I asked for the Lord of the rings trilogy for my birthday in high school, if that counts. Then it was the chronicles of Narnia, followed by the Chronicles of Thomas covenant, the unbeliever (one by one as they were published).

To me it isn’t so much the wording as the concept that is beautiful.

It’s funny, I read that book when I was about 10 and I remember thinking how that efficiency viewpoint must just take the fun out of everything. Of course, I was diagnosed later with ADHD, so it tracks.

I really enjoyed the Xanth novels as a teen and young adult, The puns are especially fun. But some of them don’t age particularly well in terms of treatment of women and borderline pedophilia

Good to know. I’m currently on the hunt for the first Discworld novel so that my retirement plans will be pretty much set in place.

Modern movies are even worse.

I’m sorry.

As a health care worker - People getting injured and if they don’t die they are back to chasing (or running from) bad guys, or whatever physical challenges they’re facing, as if sprains and internal contusions don’t exist (and especially getting knocked out, sometimes repeatedly, with never a concussion symptom). Popular mysteries are the worst offenders.

No. If we were reading a book I already liked, it didn’t bother me. (That seldom happened, because my taste ran to Science Fiction and fantasy). There are some books that I had to read for school that I probably think I would’ve liked better if I had just read it on my own, such as Great Expectations.

F451 was middle school book fair choice of mine and my intruding to science fiction, and it had me hooked from the start. By 11th grade, I had read everything the school libraries had by Bradbury, Asimov, and Clarke.