Here's where I get it from

     

    "A real escapist treat of a book" - Cornflower.

    "I couldn't put it down!" - Cornflower's mum.

    I pass on to my mum a lot of the books I've enjoyed as she's an avid reader, and I can usually judge pretty well what will be to her taste. Recently I gave her The Kashmir Shawl by Rosie Thomas (post on it here), and she handed it back to me today with the above comment. She loved it and she says it made her want to follow the main characters' trail to India and Kashmir and see Srinagar for herself.

    I'm always glad when something I've liked gets Mum's seal of approval because apart from the fact that it's good when a book has that cross-generational appeal, she has a keen critical eye - and she's the one who sparked my passion for books.

    What drew you to books in the first place? Was it being read to by a parent or grandparent? A teacher who inspired you? A single book, perhaps, that so appealed that a whole world then opened up for you?

Comments

[Annabel]

My late Mum got me reading early and then when I was old enough for the library you couldn't stop me. Later we used to share books all the time, and she'd return them to me with sticky notes on with her comments.

[Kim]

My darling Dad. When I was a little girl his office was across the street from the main library, so he would bring home a stack of books every week for me to read. He was an avid reader and passed on his love of good books to me through his example and by making books so readily available to me. Love your question and your blog.

[Nancy]

Sadly, I cannot remember being read to, though I must have been. Also, I definitely don't remember any teacher inspiring me to read, in fact, I was always being scolded and reprimanded for reading ahead in the reading text book. I couldn't help it, just couldn't wait until we got to the next story in class. I'm afraid, I would 'take' one of those readers when I could get away with it, and sneak it into my red plaid book satchel, taking it back the next day - and, in this way, finished the book way ahead of schedule. We had no local book stores, no school library, no local library - but did eventually have a book mobile out from the Parish seat 20 miles away. Sometimes, I think it's a wonder that I became an avid reader.

I love the photo of you with your mom and remember when you shared it before, it's wonderful.

[Dark Puss]

My parents read to me a great deal as a child; my father got very bored with The Hobbit for the eighth time! I was lucky in that my parents had a fairly extensive library (~ 4000 books) and were both very very keen readers and collectors of books, both literature and natural history. I also acquired early in life my love of public libraries, borrowing books (or having them borrowed for me) weekly. From my father in particular I got a love of C20 European and Japanese literature and from my mother the desire to read Proust.

[Sandy]

Your photo is the star of this topic - many thanks for sharing it with us!

My father was inspirational in showing me the world of books. He had become friends with his english teacher at school, who I guess inspired Dad to teach english and who sent me books that resulted in my addiction to the worlds of fiction.

[Susan Campbell]

My late mother read to me from the time I could sit up and take notice, and helped me learn to read before I went to school. Once I discovered that through reading I could use my imagination to join in with other people's lives, there was no stopping me.
While mine was a background that would now be seen as impoverished, somehow my mum always found money for a good supply of books for us children. I read through the children's section of the local library and can remember the thrill of being promoted (supervised) to the adult library.
For all my life I've enjoyed continuing self-education through reading works of writers from many times and places.
Today is a 60+birthday and I'm going to buy myself a present...a book, of course!

[Cornflower]

A very happy birthday to you, Susan!

[LizF]

What a lovely picture!
Both my late parents were readers and taught me to read before I went to school, although their work was slightly undone by the school's insistance on re-teaching me to read using the phonetic ITA system which left me with very haphazard spelling for the early years of primary school!
The house was full of books from their childhoods, and from previous generations so I cut my reading teeth on a wide variety of books from Victorian morality tales to 20's school stories as well as Enid Blyton etc.
I have inherited my father's love of nature and animal related books and my mother's fondness for 30's novels and sweeping romantic sagas although I never have developed a taste for the violent war novels that she also loved!

[MzTallulah]

Such a sweet picture! I guess my love for reading comes from growing up in a house full of books, and from getting a library card very early on... I though about you when I found this article yesterday: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2011/sep/16/kashmir-srinagar-shopping?INTCMP=SRCH

[B R Wombat]

I had a library card from the age of a few months. A fact which is backed up with photographic evidence of me in my pram (complete with pixie hood) devouring one of those board books.

[Nan]

This was wonderful to read. I love it that you two share books and book talk. Great photo!

[Jo]

My love of reading comes from my mum and her father. Books were just like breathing in my house, you had them and read them and enjoyed them from a very early age. From my mum reading was key. From my dad swimming was key. I still love both now!

We lived 2 minutes from the library and went every week, with a shopping trolley to carry the books back and forth in.

I still share the love of books and reading with my mum, especially reading books which she has read. Slowly Dad has become more involved in our reading love, but he struggles as he has dyslexia which is why I think he never read to me as a child.

A really lovely post, which brought back some lovely memories for me. Thank you for sharing.

[FleurFisher]

My parents were both readers, but it was my mother who guided me. My baby book shows that my first walk was to the library, and later on she took me there to borrow books regularly, bought lovely editions on childrens's classics, and passed on a selection of her own childhood favourites that she had saved. And I remember that when I advanced to the adult shelves in the library she steered me towards Daphne Du Maurier, Agatha Christie, Mary Stewart and Elizabeth Goudge, and then off I went.

These days she doesn't have the short term memory to follow a plot but she still takes an interest in what I'm reading and she loves television adaptations of literary classics.

[Margaret Powling]

Frist of all, belated Happy Birthday to Susan Campbell - another Virgo birthday gal, like Cornflower and myself ... that aside, I was read to by my parents (and Mum also made up stories for me), and my comic (School Friend) was read to me by my maternal granddad (I looked at the pictures while he read the words.) I was late to learn to read myself even though I had all this reading-to-me. However, in the 1950s my parents had a newsagents' shop in which was a small circulating library, and from that I could help myself although I only recall reading light romances (and keeping the second book which Rosamunde Pilcher wrote, APRIL, published in 1957.) I didn't have a library ticket until I was married with children as my parents bought all the books I needed/wanted, and in the pre-polio vaccine days, they were aware of 'germs' carried on books, so no library ticket for me.

[Deirdre]

I grew up around books. As children we didn't have a television on purpose, we had to read! Both my parents were readers and had extensive book collections. My sister and I are both avid readers, my brother not quite so!

[Cornflower]

Thanks so much for the link!

[Mandie]

I've always loved words, their cadence and their different meaning in different contexts. My Grandfather encouraged me, extended my vocabulary and we would tell each other stories whether they made sense or not. Books were then read to me and I was hooked. It was a lovely introduction to my favourite interest.