# Who in your life was most responsible for your taste in literature? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 8, 2011, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633 "2011-09-08T18:10:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![gwendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2011, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/41 "2011-09-09T21:57:12Z")
I started to think about this when reading the post quoted in the OP, and the response it got… I really couldn’t say. My sister gets credit for teaching me to read early. She was already in school. She’d come home and we’d play school and she taught me. But I loved books before that. Everyone in my family loves books. In my childhood home we didn’t have a den or a family room, we had a library. It also happens that many of us are reluctant to part with any of them. When my folks split and Mom, Sis, and I moved in with Mom’s parents I suddenly had access to all of my grandparents’ books, and all of my mom’s Bobsey Twins, and Nancy Drews. Pretty much anything that had been required reading for my mom and her brother in high school was there. My grandfather, until he was near retirement age read nonfiction almost exclusively. My grandmother and mother motored through mystery paperbacks. My own literary preference for the longest time was for short fiction and American novels, mainly 20th century. I faked my way through book reports on Hawthorne, Twain, and Bronte, but happily did more work than was required on The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye. It’s only within the last 5 years that I’ve opened up to reading things like Jane Austen or Dickens. (I do remember my Grandmother being especially unfond of Dickens, and I may have let that influence me unduly.) In college (more than five years ago) I did find out that I also really enjoy Shakespear, but so far have only read comedies and dramas, none of the histories. Since it isn’t what anyone in my house was reading, and teachers begged me to choose something outside of my limited scope for the next book report, I can’t really say whose influence got me to that point. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2011, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/42 "2011-09-09T22:16:27Z")
My husband has gotten me to read many books I otherwise wouldn’t have known about. One of these days I’ll have to read Terry Pratchett so we can be on the same wavelength. He loves them, I’ve never read any. Before that, no one. I’ve tried and tried and I can not for the life of me ever remember my mom, dad or brother ever reading a book. I was a book sponge though growing up. I read encyclopedias and Books of Knowledge for fun. It helped that we lived on a farm and the attic was filled with old, I mean from before and after the turn of the 20th century old, when we moved in (I was 7). I read them all. > [@Tapiotar](#): > > Ditto, but read the others first. Knowing the characters and their history makes the payoff so much better. Agreed. I bought them all and read them in order the first time. I’m glad I did that. > [@Tapiotar](#): > > And, oh, I am partial to Murder must Advertise as well. That’s my favorite Sayers/Wimsy. Then I think The Nine Tailors. They’re all good though. ---
**Author:** ![Daylate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9dc877/32.png) [@Daylate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daylate)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2011, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/43 "2011-09-09T23:18:04Z")
My mother, born in 1900, was a college graduate and, for some of her life, an English teacher. I got exposed to books at a VERY early age - can even yet vividly remember Mom reading me _Ivanhoe_ when I was not older than six or so. Loved it. Both my wife and I are insatiable users of the library, and our two kids are too. They grew up in the age of TV, but I refused to own one until they were at least ten YO. As a result, they both are voracious readers. ---
**Author:** ![papergirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/aca169/32.png) [@papergirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/papergirl)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/44 "2011-09-10T00:22:30Z")
My favorite aunt gave me a copy of Salem’s Lot when I was nine or ten, and that pretty much set the pattern of my reading for many years. Now I don’t read a lot of novels, but I have a decent and ever-growing collection of short horror fiction. ---
**Author:** ![carlotta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@carlotta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlotta)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/45 "2011-09-10T00:34:31Z")
The Brits. I’m not sure how they got in there so early, I’m pretty sure my parents only read me Beatrix Potter, but Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, Alice and Wonderland, Peter Pan et al laid the groundwork so that I was primed for that moment when I saw The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy on a rack at the Arlington County Library. It’s the only book I ever stole. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/46 "2011-09-10T00:42:05Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > My got the RD condensed books, and I learned hate censorship after reading one and then reading the un-“condensed” version. I wish I could remember which. Anyway, it opened my eyes to the idea that there were people out there who didn’t want me to see or know certain things, and that ideas could be dangerous. Well thanks for ruining that happy memory for me!:mad: 😛 ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/47 "2011-09-10T01:16:54Z")
Both of my parents gave me my love of reading but the influence of the types of books I read go to two English professors in college. One had us read “The Dispossessed” by LeGuin for Freshman English. It was an eye opener about what SF could be and the other introduced me to Jane Austin. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/48 "2011-09-10T01:30:38Z")
My grandparents. Not because they actually introduced me to any books (though there was some of that), but because they had an enormous collection of books in their basement, which I would read vociferously during my visits. Probably the biggest single influence were the books by Carl Sagan, which set me on the path toward atheism and skepticism. As far as fiction goes, there was a lot of classic sci-fi like Asimov, which I still love today. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/49 "2011-09-10T02:27:00Z")
Me. I read SF and Fantasy primarily, though I do read just about anything, and was a comparative lit major in college. No one else in my family reads the stuff I do. Both my mother and maternal grandmother were big readers, but their tastes were different from mine. Mom read trashy romance novels and historical fiction a lot of the time. She had a decent background in literature though. My grandmother liked mysteries and popular fiction. Maybe the only common ground we had were things like Sherlock Holmes. My maternal uncle’s taste is the closest to mine, but Stephen King, Kurt Vonnegut, and Tom Robbins are the only authors I can think of where we really overlap. My father appears to have a learning deficit that was never formally diagnosed. He reads, but it’s a struggle for him, and his taste is _vastly_ different from mine. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/50 "2011-09-10T02:42:33Z")
My father primarily, I think. Both parents influenced me early on with stuff like Richard Scary ( which led to a love of animals which led to stuff like Albert Payson Terhune and Jack London and thence other places ), but my first serious non-picture book memory was my father buiying me a copy of Robert Heinlein’s Red Planet from a book stand in a San Francisco drug store in the summer before I entered third grade. He actually let me pick one book and said he would pick out the other ( I went with Michael Moorcock’s The Runestaff based on the lurid cover - so I guess I influenced my own interest in fantasy ). That lead to a typical nerdy fascination with SF/fantasy that has continued to this day. I’ve branched out from the genre ghetto since I reached adulthood, but even since then my father still has had some influence on my fiction reading - for example he turned me on to Carl Hiaasen. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/51 "2011-09-10T04:02:05Z")
Your question has given me furiously to think. And the answer is: no-one. I believe I owe my love of reading to my mother; she stayed home from work with me until I was 5, and extrapolating from later observation, she really got into her books, and that was the one relaxation she always preferred. I remember (at a later age) seeing her reading so intensely that she didn’t know anyone else was around. My father only read utilitarian things; my sister didn’t read at all. So, it is natural that I learned to love reading from watching her. But what I read? I read everything I could get my hand on. Genre fiction, classics, modern fiction, historical fiction, whatever you could think of. I still do. Thanks, Mom. Roddy ---
**Author:** ![Melysnl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@Melysnl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melysnl)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/52 "2011-09-10T04:20:26Z")
I can say without hesitation that the dated English curriculum I studied throughout school, including college, only had a marginal influence on my taste in books. If my mother hadn’t bought me great modern books to read during my childhood, I believe I would’ve turned out to be one of those people who hates to read. ---
**Author:** ![Implicit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Implicit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Implicit)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/53 "2011-09-10T04:23:44Z")
> [@](#): > > Who in your life was most responsible for your taste in literature? The librarian who put the mystery paperback rack next to the young adult paperback rack. ---
**Author:** ![Bordesley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c89c15/32.png) [@Bordesley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bordesley)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/54 "2011-09-10T15:06:12Z")
Probably my English master Mr Collins… \*\* Mr Collins\*\* He went blind temporarily a long time ago A nervous reaction to what I don’t know Some said it was worry it could be the cause Mr Collins would tell us the right time to pause The right time to stop the right time to think To get inside the words ideas to shrink And toss them about and then analyze For the mind of a poet that was the prize I had no pyjamas because of the heat With Lawrence D. H. I could not compete But the trough it reflected the swift darting tongue Of cobra so kingly to wait while you’re young I felt the reaction on hill of Beattock The rhythm that beat to the sound of the clock The mail which at night did thunder and roar Shaking the jug near the old bedroom door Wilkie’s White Woman to remote to be real Whilst reading the words I felt no appeal But I tasted the salt on smoke stack so caked And counted moidores and monkeys and apes La Belle Dame Sans Merci I travelled there too With Cliff, Pete and Reggie was one of the few So thanks Mr Collins you opened my eyes The words of a poet I can analyze And when in the future I beg to reflect I do so remembering to think not neglect ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/55 "2011-09-10T18:59:17Z")
When I was in the 7th grade a friend loaned me a copy of **The Skylark of Space** by E. E. Smith. I then went though all the science fiction in the school library and then in the branch of the public library and then I was ordering books from ACE and I started reading Analog. ---
**Author:** ![PapSett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecc23a/32.png) [@PapSett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PapSett)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/56 "2011-09-10T19:16:59Z")
Me, myself & I. Neither of my parents were readers. Dad said he used to read when he was in the army, but had no interest in it once home. I never saw him read a single book except when I was a little girl, reading to me. Mom read one book in my adult lifetime, the autobiography of that ice skater whose husband died of a heart attack while they were practicing… I think it was called My Sergei? That’s it. One book. I taught myself how to read when I was 4 and from that time on was always reading SOMEthing. My tastes have always been varied- fantasy, romance, historical, non-fiction, animal stories, I’ll read just about anything. I do find that as I get older I am reading less. No idea why. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/57 "2011-09-10T20:40:48Z")
I took to reading early, and Mom really encouraged this. But I can’t say that any one person was an influence on my tastes. Maybe (by way of left field), my aunt and uncle, because I had to spend a weekend at their place and they were so unbelievably boring that I sat and watched The Hobbit on TV. I then sought it out at the school library and was forever hooked on Fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633/58 "2011-09-11T01:33:39Z")
To the extent that I have a taste for literature in general, my mom, who was an elementary-school teacher and has always been a staunch advocate for education and reading. And she introduced me to the works of Madeline L’Engel, C. S. Lewis, and Lloyd Alexander, among many others. And I suppose that technically she also introduced me to Tolkien, since I first found _The Hobbit_ and _The Lord of the Rings_ on her bookshelves, though she didn’t read them until long after I had. But I’m not entirely sure whence comes my love for science fiction and fantasy specifically, as opposed to all of the other great books that Mom exposed us to. Probably from the same place that my love of science came from, though I’m not sure where that was, either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-your-life-was-most-responsible-for-your-taste-in-literature/595633.md?page=2)