What got you into reading and what kinds of things have you enjoyed reading before?

[RainingFish]

I'm just curious about what got people into reading and what kinds of things you've enjoyed reading before.

I started reading in high school when someone bought me a book called Pawn of Prophecy. After that, I became interested in fantasy paperbacks and read about one a week for years. Mostly whatever I could find at thrift stores or flea markets for cheap. Later, when the internet became popular and people started putting translated manga online, I started reading those as well. Then, when translated novels became popular online, I started reading those as well, Japanese works at first, then a few Korean, and later mostly Chinese. Eventually, I read almost entirely Chinese works using Google Translate. Now I’m feeling kind of burned out on all of it, or maybe I’ll feel like reading more again later.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

My parents were teachers for several years, then dad became a reporter, and then an editor for several small newspapers before the company went under and he went back and got a Masters in Library Sciences. Mom spent several years as a librarian and substitute teacher. Brother has a MLS and a bunch of other degrees involving literature in one form or another. Been surrounded by books all my life, quite literally.

Ah, missed the second part of the question. The earliest stuff I read was a weird mix of Lewis Carroll's poems, "Robert Arthur"'s short fiction, and books about dinosaurs. That mix has kind of shaped everything since, though the discovery of Robert Heinlein's "The Star Beast" at the library near my grandmother's place opened a new world for adventure and science fiction novels (before that I only knew "light horror" and fantasy).

 

[Corty]

Choose your own adventure books. The son of the babysitter who took care of me sometimes had a lot of books like that. He read it to me and let me have an adventure. It was super fun from what I remember and after I learned to read I was totally into those books. Probably why I like writing fantasy the most.

 

[Daydreamers]

My father was in the army and when he was serving in the sahara, he picked up a habit of reading french books; as a result, by the time I came to be, our library could speak French if you let it

 

[ShrimpShady]

I actually got into proper reading in highschool because I wanted to look cool with my taste in classic English literature. Sadly, most of the stuff I read was dreadfully boring. By senior year, I wanted to dig up Jules Verne's grave just to give his skeletal ass a swirlie.

That time, I also started reading translated light novels, but I could barely get through them because of how awkward and artless the prose was in a lot of them. It didn't matter how interesting the plot was because the actual text on the page itself was just barely more interesting than a shopping list.

Can someone recommend me a light novelist who writes like Cormac McCarthy?

 

[Bobple]

I only really started reading during my last years of high school. One of the many wish I started sooner.

Jumped in, read a lot of comics and manga, then LN and a bunch of really long Chinese cultivation novels. Since then read a lot of other stuff, and happy reading most things.

 

[Little-Moon]

My dad bet against mini me would never be able to finish a thick book.

He wanted to get me reading more, as I never did and was bad at it, so he promised to buy me a video gaming consol if I managed to finish the first Eragon book (like 600-700) pages in under a week.

I surprisingly did and won. Wanted the next book of the series afterward, and got hooked on reading. Have been reading ever since whetever I could get my hands on.

 

[Arkus86]

I started reading practically as soon as I knew how to read, so I really cannot tell you what exactly got me into it - though childern's books would be a reasonable blanket answer.
Always leaning towards fantasy and adventure, I grew up with Harry Potter, Jules Verne, and some collections of old myths and legends, among other books. Later I developed taste for detective and mystery novels, through Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and E. A. Poe's works, and eventually found my way into sci-fi.
Having also gone through a phase of reading plenty of translated Japanese WNs, I eventually got tired of their distinct style of fantasy/isekai and narrowed my scope there.

 

[FieryLou]

I read the manhwa of The beginning after the End and caught up. Then, I googled for more chapters. Found the light novel and started it. This was where all went wrong...

 

[Puji-Maki]

I started reading Light novels. When I finished watching Toaru Index and Overlord, I was curious about their continuation so I decided to read the Light novels.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

I started reading in elementary school. I was always by myself reading books and didn't really have many friends. Books were a way to escape from the chaos of my life. I read a lot of small fantasy books.

 

[CarburetorThompson]

After high school I no longer had a lot of time to waste. I started reading manga because I could read it faster than watching anime or tv. Then when I ran out of manga I liked I naturally transitioned into reading, which I could also consume faster than tv

 

[Schwarzpilled]

I used to read a lot more when I was younger. Since I liked being pretentious and larp sophisticated in my head I forced myself to read a bunch of classics at 14 instead of reading normal young adult novels. At the side I read a lot of manga and light novels until I got burned out on the medium. Nowadays I mostly just read technical books explaining something I need to know at the given moment to do something.

 

[Kara_dija]

I used to read a lot more when I was younger. Since I liked being pretentious and larp sophisticated in my head I forced myself to read a bunch of classics at 14 instead of reading normal young adult novels. At the side I read a lot of manga and light novels until I got burned out on the medium. Nowadays I mostly just read technical books explaining something I need to know at the given moment to do something.

I think I was 6-7 years old with a pretty high knowledge of my native vocabulary and would read magazines and newspapers out of curiosity. (Mostly the kid's section ofc) But also secretly the adult novels ?
I'd also read all my course books before the academic year would even start. I think that habit just escalated into being a bookworm. First it was kids novels, then novels in my native language. Followed by English, mangas, manhwas and now even LN. Nothing is safe from me ??
I just wanna know more and more about EVERYTHING.

 

[Pulpitt]

Classic Wuxia got me into reading.