Your first book


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1 hour ago, Jill Sparrow said:

I loved the Little Grey Rabbit stories of Alison Uttley. I still have the complete collection. The first book  I ever bought for myself was Squirrel Goes Skating. It came from Sisson and Parker and was quite expensive.

 

I remember the Alison Uttley books. At the time they were overshadowed by the Beatrix Potter books, but I always preferred Little Grey Rabbit. I got through all of them while I was Infant School. I haven't read one in at least 55 years but it was the first time I was aware of a specific author.

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Always loved me books........i sit here now surrounded by them.......first one must have been a 'Rupert Bear Annual'' when i was about 4.....Also recall my first Football Book.......had it from aged a

Twas a fine October morning in April last July.  The sun lay thick upon the ground the snow shone in the sky. The flowers were singing sweetly the birds were in full bloom.  As I went d

Always got a football year book or annual, I remember it because it gave you the details of all the 92 clubs, manager/coach, nicknames, and home grounds when they had proper names not some stupid spon

@benjamin1945

Aah, football books.  Me dad started taking me down the Lane when I was about 5, still got all the programmes from about 1960 onwards. 

Also still got the 1966 world cup book with a World Cup Willie doll.

Always got the Topical Times football books at Christmas but can only find one that has survived.

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I used to love The Topical Times Football Book it was an easier read than Charles Buchan's annual.

I had them both in the late 50s and early 60s. Notts were limping on in Tier 4 back then so there were very few pictures featuring their players although I remember Stan Newsham appearing one year. IIRC one year in The Topical Times there was an article entitled “Miss of the season” and it had a series of black and white pictures of none other than Mr Brian Clough playing for England v Sweden at Wembley where he misses an absolute sitter in front of an open goal. The pictures clinically reveal how he mistimes his kick with the ball hitting his knee instead before it's scrambled clear. Cruel really because he was such a prolific goal scorer when he played for Middlesbrough.

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Well me first books that I remember were what I got every Christmas.... Rupert the bear, look and learn, beano and not forgetting the dandy.... 

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Always got a football year book or annual, I remember it because it gave you the details of all the 92 clubs, manager/coach, nicknames, and home grounds when they had proper names not some stupid sponsors usually associated with on line betting.

I could name all 92 league teams, their nicknames and their home grounds, a real fanatic then. These days my football interest comprises of looking to see how Forest, County and Stags have done in their latest game.

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I still have my first book. A Day in Fairyland. It has come with me with every house/country move and the spine is looking worse for wear. But the inside is as pristine as when I was given it. Inside the cover my mum's sister wrote. To Kathleen on her 3rd birthday. Love from Aunty Con and  Uncle Fred. So I was given it Dec 1949. It is a large book which I thought gigantic as a toddler.  

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First book,  Can't remember for sure.  Rupert Annuals, I think.  Both my parents were avid readers and took regular trips to the Carlton library.  I got my own library card early and went with me mam. Once there I headed for the chilren's section.  First books I got were the 'William' stories by Richmal Crompton.  He was a 'orrible kid, and I laughed at his antics for hours.  For none fiction I picked up a book called 'The Boy Electrician'  it told you how to make a Tesla coil. ( very high voltages) and how to connect up an x ray tube to see the bones in your hands.  Wouldnt be allowed in these days.  If the shock didn't get you, the x rays would. 

 

I never did it.  I could, neither find or afford the parts.  It did give a lifelong interest in electricity and probably motivated me to be an electrician.

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Out of curiosity I Googled that Boy Electrician.  Amazingly it is still in print and avaiable on Amazon.  Now over 100 years old.  The reviews were all favorable with the exception of one or two 'elf and safety concerns.  I enjoyed reading them.  looks like I hit on a good book 67 or so years ago.

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It's about whether we mean books we owned.. or books we read.. via the Library/School etc.

Like most kids, I got an 'Annual' of some sort at Christmas... Eagle, or summat like. 

Also for Christmas.. I got a Bible.. which I used a bit in Grammar School. Somebody also bought me Dickens' David Copperfield.  I never read it.. though I'm pretty certain I would now..

My other main source of books at the time was Sunday School.  I still have a few books I was given as Sunday School prizes.  One is a very unashamedly religious text.. called I think 'He Is Risen' It's an illustrated , quite thin but large format book... covering..as you might expect.. the Easter Story. It is I believe still somewhere in the loft.

Later books from Sunday School were more propaganda than religion. The best would be 'The Coral Island', by Rev. R.M. Ballantyne.  I must admit that I was captivated by the whole idea of the warm tropical paradise in which Ralph, Peterkin and Jack found themselves marooned.. but I missed a lot of the colonialist sentiment, and the Christian propaganda. I was far too naive.  I also got one called 'The Bull Patrol' .. by Arthur Catherall.  It concerns the worthy and brave adventures of a sort of 'lone patrol' of Boy Scouts. I enjoyed it at the time.  Finally 'The Fighting Four'.. a sort of 'Heroes of Telemark, for boys.  It was OK.

My Grandad Jack gave me some of the books he was awarded by Radford All Souls as Sunday School prizes. I still have them.  He got them around 1910.  'Heroes of the Goodwin Sands'.  'Two Great Explorers' (Nansen and Stanley) and another ..  Again.. worthy colonial, imperialist sentiments.  Where would we be had Britain not saved the World? :)

 

Stepping back a bit.. in Primary school I read the Janet and John books.  I really don't remember having to learn to read.

 

Things got interesting when I was old enough to go down to Bulwell Library on a Saturday morning.  That would be from about 1960.  I loved that place.  The sense of calm and peace, mingled with the promised adventure of new books, was only enhanced by the fabulous 'booky' smell.  I was always amazed that 'kids' were allowed pretty much unsupervised into the 'children's section', in the back of the library.. out of sight of the staff.

 

I started with Biggles.. plus a smattering of books on aircraft modelling etc.  I found a whole series of books about 'Kemlo'.  A young lad who lived on a space station.  It was pure escapist fantasy stuff.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemlo

 

The last books I got out of there were mostly Science Fiction from the yellow jacketed Gollancz (sp?) series.  Some were very good.  Some were so far out that I had no clue what they were about.

 

After that I was too busy with adolescence and young adulthood to read books.

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Reading though all post it's amamzing how  many of us read same/similar books  I had Girl Friend Annual and Dandy album for each Christmas but the books i enjoyed the most were,

 

Little Women, Good Wives. Jo;s boys

Heidi, Heidi grows up,  Heidi Children

Grims Fairy Tales

Black Beauty

too many to jote down 

books don't seem to change much when you look at the older booke eg Charles Dickens Enid Blyton  Jane Austen and more we all can still relate to these books.   They don't seem to date.

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Thanks Benlips0

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We always had books at home, my dad encouraged us to read. The first book that really got me interested in reading was The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe. At Glenbrook Girls Junior School on Friday afternoons Miss Walton would read a chapter of a book to us, more years ago than I care to remember. This is where a I first came across it. Told my dad about it and he went out and got the whole “box set” of them. I read them all although the above one was always my favourite. If there is an adaptation of it on the telly (which there hasn’t been for a while, don’t they do things like that now for kids) I always watch it, the story just never seems to lose its magic.
 

I still love reading, have a kindle which has been useful during lockdown, there are a lot of free books on there although I do very occasionally pay for one if it isn’t too expensive. But I must say I do prefer to have a “proper” book from the library just seems better turning the pages somehow rather than just clicking a screen!  I usually go for crime, horror (mostly ghostly) or true crime (serial killers usually they fascinate me - a profile of my reading habits could be a problem!) and the occasional humorous one. But then I also like Pride and Prejudice (Wasn’t it Colin Firth as Mr D’Arcy who caused a stir in the swimming scene:biggrin:).
I do like a book that grabs you so you don’t want to put it down. If I can put it down easily and walk away I am not really enjoying it. I hope the library opens up again soon, missed browsing there.

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The frs books I remember my mum reading to me were the Little Grey Rabbit books -    I particularly remember Fuzzypeg the hedgehog.  Then there was all the Winnie the Pooh books.  I dislike the Winnie the Pooh films because the characters mostly have silly American voices, and in my head they don’t !!

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Although I've got loads of books, including paper back and hard back, I do a lot of reading on my Kobo ereader. Similar to Kindle but a wider choice. I read every night and first thing in the morning with my early cuppa. To be able to take thousands of books with you, I still find amazing.

SG, if you like ghost stories, I can recommend two books by Peter James, "The House on Cold Hill" and "The Secret of Cold Hill", (in that order). He is the author of  "Roy Grace" books.

I think one of the best books I've ever read is, "Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry. 

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2 hours ago, Stavertongirl said:

The first book that really got me interested in reading was The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe

Must have been a standard reading book. Our Friday afternoons at Old Basford were reading, that one amongst them.

Read your post and immediately thought of the huge classroom with vaulted windows, and sunlight streaming through. We had to take it in turns to read passages out. Thanks for jogging the memory. All I have to do know is recall the teachers names! Can only remember Mrs Ford!

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I recall with great affection the time my mum and dad spent with me on Janet and John books teaching me to read. I found it hard and remember struggling at times, in tears, but gently they persisted. By the time I got to Berridge I was way beyond my reading age. Its never gone away. I read voraciously now, and have done for many decades. 

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We have far too many books here.  Mrs Col loves books just for themselves and is incapable of getting rid of a single one. That said.. I'm similar with records.

 

Oddly though. I rarely read a whole book or novel these days.  I frequently look at reference books on everything from garden plants to steam engines, ...fungi to garden birds.. but I just can't 'hack' a novel... or read anything much for more than 20 minutes or so.  I don't quite know why.

 

In what could be characterised as either a partial surrender to age.. or.. an enthusiastic step into the 'digital age'.. I signed up recently to Audible.  I don't read books now.  I listen to them.

 

I'm currently about 75% through Sally Rooney's 'Conversations With Friends'.. which was published before 'Normal People'.. her phenomenally successful novel/TV series.  It is very listenable and.. as someone said to me recently.. has you wanting to know what happens next.. the sign of a good novel.

I'll be choosing more books from Audible soon.  It's opened up a whole new way of accessing great literature.

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11 hours ago, loppylugs said:

Re. DJs post.  Good point, did we own them or borrow them?  I think we were too poor to own any, except the odd Rupert for me.  So we used the library a lot.

 

Broadly true I think Dave.. but my parents did invest in 'Newnes Pictorial Knowledge'.. which was a multi-volume encyclopaedia.  I found it very helpful as a child. but we finally decided to 'skip' it when Mum died and we cleared her house.

 

Our version was 'Chamber's Encyclopaedia.', whichwe bought in the 1970s. 15 volumes.  Our girls never 'got' the idea that there was a huge amount of info in it.  It may be the next to go...

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Among my 2 to 3 hundred books (of which ive read most..if only in part) i don't have a single one thats 'Fiction'.......i have many biographies....and travel books...and even 'Atlases' of towns and cities in the UK........However what i find interesting about many of them are what i or others have wrote in them..many i bought second hand..like a Bible i purchased in Oakham.in the 70s

 

 

Inside first cover it says in print   'Awarded to..then in someones hand writing ''Zona Lord'' then two signatures dated Sept 27th 1942...and above it all in print...

West Bridgford..

   Musters road  Methodist..

         Sunday School..........

And on the the fly leaf..it states ...Given to'' 

                  Phillip Hoyle''

                         22/5/50...........

Here's just a random sample of books from years passed that have given me much pleasure for all sorts of reasons....

Guilty Pleasures........things you love to hate...

Isle of Man coastal Path........Memories of a lovely week

Wisden Cricketers Almanack..1982...from a dear departed Pal..

Crap Towns..........of which ive worked in many...

Hoods.............bit of local History

 

I could go on...but youre probably bored by now.........lol

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Some of my favourites are Cathedral Cats: about the moggies who live in a cathedral close and supposedly monitor the rodent population.

 

Cloister Cats: ditto moggies who have moved in with monastic communities. 

 

The Ghost Stories of M R James. Wonderfully written tales.

 

A Ten O'clock Scholar, The Country Child, along with other biographical and autobiographical works about Alison Uttley.

 

The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

 

Many volumes of poetry.

 

Brontes, complete works, ditto Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare.

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I can't remember being an avid reader but I will always remember being read to to finish our afternoon lesson. The book was. Worzel Gummidge. I loved it and when I had to have my tonsils out I was upset because I would lose some of the story. Fortunately the teacher lent me the book after my convalescence. When my grandchildren came along I found a collection of WG' s video and my grandchildren loved them too. When they were no longer interested I put them away with other videos. One day my eldest G son asked me about them and I told him I couldnt remember where they were so he came to look for them with me. He spotted them straightaway.

In later years I read an assortment of books but was never interested in history until my australian cousin , after a visit, left me the biggest thickest book on the story of 3 queens. I didnt think I would ever put my nose into it and it did take me a long time, but when I started to read I couldnt put it down and went onto read history books on females in the royal family right up to Henry 8th's wives. I thought I'd better stop or else I wouldnt get anything else done. I found a couple of books  ( diaries) based on housewives during the WW 2. Apparently it was a tv series. It was very interesting to me as it was written in Barrow in Furness where I was born so knew well some of the places mentioned in the book.

Apart from those that stand out we always had the habit of looking in at some carboot sales to stock up with all sorts of books, which were read, passed on to a neice who spoke english and then passed back to us and taken to the local oncology dept at the hospital I go to. We still have a lot that we havent read yet so when everything is finished ( work in house) I think we will deserve a good rest and read.

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