My Reading Story

Interestingly if I look back at my reading history, up to a certain point I guess it is largely interlinked with my language story, other than my immediate family there were not too many outside influences on my reading or my choices. At the age of two I was effectively partially deaf and my early speech in my mother’s words “sounded like I was under water” which my sister used to her advantage by telling mum that I had asked for a biscuit, of course receiving one herself, when I had mumbled and mum could not understand me. Of course that was my speech rather than my reading.
As the only way to enable me to speak clearly was sounding out words and through repetition of these words and phrases, my mother found that reading too me at first and later with me was the most effective system. At this early age I discovered a fondness for reading, possibly as I didn’t need to speak or listen, especially enjoying a book on tape of Winnie the Pooh, Pooh was attempting to steal hunny from the bees in the hunny tree by pretending to be “a little black rain cloud, hovering over the hunny tree” I read this book with mum many times and listened to the tape whilst reading many more, this is definitely my first memory of reading.
With the hearing and speech difficulties we spent a lot of time reading aloud and I was a good reader by the time I started school, fortunately already enjoying reading, combined with it being the 80s, only having a commodore 16 computer (yes there was a commodore worse than the 64) and parents controlling the TV, reading seemed to be my escape at this young age. Like most boys of 7 reading both the dandy and the beano (shared with my sister), I have memories of being caught reading them with the curtains to one side, during the summer when there was still light after bed time.
My first discovery of Roald Dahl was via my older sister (2yrs) as she had started reading his books before me, my first recollection was reading the magic finger, once I had read this it continued until all of my sisters Dahl collection had been read and read again. I don’t recall when my preferences changed, from Roald Dahl they took a somewhat natural progression into Enid Blyton, starting with the famous five and the adventure series (island of, sea of, etc) and moving into the secret seven, this may be where my favourite writers began to change I loved mystery and crime novels from that point on, helped with my sisters discovery of Nancy drew, of course as a boy shouldn’t read them, luckily the hardy boys are there to fill the void, despite every book having a formulaic style (they all have a chapter titled captured, caught, kidnapped or something of equal incident) I remember enjoying these.
At this same point with the help of my mum again I had started to discover film rather than TV, mum had introduced me to Alfred Hitchcock and his films and I was hooked, whilst looking for a hardy boys I hadn’t yet read I remember seeing a book Alfred Hitchcock’s Three Investigators, I read it and they became my new favourite series of books, like the hardy boys they were about solving crimes that the adults couldn’t, only there were three of them and they were a little bit younger not to mention they were written by my first favourite director (probably the first one I knew anything about).
From this point on the inclusion of films in my life effected the books that I read and the books that I read often influenced the types of films I enjoyed, in my early teens I started to watch a TV show called red dwarf, because I enjoyed the humour so much I chose to read the original novel and its sequel ‘better than life’ both by the dual writing team of Grant Naylor (Doug Naylor and Rob Grant) who also wrote the series, I have continued to read all of rob grants work since, as always enjoyed his particular brand of satire and fantasy, which is a similar Terry Pratchett, I guess I moved on from the teen crime novels and into more humorous writing as I started to watch more comedy on TV and in films, though enjoyment was found in from my father’s Tom Sharpe books, I don’t ever recall him reading anything else and he now only reads motorsport biographies, Tom Sharpe although a little too adult for me at the time the cover art intrigued me and I wanted to know what dad read, there had also been an adaptation of Wilt on TV. Mum only read Catherine Cookson novels and the odd Jackie Collins so there was no danger of me wanting to read those.
Then there is a slight gap in my reading story as for a few years whilst doing my GCSEs and discovering music , I read less for pleasure and tended to read mostly texts for school and music or film magazines such as kerrang! And Empire, my enjoyment of films as a main media outlet had grown and reading had been left behind, curiously until I saw Pulp Fiction at which point my enjoyment of reading was re-ignited, Pulp Fiction was such an amazingly clever and well written film that I wanted to know more about it, discovering it was a based on a novel by Elmore Leonard led me to start reading other novels by Leonard, finding his books captivating the dialogue was brilliant often seeming timeless and written in a manner that allows seamless transition into films, this also rediscovered my love of crime and mystery novels, reading mostly Elmore Leonard up until 2006.
After shall we say a rough start to 2006, travelling seemed a great idea and was very helpful in rediscovering the enjoyment of immersing myself in a book, generally helpful whilst trying to ignore ex convicts the greyhound had just picked up from Houston prison at 2am, travelling light meant constantly swapping books meaning much time spent in book shops looking for new options and also enforced choices in hostel swapping libraries, from being set in my ways and reading only Rob Grant and Elmore Leonards, I now read pretty much anything that didn’t have love in the title, or had been Maxim’s top choice read.
It was in some ways a re-education, I’m not going to lie it’s not as if I read anything that could be described as a classic but I definitely broadened my horizons on the types and styles of modern literature, the depth of talent in crime fiction alone surprised me, discovering, Lee Child, Dean Koontz, the Kellerman's and Harlen Coben to name a few. Unfortunately I did end up reading two Sidney Sheldon’s on route, this I’m ashamed to admit.
I am still a little settled in crime fiction or satire when it comes to reading for fun, though I am open to reading other styles and genres that seem interesting, was extremely surprised to find I enjoyed reading pride and prejudice, though that admission goes no further.

A closet Austen-lover!

Oh Red Dwarf! Excellent! Will never forget the 'Dwain Dibley' episode...Have you read 'Incompetence' by Rob Grant? Very funny can lend it to you.
Also if you like Pratchett then Tom Holt and Jasper Fforde have a similar sense of humour.

Your reading history has definitely got me intrigued in reading more thriller and crime novels. I quite enjoy reading novels after seeing the films, despite this practise being an apparent faux pas!

Travelling also made me broaden my reading horizons, I was also amazed at how many books were left in hotels! I'll have to check out some of those crime novels, I haven't read that many but I do enjoy them.