For me it was my grandmother, especially in the early years. She was the only person in the family who enjoyed reading (ended up teaching English, in fact.) She was never afraid to give me books that were ‘‘too old’’ for me, which I appreciated because those were less boring - a lot of books for younger kids are kind of patronizing, but she never tried to shelter me. In a lot of ways we are kindred spirits, but unlike me she is a bold, fearless type who will dive head first into anything. She shared with me tales of mythology and unsolved mysteries. She taught me to embrace the weird and wonderful and the controversial, and I think that’s the reason my favorite books are the ones that shake you up a little. Once I discovered books, you couldn’t get ém out of my hands, and I read pretty much whatever I could get my hands on.
My mother. She let me read anything I pleased from her collection, which ran heavily towards sci-fi, fantasy, romance, and mystery. The romance & mystery novels didn’t appeal to me, but some of my earliest memories are of reading sci-fi and fantasy from her collection. I remember taking most of a summer to get through Zelazny’s Creatures of Light and Darkness as a boy. I still have almost all of her sci-fi and fantasy collection, in fact.
There were also two collections of encyclopedias; I’m not sure which parent bought them but I read through them voraciously as a child.
I’ve no idea. I read everything at the library and bought every kids’ book at the secondhand shop, and something or other made me like the fantasy and science fiction books more than the others.
My father couldn’t read - he was blind - and my mother just didn’t read. They also never listened to music and never chose TV programmes, just watched whatever was on ITV at the time; oddly cultureless really.
My entire family was a house of readers. My grandma loved her romances and Reader’s Digest condensed books. My papaw had his Zane Grays and my mom read everything. She was a big fan of horror especially and that’s how I was introduced to Stephen King…at waaaay too young an age! My brother has always been a big fan of anything related to science, history or biographies. I don’t remember ever not loving to read myself, and I can see in my daughter. At six she’s desperate to learn every word she sees.
I think my brother influenced me the most in both music and books. My first favorite book was Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. I was eighteen and in the hospital after giving birth when he gave me my first fantasy/sci fi (though hardly that). It was Piers Anthony’s Shade of a Tree. I read everything he wrote after that and then branched out to the greats. I also read every one of my brother’s college textbooks/required reading, especially the anthropology and religion books. He always had something great to read and still every time I go to his house I find something on the book shelf to snatch.
Interestingly, my love of TV (which has been the main influence in all aspects of my life) gave me a predilection for things which move quickly and smash genres together. I read The Illuminatus! Trilogy at a fairly early age, and even though I didn’t understand it, it oddly shaped a lot of my literature tastes. Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, with its exciting style, came slightly later, followed by Snow Crash and then – everything after that…
Oh, definitely my brother! He’s nine years older than me, and he was sorely disappointed in my older sister, who much preferred sweeping epic romances to anything he liked to read. So I was his pet project. Doc Savage, Nero Wolfe, Ellery Queen…he saw to it I was well-versed in pulp fiction! Sci-fi of all types…and on one memorable trip when I was about 10, he gave me both The Naked Ape and Catch-22 to read. It was the first time my mother decided to censor my reading, and took away Catch-22! Then he introduced me to Dr. Who. I still steal books from his house!
This might sound sad, but I developed my taste in literature from the SDMB.
My parents read books in Russian, and none of my friends were avid readers.
I joined the SDMB seven years ago when I was 18 and just starting college. Before then I only read books assigned in school. In college, when I started reading obsessively, I basically read whatever was recommended here.
When I was around six and discovered the public library I read everything of interest in the Juvenile section, then moved on to the Adult side (turned out I needed written permission to check out those books, and got it.) I read everything that didn’t look like it sucked. I have proceeded to do that ever since, getting a library card everywhere I’ve lived around the same time as getting the electricity turned on.
Every time I come home from the library (and after light-headed buying frenzies at the used book store) it’s like Christmas morning. What shall I try first? The non-fiction on criminal psychology? The latest in the series about druids? The interior decorating book that looks like the designer likes my colors? A “first novel?” (One of my favorites, because they put everything they’ve got into it in hopes of getting published.)
Since I read my father’s Organic Gardening growing up and my mother’s Guideposts, and thought I’d hit the mother-lode when I discovered Readers’ Digest, I think I’ll read just about anything.
Guess I’m just a syntax whore with, as usual, no traceable line.
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.
Ditto, but read the others first. Knowing the characters and their history makes the payoff so much better. And, oh, I am partial to Murder must Advertise as well.
Mostly from myself. I learned to read quickly and well, and no one ever censored my reading or tried to steer me to anything in particular. My father only read newspapers, and had no interest in or respect for fiction. My mother did read fiction, but didn’t have the time for much reading. (Farmer’s wives never had much time.) So I ransacked all parts of the libraries, bought books from all sections of the local bookstores, and developed my fairly omnivorous tastes through free-range trial and error.
My father, he always read in the evening and it was always non-fiction books. I pretty much only read non-fiction now and maybe read one or two fiction titles a year, if that many.
My parents both had a hand in it: Mom read mysteries, Dad read SF. My sister and I were both reading before we started school, and had our own library cards as soon as we could. The librarian was quietly supportive, and steered me into the adult stacks long before I was legal. (I think she did check with my parents first for permission.) I went through most of that and just kept on.
I do have a lot of books around the house now, but maybe not as many as Jonathan Chance. On the other hand, I still have the first two I bought with my own money.
I had two strong influences: my studious Dad and his lazier younger brothers.
My uncles went to high school in the Fifties, and whenever they were assigned to read a great novel, they tended to buy the old Classics Comics version instead. So, my grandmother’s apartment, upstairs from ours, was filled with dozens of old Classics Comics. and I used to read those every night, when I was little.
Hence, even if I HAVEN’T read a canonical novel, there’s a good chance I’m very familiar with it from having read the comic book version.
As for my Dad, well, he was the type who thought most kiddie literature was a waste of time. If he saw me reading an Encyclopedia Brown mystery collection, he’d decide that, since I liked mysteries, I should start reading Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe and G.K. Chesterton.
To my Dad, there was no reason I should read a bowdlerized kiddie version of “Rip Van Winkle” when I could just read the original version by Washington Irving instead. He was always pushing me to read things I was inclined to think were beyond me. I was 9 or so when he started me on Desmond Morris and Teilhard de Chardin.
Initially, my mother. Though she does not consider herself a smart woman, I remember always thought she was very intelligent when I was growing up. She read constantly; I don’t remember ever seeing her without a book. (She can also spell any word you give her. Such a lost talent!)
She had a particular affinity for horror novels and the paranormal. I read my first Dean Koontz novel in third grade… and had terrible nightmares as a result. I still love Koontz, but I now consider him an author of “bubblegum books”, ones I can chew up and spit out when I don’t want to read something of much substance.
My mother also gave me the Little House on the Prairie books, Anne of Green Gables, all of Frances Hodgson Burnette’s works, and several other classic little girl novels.
My mom never liked fantasy, so I don’t know how I fell in love with that.
Now, I’m occasionally influenced by friends, particularly my boyfriend. I started reading science fiction (primarily Robert Heinlein) 16 years ago when I first met him. He most recently introduced me to the Song of Ice and Fire series.
No one in my family was a reader when i was growing up, except for my mom reading romances and i think that clan of the cave bear series. For some unknown reason (hmm, i’ll have to ask her, i don’t think i read any graphic novels or fantasy before) my mom bought me a graphic novel version of The Hobbit when i was in Elementary School and i really liked it. In Junior High i read the LOTR and loved that too. Then my reading went dormant for a while, until i was in college and the LOTR movies were starting to come out so i decided to re-read the books, my love of fantasy was thus reborn and i haven’t looked back.
Edit: I feel i need to say that I don’t even consider LOTR my favorites at this point, but those books are certainly what sparked my love of fantasy.
I was always a voracious reader from the very beginning. My aunt was a librarian and I was allowed to browse through any books in the library whatsoever (got quite an education that way). I also worked at the library in high school and aunt gave me many excellent book recommendations over the years. I remember she loved the Poldark series by Winston Graham, and eventually I saw the series on PBS and read most of the books. Thank you, auntie!
I came to share a story of my dad who as a very young man went to Navy (well, the Yugoslav version of it in the 1950-ies) and he was there for 3 years. He couldn’t read when he was younger because of the WW2 and general poverty at the time - he had to take up apprenticeship when he was 12.
He was so hungry for the books he read major works of Tolstoy, Gorki and Dostoyevski and also local writers. He always pointed to that as the major turn in his life so later on he would always buy full sets of works from major writers every couple of months from traveling book salesmen.
Then my older brother started making requests (Orwell, Kundera, Zola and others) and by the time I was in high school the house was full of books.
Another person that was influential was my high school Literature and Grammar teacher who was half drunk most of the time, expelled from Communist party in the 70-ies and sent to our little provincial town. He would go crazy at the general inability of students to make any effort in understanding the books. Then he would go off on his analysis that was lucid and interesting…