Your Favourite Reading Memory

I was answering a post on the Favorite Reading Place thread, and I realized I was about to hijack the thread (which is so rude), so I thought I'd start a new thread. What are your favourite reading memories?

I found the thread on favourite reading places so interesting. It made me think of great places that I've read great books. Here are a few:

- When I was 19, this Canadian girl traveled alone to Australia, where they didn't think they needed to heat their homes. But it was September, and rather chilly, and I remember huddling under 5 wool blankets, and wearing layers of clothes, reading Papillion. (Must remember to add that one to my library! I remember that book well).

- Swinging in a hamock in Madang, Papua New Guinea, reading The Thorn Birds, which touched on so many of my previous Australian memories. (Another book to add to my library).

- having a mega-fight with my boyfriend (now husband of 14 years), and eating meg-quantities of chocolate and reading my second and last Danielle Steele novel (don't know which one, aren't they all the same? Having suffered through two, I'd say "yes")

- sitting on a deck chair, late afternoon, on a Caribbean cruise ship (honeymoon to above mentioned boyfriend), sipping a gin & tonic, reading James Mitchners' Caribbean (which I never did finish. Yet, it's a good memory).

Enough for now. I'll be back . . .

I'll just do one for now:

While living out of a car, my friend and I ventured to the ocean for New Year's eve. After midnight, we took turns reading from Howl and Siddhartha just to keep our minds off the cold.

I'll just do one as well, as there are too many to mention. Way back in the 1970's, I'm sitting poolside at my old apartment complex in Silver Spring, Maryland, and laughing uproariously while reading Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. I still remember the joy that such a book, which was funny enough to cause me to laugh out loud, brings.

Isn't it funny how, with the mention of a certain book, you can remember where you were and what you were doing (other than reading, of course) when you read it?

One of my favorites:
It was my first job and I was on my lunch hour. I picked up Illusions by Richard Bach. The opening drew me in and I was so completely caught up that they had to come find me. I was 15 minutes late returning to the floor. I didn't get into trouble because the book belonged to my boss and he said he couldn't put it down either.

it's not a favorite memory, but it is a recent one. i was reading From Colony to Superpower beneath the skylight, and when it got dark, i . . . i know this is a cliche, but for a moment, i thought i was manic, because I was convinced i was there with Grenville and Jay, and i was with Jefferson when he fretted over the Louisiana Purchase, and looking over Adams' shoulder as . . . you get the idea. i don't believe i shall ever see Non-fiction the same way again. the same goes for 19th century Kentuckians ;)

My most recent memory is from yesterday. I was finishing East of Eden by the fading light of my window. The pages were getting darker. I finished and looked out the window as the last of the pink dissolved behind the night-blue Rocky Mountains.

I remember lying on a caravan bunk bed in Wales as a child, in a little tiny room, with a shelf heaving under a pile of books next to me. There's that distinctive caravanny smell from the grass outside and the gas grill, and sheep bleating on the hillside, maybe the tinny patter of rain on the roof and the sound of the distant train near the seafront rushing past. I could lie there for hours, reading Enid Blyton and Swallows and Amazons and all sorts of other things brought from home. I'd bring 20 books with me for a week's holiday because back in the day I could read all day there, and the three hours or so either way to and from Wales in the car as well...

Another one that stands out is reading The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart, lying on a sun lounger by the pool in a lakeside hotel garden, looking out over glittering Lake Garda. I wouldn't read the book again, but despite the heat I was absolutely gripped by this utter perversion, the simplicity of this idea of living by the roll of a dice, yet how complex and disturbed it could become. It was like watching a car crash but I couldn't put it down!

Great thread, Nickelini! Lovely stories, everyone. I'm bookmarking this thread to return to as soon as I can dredge up a memory worth sharing.

One that stands out from childhood is my mom reading Hitty Her First Hundred Years to me before bed. My great aunt had sent the book to me - the first book I ever received by mail - and I was enthralled.

More recently, the day after arriving in Prague for my semester abroad, our group went to a castle (unfortunately forgetting the name) for a weekend orientation session, and I remember sitting in bed watching it snow while reading the first book in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I read the entire trilogy that semester, frequently in cafes, and it was just magical.

Oh, can I add a second one?

It was when my two oldest children were both young. I used to read stories to both boys before they went to sleep. I read classic children's literature, one chapter each night, that I had never read as a kid.

It was at the end of The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings that the sadness of the story just overwhelmed me. I had to stop reading, and it took everything that I had to keep from sobbing in front of my kids.

Lying on the grass in the shade of an oak tree on a hot summer afternoon, listening to our teacher reading Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling out loud.

I must have been 9 or 10, and we were in a small Kent (U.K.) village school.

I was 7 or 8 - it was when my family was living in London (we're from Texas). I remember laying in my tiny bed on the top floor of our flat, reading by flashlight because I couldn't put Through the Looking Glass down, even though it was three in the morning.

Oh there are so many memories! My most recent indelible experience, however, took place on a United Airlines flight from Palm Springs to Chicago last Spring, tears sliding down my cheeks at the conclusion of Holding the Man by Tim Conigrave, then reading the afterward which starts with a rumination on how often readers of the book reportedly do so on public transportation -- which is a mistake because of the way it leaves you crying. It was eerie!

I was sitting on a balcony on a floor above 10 at California State University, Fullerton. I was reading Alan Watts' The Book, and I completely understood then, as I felt the floor and looked at the latticework and down into the quad at all the people that we were all indeed one great big thing and that differences and separations from animate and inanimate, me and you, this and that, were artificial. It gave me a sense of calmness and pleasant solitude. Satori.

For some reason, looking out at the world blanketed in snow made me think about one spring Saturday when I was seventeen, laying on a blanket in the sunny overgrown yard of a house I rented with my brother and which housed several young starving art students, reading the first Harry Potter book. I started as soon as the sun was warm and finished just before I lost the sun completely.

I was 13 years old and reading my first Georgette Heyer. I couldn't bear to put it down, so took it to a picnic sponsored by a club my mother was in. While all the other kids were swimming and being loud and rambunctious, I was sitting in a corner falling in love with the Regency period and Georgette Heyer. I still have that copy of Faro's Daughter.

Sometimes my mother (also a reader) would come into my room where I was hibernating with the latest Nancy Drew (or Bobsey Twins or . . . ) and insist that I put my book down and go out into the beautiful sunshine. I’d agree, but not wanting to stop reading, I open the screen of my window and toss my book on to the grass. Then I’d go read in the lilacs in this one place were they created a perfect cave, bathed in the filtered sunlight and the scent of lilacs.

Over this last Christmas, reading Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen (my first Hiaasen) on my first cruise (to the Caribbean). I chose the book because it begins with a husband throwing his wife overboard while they are on a cruise (it's actually a funny book). I loved reading the book on my stateroom balcony,listening to the waves, and I loved realizing that I had discovered another author I really enjoyed.

#19 That was my first Hiassen too, I think. I love the whole Florida nut-job ecosystem in the rest of his Florida crime novels.

Reading C.S. Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy on a bench in a shopping mall in Montreal. My classmates thought I was crazy for preferring to read rather than go round the shops, but I just couldn't put it down.

My mother trying to prise Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban out of my fingers at the dinner table in a hotel in France. One of the other guests leaned over and said "You carry on reading, dear, I'd do the exact same thing if I were you!"

Lying in bed bawling my eyes out at two in the morning over the firing squad scene in Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

Nearly throwing up over The Stand on Christmas Day and hoping to goodness my grandmother wouldn't choose that precise moment to ask what I was reading.

One sunny Saturday afternoon, stretched out on the pocket handkerchief-sized lawn at my halls of residence reading Sleep, Pale Sister.

I'm home sick today, so all I can think of are the many memories of my mom rubbing my hair and reading Snuggle Piggy and the Magic Blanket to me in bed, after I was more than old enough to read it on my own!

This memory goes back some 20 years:

During summer vacation one year I was sitting in the screened-in porch of our house in Indonesia in the middle of the night listening to the heavy rain drumming on the corrugated aluminum roof and reading Tanamera by Noel Barber by lamplight. I was 16 at the time. I was still reading the book when my parents woke up that morning. Suffice to say, I proceeded to read every novel written by Noel Barber. As for my nocturnal reading habits, well, those still happen just not quite as frequently as in my younger days!

I will never forget reading Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks as I traveled by rail across East Germany from Berlin. The train moved slowly, and with armed guards on board, the tension was unbelievable. No one talked or looked about. I was 23, traveling alone and growing more and more afraid not knowing what to expect. Although I was reading Mann in an English translation, I remember feeling grateful that the title Buddenbrooks did not immediately give me away as a foreigner. Finally we reached the border (lined with armed guards in towers as far as we could see in both directions), and the East German officials left the train. Not until the train was again in motion did a sense of relief set in, and then suddenly, everyone was talking. What I learned that day, some 40 years ago, was never to take freedom for granted.

I have fond memories of reading the Oz books and the Hardy Boys when I was young, among many others, and reading the Nancy Drew books to my daughter and The Magic Tree House books to my son, but my favorite memory is my wife, a professional storyteller, reading all of the Harry Potter books out loud to the two kids and me as my kids grew older with each book.

We got the first Harry Potter before many knew about it, and were one of those families that ordered early from Amazon UK when they used to come out earlier there than in the U.S. She read to us in our living room, in parks, by Lake Michigan, on vacations, in our attic, in our basement, at relatives' houses, and many other places, as the books got longer and longer.

She has a wonderful voice, and we all were just mesmerized by each new book. Our oldest was Harry's young age when we started, and she's now in graduate school.

Oh, what a cool thread... I have a few cherished reading memories.

I remember sitting on the top of a slide in a campground playground in the winter (my family used to go camping for Christmas... go figure) in the late afternoon with the wind blowing through the bare tree branches that were scraping against each other. I was 12 and reading Flowers In The Attic. It was my first gothic book and I was mesmerized.

As an adult one of my fondest memories is of sending my partner off to see the shows in Las Vegas while I parked myself on the sofa in our suite with an icy cold drink, a fresh pack of smokes (no I don't smoke anymore), and three new books from a local used book shop. It's the only time I've actually enjoyed a trip to Vegas.

The midnight release parties for the HP books. Sitting in the bookstore cafe in our pajamas and daring each other to try all the new Bertie Botts flavors and squealing like small children when we actually got a copy in our greedy hands... then the weekend spent with the entire family laying about the house in various rooms and positions as we all read the new book while occasionally loudly asking everyone else how far along they were.

A few vignettes: lying in bed and reading about Heidi lying in her bed looking out the little round window in the eaves of her grandfather's hut in the Alps.

Finishing The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and feeling terribly sad that I'd finished it and wouldn't be able to reread it for a while.

Listening to my favorite college professor read Act II of Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra and cutting my next class to read Act III.

Wishing myself one with Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye and vowing never to become Marjorie in Herman Wouk's Marjorie Morningstar

Reading Emma while on a trip to Britain, specifically while in Cong, this tiny little town in Ireland, complete with abbey ruins. It was my first Jane Austen, so it was slow going, but it matched the surroundings perfectly.

>27 srubinstein: srubinstein - I'm glad I'm not the only that felt the 'End of Lord of the Rings Blues' - it was one of the few good examples of Capote's famous saying: 'Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.' I was bereft for a day or two before I could start anything new!

I took Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix backpacking in the White Mountains to finish it. I knew that reading it in a tent during a monsoon storm with my headlamp on would be the best way to do it justice. It was worth carrying a hardcover, 870 page book down and out again for that experience. And when we got back we went straight to Target to get Half-Blood Prince which was just being released.

#30...my back hurts just thinking about lugging HP while backpacking. Why not the paperback?

You know, I feel a little bit embarrassed by this one, but it really is a good memory.

For a few years I made fairly frequent trips between the US and the UK, and on one trip my then-girlfriend gave me Dan Brown's Angels and Demons to read. The flight ran a little long, and I managed to read the whole book in about six and a half hours. It's not a great book, but reading it felt like watching a movie and the plane ride went by faster than any other I've taken.

A few come to mind...

Sneaking a book under the covers that my parents didn't think I was old enough to read. My parents got me the first two "Battle of the Bunheads" books because I was taking ballet. I read the first and really liked it, but the second one had a ghost and they wanted me to wait. I read it anyways, hiding it under my pillow.

When I was in first grade, I borrowed Pippi Longstocking from a friend. I managed to read it in only two days, which was a first for me. I was so extremely proud of the accomplishment!

Reading the Lord of the Rings for the first time, the summer before I started high school. The Ringwraiths freaked me out, and I remember being driven to find out what were those creepy things chasing the hobbits? I've reread the series many times now, but no rereading of them has come close to that first, deliciously creepy feeling on the back of my neck when I didn't know what was going to happen.

>32 Sutpen: Sutpen - don't be embarrassed! I loved my reading of The Da Vinci Code... I was at uni and everyone wanted to go and see the movie that evening but I was determined to read the book first. So I had a quick breakfast as soon as the breakfast room opened, took a mug down to fill to the brim with fresh coffee, then took it back to my room, locked myself in, and just read and read, all day. I was genuinely gripped by it, all the twists and turns and cliff-hangers - it was great! I went to the movie having read all but the last couple of pages... It may not be Dickens or Shakespeare, but I had a brilliant, thrilling time reading it so who cares?!

#31 - I don't remember for sure, but I don't think it was out in paperback yet. In any case, when you're in for a penny you're in for a pound!

As a teacher, some of my favourite reading memories are reading to children. This year, I read a book called Faithful Elephants: A True Story of Animals, People, and War which made me cry. The kids were amazed to see me with tears in my eyes, which started a good discussion about how we respond to books. A long time ago, I read Grade 2's a book that involved toys being thrown out by a parent. (I can't remember the title.) When I looked up, most of the students had tears in their eyes! I guess they could really relate to such a tragedy.

I was so anxious when the fourth Harry Potter book came out--I started reading them after Prisoner of Azkaban was released, so I'd been able to finish the first three in short order. My dad took me out to the mall to pick it up (I wasn't old enough to drive yet,) and then dropped me off to go mini-golfing with my church youth group. I did quite well, but was distracted the whole time, wishing I could be reading about Harry's adventures instead! Three years later, when Order of the Phoenix was released, I had to quit during the most exciting part of the book to go Taste of Tippecanoe (a food festival) with my boyfriend. I was thrilled to finish the whole of Half-Blood Prince in one go. I had the whole house to myself and it was conveniently pouring outside, giving some great atmosphere. :) I've since read better things than Harry Potter, but those will probably always be my favorite reading memories.

I found that with the Harry Potters too - it was such a treat, holding that hardback carefully in your hands and waiting for the moment when you were alone, no distractions for hours ahead, ready to curl up and just read and read and read. Invariably this ended in utter exhaustion a day or two later, usually after floods of tears (at least, from book 4 onwards), and a feeling of having had a really magical reading experience. I'm now in the process of building up my own collection of the hardbacks (we have the set in the house but they're my sister's) so one day my kids can enjoy it for themselves. I may be 21, but I'm planning ahead!

i remember being so upset when i learned that catherine earnshaw dies...i started crying and blubburing about 'how she wasn't SUPPOSED to die!'. and i remember screaming when elizabeth bennet refused mr. darcy's proposal...and when she accepted it! and when i read 'the tell tale heart' and my brother snuck up behind me and shouted 'BOO!'. I haven't recovered since.....