I’m re-reading a couple of McLeod’s right now. I finished “Rest You Merry” and I’m in the middle of “Wrack and Rune”. As good as I remembered.
This place.
I discovered Patrick O’Brian after watching the movie Master and Commander: Far Side of the World.
I found Heinlein on my dad’s bookshelf when I was a kid.
My mother introduced me to James Herriot, Dorothy Sayers and Georgette Heyer.
I don’t remember how I discovered Diana Gabaldon or Sharon Kay Penman.
The SDMB directed me to George R. R. Martin, Lois McMaster Bujold and Neal Stephenson.
I got my first Robert Heinlein novel (Glory Road) as a birthday present. My junior high school library had large collections of both Robert Heinlein and Andre Norton.
My older brother had a large collection of Edgar Rice Burroughs. When he went away to college (he was 11 years older than me) I started reading the books he left behind.
Playing D&D got me into J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard. A reference to Ringworld in a Traveller game got me started with Larry Niven.
The movie The Hunt for Red October started me with Clancy.
Apparently, I discover a lot of authors through movies and tv.
- Tolkien through the Rankin-Bass animated Lord of the Rings;
- John Irving through the movie version of The World According to Garp;
- Roddy Doyle through the movie version of The Commitments;
- Umberto Eco through the movie version of The Name of the Rose; and
- Arturo Perez-Reverte through the movie The Ninth Gate.
I never really noticed that before.
I was 13 or 14 and just starting to develop an interest in science fiction. My mom brought me some books from the library one day, including a “young reader” sci-fi novel titled “Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury” by some guy named Paul French. I enjoyed it and ended up reading several books in the series, and soon discovered that Paul French was the pseudonym of some guy named Isaac Asimov. I ended up reading nearly every piece of fiction Asimov ever wrote. I think a handful of his “Black Widowers” collections are all I’ve missed.
In my late teens/early 20s I got into mysteries, and discovered H.R.F. Keating (Inspector Ghote series), Georges Simenon (Inspector Maigret series), and Lawrence Block (the Bernie Rhodenbarr “Burglar” books) by browsing the “mystery” section at the library.
My best friend gave me a copy of Tad Williams’ “War of the Flowers”, and I’ve been hooked ever since.
Most recently, I’ve got y’all here to thank for prompting me to investigate Terry Pratchett.
Inspector Ghote! I haven’t thought of those books in a while. I wonder if I still have some.
Trivia tidbit: around the time I was reading those, my church youth group visited a guy who was a retired missionary to India — he spent a few decades there — and I got to ask him how to properly pronounce “Ghote”. “HO-tay”, but with a gutteral, back-of-the-throat sound on the first syllable.
My brother started me on my love of SciFi when i was just 12. He would send home boxes of paperbacks from his Navy ship every couple of months and my mother let me steal books out of it (probably just to shut me up. I can be relentless if I know there’s a book I haven’t read in the house.) From that I discovered quite a few of my favorite SciFi/Fantasy authors.
English Lit class introduced me to Hardy and Austen.
I stumbled upon Le Guin, Margaret Atwood, and Joyce Carol Oats myself.
A friend recommended Pratchett.
My mother gave me my first L. M. Montgomery and Frances Hodgson Burnett
I have eclectic tastes.