My love of reading probably came from my parents and my oldest brother who read out loud to me from my infancy. However, my other brother doesn't read books for entertainment though he received the same encouragement. Same with my sons: one reads as avidly as I do in many genres, but the other only enjoys instruction manuals, such as How to Maintain Your Airplane and A to Z Home Wiring, which he reads very, very well. I attribute my profound distaste of dystopian literature to high school reading -- my teachers seem to have all been bitten by the same dystopian bug. In three years I was assigned Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm, Brave New World, Brave New World Revisited, A Canticle for Leibowitz, Land Under England, and a couple I've mercifully forgotten. If I had read them in a more spread-out period and the teachers hadn't been such sheep, I might have enjoyed and got more out of them, but, as it was, I was soured forever. if you weren't an English Literature major, you probably weren't (or never would be) a serious reader of literature.Georgia, I ran across that sort of pickle-brained professor frequently.

This is really an interesting thread. I don't even know why I like some of the books I do although I can usually give a reason for the ones I don't like. I'm sure it has to do with our own personal views and the moods we are in when we read them. I did like Angela's Ashes and The Lovely Bones and even The DaVinci Code even though it was obviously not great literature. Sometimes I just want something I can read without thinking too hard. The Life of Pi disappointed me as did The Secret Life of Bees althought I didn't think they was terrible. And I really thought The Kite Runner was good. I recently set myself the task of reading the books on Time Magazine's 100 best list that I had not already read. I've found some I thought were wonderful (American Pastoral by Philip Roth), some that were so-so(The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood but that led me to read her The Robber Bride which I loved) and some that I just didn't get (Appointment in Samara by John O'Hara, At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien). Obviously somebody thought these were great books. I guess I'm content to be in the minority on some of them. I also bought, last year, The Complete Works of Jane Austen. I know there are lots of her fans here and I felt that maybe it was time I discovered her. I started with Pride and Prejudice; I know I'd read it in high school but that was MANY years ago. I did find a lot more humor in it this time. I then read Sense and Sensibility. It just seemed like the same story with different people. I quit after that as I just was not enjoying her at all. I recently got the book out and tried again. This time I read Mansfield Park which was just more of the same and Emma. I don't think I've ever read a book whose main character I disliked more than Emma. I know that a lot of Austen's writing is poking fun at some of the silliness of her era but wouldn't one have been enough? I haven't decided if I'm going to try to slog through Northanger Abbey and Persuasion just to say I read them or if I'll just give the book away and say good riddance to bad rubbish.

Thanks everyone. I have been going "why didn't I remember that!" at several of your suggestions, e.g. East of Eden (which I read over 20 years ago) and the Golden Compass trilogy, which I have also read (I think I even wrote something about the religious symbolism when I reviewed it). Phaedosia, thanks. It's not going to get published for several weeks yet - I want time to take a look at some of the suggestions I get. I have been posting a weekly reading suggestion on my book blog and this is going to be one of the theme entries, probably some time around June/July. I'll link to the blog below if you want to check it out. Here is a link that might be useful: My blog

I haven't read "Lilac Girls". I cannot read several 'dark' books one after the other without reaching a state of mourning. I will read one such book at a time, to be reminded that the 'dark' exists within individuals and groups. I too recently read my allotted 'dark' book, "The Lie" by Helen Dunmore. There are no horrifying 'experiments', other than the large scale waste of trench warfare in WWI. This focuses on one temporary survivor, a sensitive young man eventually driven to his death by the suspicious, grasping lower class into which he was born. There was 'darkness' in the first book I ever read by myself. It was my mother's copy of "Black Beauty", written with words in syllables for the young reader. I cried over the thoughtless cruelty. It's a good sign to be upset by reading about 'inhuman' actions.