dust jacket but
a brightly-printed cover picture of young Mr. Swift, flying what looks
like a flying car over a jungle village of grass-roofed huts. Grosset &
Dunlap. Copyright 1957. Supposedly by Victor Appleton II (I imagine
that's a pseudonym). I bought it new in 1962, when I was eight years
old. It cost $1.39. I continued to buy books of this series for around a
year, one every two weeks. My allowance was $1 a week, so in order to
buy a book I had to save for two weeks. That was agony.

Then, when I was nine years old, a revelation came to me. I discovered
that science fiction paperbacks by such writers as Heinlein and Clark
and Asimov were only fifty cents each, meaning that I could buy two of
them every week! No tax on books in those days. And the best part was,
the novels were superior to the Tom Swift novels. My reading quadrupled
overnight.

My first real adult novel (apart from "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering
Heights" which I'd read at age eight because they happened to be in the
house) was Robert A. Heinlein's "Puppet Masters" published in 1957. I
bought the Signet Paperback edition, second printing, 1963. I still have
it, of course -- it's sitting at my elbow as I type. It was a good
choice, or a lucky choice. It got me hooked on science fiction and
fantasy for the next ten or twelve years. I finally tapered off my SF
novel buying when I was in university.

You have jogged my memory. A cousin of mine gave me 27 Hardy Boys stories when
he got married. I was somewhere between 8 and 10. When I finished the 27 I
had, I went out and bought "The Short Wave Mystery".


Francis A. Miniter

Alice wrote:

Anyone else remember buying their first book? Not their first collectible,
but their first book ever, that wasn't bought for school, but only because
you wanted it?

Nope. Nor do I remember learning to read. I remember the house I lived
in until the age of two and a half, when we moved to the Northumbrian
coast, and I remember the train journey south when we moved to London
at the age of five, but I can't remember the processes that got me
recognising letters and putting them together into words and sentences.


I do remember reading lots of stories after my official "lights out"
time, though. After being put to bed I was allowed to read until about
9:00, then I had to put out the light, except in the summer, of course,
when nature gave me a bonus of extra daylight until about 10:00.

I can't remember where the actual books came from, though I remember
spending my pocket money on chocolate and batteries for my torch, so I
could snuggle under the sheets for a cosy hour or two's reading before
going to sleep.

They weren't library books, or at least, most of them weren't. I think
they may have been from a secondhand bookshop, as none of them had dust
jackets. Perhaps my father bought them on his way home from work. If I
chose them myself, I have no memory of doing so.

The staple diet was Enid Blyton (the "Famous Five", etc.), with a fair
mix of old-time adventure stories. Martin Rattler, by R.M. Ballantyne,
and The Dormitory Flag, by Harold Avery, were such favourites that I
still have them on my shelves; the rest have long since vanished.

There were always masses of books around the house when I was growing
up. In fact, since my father's death, my family has been one of the
main suppliers of books to several local charity shops! Having given
away a couple of thousand or so, they are now down to a manageable
amount.

I remember making my first big foray into "grown-up" literature at the
age of eleven, when I took a copy of Dickens's Great Expectations down
from the shelf, but I think that, between what was lying around the
house and what was available in the local library, I had enough access
to books not to feel the need to go out and buy any until I started to
get deeply interested in wildlife, at the age of about thirteen.

There wasn't much about wildlife on the shelves at home (Fabre's Book
of Insects is the only one that comes to mind now), and I had devoured
the library's collection of Gerald Durrell, Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald,
etc., so I went out and bought The New Wildfowler, edited by Sedgwick,
Whitaker and Harrison (1961). I've never been interested in hunting as
such, but I was intrigued that the book had an introduction by Sir
Peter Scott, and was introduced for the first time to the idea that
hunting is not a human activity hostile to nature, but an intrinsic
part of what nature is all about. I bought several other books on
natural history at the same time, but that was the main item and the
one that sticks most in my mind. I remember getting book tokens in my
Christmas stocking from earliest childhood, so I'm sure this wasn't the
first book I ever bought, but it's the first I can clearly remember.

I also remember, when I was about sixteen, selling this book, along
with others on the same subject. I suppose my passion for natural
history had worn off a bit by then. I took them to the same shop where
I had bought them, and remember being quite pleased to get a few quid
for them. So, while I can't remember the first book I bought, I do
remember the first one I sold!

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again,” the opening line of REBECCA by Daphne du Maurier, is one of the most memorable in twentieth-century literature. REBECCA was my first memorable book purchase. As a young teen, that line--that book--hooked and reeled me into a lifetime of reading. I loved it so much that years later I purchased an autographed letter written by du Maurier--a purchase that laid the foundation for my literary autographs collection. About the same time I discovered REBECCA, I also discovered Nancy Drew books. They further bolstered my love for reading, but had a certain librarian had her way and I not been strong willed, they could have led to my hatred of books.

I live in a small town in the Midwest. Our little public library was (and still is) open at odd times on odd days and was manned by several elderly ladies. One of them was the wife of one of our town's most prominent citizens. For some reason unknown to the rest of us (it certainly wasn’t based on any formal training), this lady felt she was qualified to dictate what should and shouldn’t be read by the townspeople who stopped in to select from the limited supply of books.

Lila was stern, and that temperament, coupled with her unsolicited advice, eventually made my younger sister hate books. No matter what my sister selected to check out, it was never good enough for Lila. She wanted my sister to read more advanced books, or thicker books, or books with fewer pictures. Heavens, she was just a little bit of a kid. We were glad she read at all. On several occasions, I can remember Lila grabbing my little sister by the shoulder and marching her back into the children's room to select something other than the books she was trying to check out. Eventually, my sister wouldn't go to the library and ended up hating books. To this day, she hates them.

I, on the other hand, was usually able to ignore Lila and her unwanted advice, though I mumbled all the way home about it. As I mentioned, I LOVED Nancy Drew books. I still do. (Another autograph in my collection is that of Mildred Wirt Benson, the most prolific of the Carolyn Keene writers.) One day, Lila planted herself in front of me and lectured that I should not read that “trash.” I should read books from this other section . . . the section where "Mary Lou Ryan" read. “Why, she has read this entire shelf of books,” Lila exclaimed, as she waved her arm in the direction of an old bookcase. (Mary Lou was the daughter of another prominent citizen, and she did almost NOTHING but read.) I listened to Lila’s lecture du jour and then still checked out my next batch of Nancy Drew books. I received the glare of a lifetime, but I didn’t care. Lila scared me less than the thought of being without a fresh supply of Nancy Drew books. Well, I arrived home, opened the first book and then another and another, and what do you suppose I found? Written inside most of the front covers was: "Property of Mary Lou Ryan." Mary Lou had donated these Nancy Drew books to the library! Mary Lou had READ these Nancy Drew books! Oh the shock! Oh the horror! Ha ha, old Lila!

"speshoje" wrote in message
...


I, on the other hand, was usually able to ignore Lila and her unwanted
advice, though I mumbled all the way home about it. As I mentioned, I
LOVED Nancy Drew books. I still do. (Another autograph in my
collection is that of Mildred Wirt Benson, the most prolific of the
Carolyn Keene writers.) One day, Lila planted herself in front of me
and lectured that I should not read that “trash.” I should read books
from this other section . . . the section where "Mary Lou Ryan" read.
“Why, she has read this entire shelf of books,” Lila exclaimed, as she
waved her arm in the direction of an old bookcase. (Mary Lou was the
daughter of another prominent citizen, and she did almost NOTHING but
read.) I listened to Lila’s lecture du jour and then still checked out
my next batch of Nancy Drew books. I received the glare of a lifetime,
but I didn’t care. Lila scared me less than the thought of being
without a fresh supply of Nancy Drew books. Well, I arrived home,
opened the first book and then another and another, and what do you
suppose I found? Written inside most of the front covers was:
"Property of Mary Lou Ryan." Mary Lou had donated these Nancy Drew
books to the library! Mary Lou had READ these Nancy Drew books! Oh
the shock! Oh the horror! Ha ha, old Lila!


That's one of the best book stories I've read in a long time! Did you have
any opportunity to point this out to the dragon, of did you have to settle
for that small, warm feeling of internal satisfaction?

Alice