# What book would you send back in time to your ten year old self to read? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 28, 2018, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435 "2018-08-28T21:49:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/1 "2018-08-28T21:49:31Z")
It must not have been published when you were ten. But, if you choose the first book in a series, your ten year old self won’t be able to read the rest of the series until it’s really published. And your past self won’t be able to tell anyone else about the book. I would choose Castle Hangnail, by Ursula Vernon. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/2 "2018-08-28T23:05:12Z")
_The Making of Microsoft: How Bill Gates and His Team Created the World’s Most Successful Software Company_ would certainly be useful in the late 1970s, precocious investor that I was, though I did miss out on making a bundle on Ideal Toys when they got the Rubik’s Cube. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/3 "2018-08-29T00:43:29Z")
One of the Julia Donaldson books, simply because they’re fun. Either _The Gruffalo_ or _Tiddler_. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/4 "2018-08-29T01:12:49Z")
One of the Captain Underpants series, or Babette Cole’s Dr. Dog. ---
**Author:** ![Alpha\_Twit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alpha_twit/32/265_2.png) [@Alpha\_Twit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alpha_Twit)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/5 "2018-08-29T01:24:33Z")
I’m surprised you didn’t forbid the sending of reference books. Thanks to the plot from _Back To The Future II_, I’m sure I could find a suitable book of statistics. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/6 "2018-08-29T11:16:38Z")
If I can weasel with the terms a bit, I’d send my 15-year-old self Stephen King’s _On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft_. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/7 "2018-08-29T11:18:31Z")
I’d send back that book from Phys Ed class, seventh grade, the sex ed book. That way I wouldn’t embarrass myself when I read about intercourse. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/8 "2018-08-29T20:57:30Z")
_Who Moved My Cheese?_ ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/9 "2018-08-29T23:27:50Z")
An omnibus volume of the Harry Potter septology, along with a note to type it up and submit it in manuscript form (in seven volumes, of course) to a publishing house starting in 1986. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/10 "2018-08-30T00:45:28Z")
‘Even Cowgirls Get The Blues’, by Tom Robbins It would have been a brilliant read for that period in my life I think. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/11 "2018-08-30T08:41:40Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > ‘Even Cowgirls Get The Blues’, by Tom Robbins > > It would have been a brilliant read for that period in my life I think. You must have been a pretty precocious ten-year old… ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/12 "2018-08-30T19:03:35Z")
**Catch-22**. Published in 1961 when I was eleven. First read it in my late teens. I’m not sure I would have appreciated it at ten, but it wouldn’t have hurt. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/13 "2018-08-30T19:18:15Z")
“Gray’s Sports Almanac 1950 - 2000” ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/14 "2018-08-30T20:10:57Z")
_Macdonald Hall Goes Hollywood_ by Gordon Korman, because I loooved the Bruno and Boots books when I was ten and would have been thrilled to get my hands on a not-yet-published one; and because, alas, they turn out not to be anywhere near as funny if you read them as a grown-up, so that one was sort of wasted on me when it did come out. (I might be able to come up with a more serious and life-changing answer if the OP had picked a different age.) ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/15 "2018-08-30T21:42:24Z")
_Notes From Underground_ - Dostoevesky _The Outsider_ - Colin Wilson _Darkness At Noon_ - Arthur Koestler _Gulag Archipelago_ - Alexander Solzhenitsyn _Hunger_ - Knut Hamsen ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/16 "2018-08-30T21:54:30Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#): > > _Notes From Underground_ - Dostoevesky > > _The Outsider_ - Colin Wilson > > _Darkness At Noon_ - Arthur Koestler > > _Gulag Archipelago_ - Alexander Solzhenitsyn > > _Hunger_ - Knut Hamsen Wow - _Darkness at Noon_ hadn’t been published when you were 10 years old? You are way older than I had guessed. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/17 "2018-08-30T22:05:42Z")
Gulag Archipelago at ten? Colour me impressed! ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/18 "2018-08-30T22:45:45Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Wow - _Darkness at Noon_ hadn’t been published when you were 10 years old? You are way older than I had guessed. Indeed, I have completely fucked up on the whole chronology thing. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2018, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/19 "2018-09-01T17:39:45Z")
_Ulysses_. I’m a mean bastard ---
**Author:** ![ENugent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4af34b/32.png) [@ENugent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ENugent)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2018, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-ten-year-old-self-to-read/820435/20 "2018-09-01T19:38:22Z")
_Wee Free Men_. Even though I wouldn’t get to read the rest of the series for years and years, the first tale of Tiffany Aching would be worth it to me.