Firstly, my mother. She bought me "Little Women" at an early age, which was one of her own favorites in her youth. Each summer, she drove me to our public library for story hours and to check out as many books as I could handle. I was encouraged to read during summers to obtain the prizes given in elementary school for those who read the most. Each Christmas there were horse and dog books under our tree for me, as well as Nancy Drew mysteries to slake my thirst. My mother was an avid reader herself, a member of a book club. It was she who introduced me to Daphne du Maurier's works. Even today "My Cousin Rachel" is one of my all-time favorites. My father also collected books popular in the day. I was encouraged to spend hours in the den where GWTW and other tomes awaited me, even though these were adult books. We had no television when I was a girl, so that was another incentive. My father's sister was a librarian in the Atlanta system, who collected childrens' classics on her own.

Secondly, my late husband. He was a journalist an historian, and a writer. His deep love of history, especially American history influenced me in my adult taste in reading. Until I married my husband, names such as Washington, Jefferson, Lee, Lincoln, et al. were only names I had memorized for school tests.

Having a home library and parents who read both for entertainment as well as for educational/informative purposes opened the literary door to me at a very early age. My father was a journalist who forbade television. I can't ever remember an evening at home where one or both parents weren't sitting with their nose in a book or some periodical...to the detriment of involved conversation. Being an introvert...I found the perfect world in every volume I picked up.

The second biggest influence in my reading life were the thoroughly wonderful teachers who took my interest in reading to new heights every year with new venues. There were no imposed boundaries. If I had an interest...they had a book to further it. Thinking back now...I must have been a teacher's delight. I loved every minute I spent in those educational halls.

And thirdly...an insatiable, inexhaustible curiosity that still rules today. If something piques my curiosity, I'm not content until I've learned everything there is to know about whatever it may be.

A difficult question. As a 'late' reader I was always being reminded by my Mother how she was reading Dickens at 6-7 years old and she did buy me some very cheap editions of the Classics Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels etc. All very difficult to read. She also tried to get me interested in Galsworthy . . . by this time very out of favour and dated. The first 'adult' book she gave me that I enjoyed was one by Elizabeth Goudge Green Dolphin Street a heavy tome sent from the US by her Mother who worked as a librarian in a book-store.

From age 10 I was away at boarding school where, as I have mentioned before the nuns were NOT into reading and any books brought from home or sent as presents were confiscated. There was a small library that we were allowed in for about 20 minutes on a Saturday afternoon to choose from the collection of yellowing tomes and the inevitable 'lives of the saints'. We were not even meant to go into the main text-book filled school library until we were in the final years of school!

An old school friend remarked recently "You always seemed to be reading." But what? Often set texts for English classes often 'borrowed' from the desk of someone in a different class/year; read over-night and put back the next morning. Looking in other people's desks was a no-no.

Perhaps this is why I have always preferred non-fiction. Fiction for me has to be well-written and have a point. Maybe I should lighten up?!

My early reading choice was shaped by wartime shortages. I read books that were passed down from my family and their friends so I devoured a mixture of old Rupert Bear annuals, boarding school stories and my mother's poetry books. Later I was allowed to join a library and borrow from whatever was available. I never knew there was a second "Alice in Wonderland" book for many years!

I loved having my Dad read to me when I was little. I only had four Golden Books and the set of My Book House ( was that it ?) books. When I was just three I would say to him " Read me Daddy !" Of course we had no TV then and only radio to listen to. ( am I that ancient ??) and books were a very cozy thing to enjoy with him.

When I was 9 I discovered our local free library and my love of books took off from there.

My mother was a book lover. She bought me a beautiful Mother Goose book when I was two and taught me to read when I was four. She was an elementary teacher, and the publishing companies sent samples hoping to make sales, which wasn't possible because the county school board chose the textbooks, so we kept and read those.

In a rural community in a poor state, we didn't have access to a public library so my mother didn't have many adult books to read for a long time, but I read anything I got my hands on from Christmas gifts from thoughtful aunts to books on the reading shelves in classrooms. And I read the books we had at home over and over. One funny family story is that I read Tobacco Road when I was 11, and Mama said she didn't know which would be worse--to stop me or just to let me go on. She didn't stop me, and all I took away from the book was the extreme poverty it described. Gone with the Wind was the favorite book of all time for both her and me.

I don't know how I came to my fondness for murder mysteries. I have read that it comes from a strong sense of justice and a mind that likes puzzles. Probably I've told you before, but my husband used to claim to worry because I know so many ways to kill people.

Your reading histories are so interesting, I think. I've always said that scratch any avid reader and you are likely to find a whole host of antecedent readers who influenced them. I suspect that's true of most RPers, but I'm not so sure anymore whether it's true for all readers. Sometimes I run across book lovers who have said they never when they were young knew anyone who liked to read.

Nobody? Really? I am amazed. I was nearly grown before I realized that some people have never been around readers. It seems a bit sad to me, but perhaps it's not for them because people have all kinds of different experiences.

Carolyn, did you perchance read many of the mystery series that were written especially for adolescent and teen readers in the 'thirties, 'forties, and 'fifties? I read a lot of the Nancy Drew, Dana Girls, Hardy Boys, Judy Bolton, and Trixie Belden mystery series. My mother read many of the same that I did (she was an adolescent/teen in the 1930s). She also had mysteries where famous young (real) women solved mysteries. Two I recall that Mama had were with Ginger Rogers and Betty Grable as the sleuths. Later I read ones with Annette Funicello and the Lennon Sisters tracking down clues.

I think those mysteries started me and then I graduated to ingenious murders devised by Agatha Christie, Mary Roberts Rinehart, and others. Or maybe Tom Sawyer gave me my start when he roped a bewildered Huckleberry Finn into participating in convoluted mysteries that Tom embellished outrageously. I still like a good murder mystery occasionally, just not a steady diet of them.

That's so funny about your husband's 'concern' about you knowing of so many ways to murder people!

I don't recall either when I started reading murder mysteries. For many years I read historical romances after I came across Heyer in the school library.

I only borrowed "The Reluctant Widow" because I had to miss the end of the movie to catch the last bus home! Actually the movie was a travesty of the book anyway!

So at some point I started reading mysteries and have pretty much stuck to them, preferring cosies and the humorous ones. No one else seems to write amusing books much now. Unless they are by non-fiction authors like Bryson.

Frieda you say re. family reading "Nobody? Really?"

When my Mother married into my Father's family and had to 'move in' with them because of War-time conditions, the only books she found in the house were a Victorian copy of Dr Johnson's dictionary and a set of the 'History of the Great War' probably bought as a job-lot in a sale.

One of her first acts of 'independence' was to buy a bookcase and soon after arrange for a carpenter to make a set of shelves for an alcove in the dining room. Both these events caused my father much mirth as he saw books as something that would need dusting . . . in much the same way as people don't like the 'clutter' of ornaments.

But Dad could read! In fact he had attended the same school as Shakespeare (but at a later date!) He read the paper every morning and was not unintelligent but came from that generation and 'mind-set' where doing/working is seen as more worthy than sitting and reading.

I don't know if that would have held true of many folk in the US from the earlier part of the last century.

Vee, I remember that disapproval of people who "always had their nose stuck in a book"! Luckily for me my mother was not like that. She would even take a book with her to read while soaking in the bath.

I avoided the disapproval of my grandmother when I boarded with her by pointing out that part of my work in the subscription library was to take the latest publications home to read overnightly so that I could advise paying clients about them. Actually I only borrowed the ones I fancied!

I don't have specific memories of being encouraged to read, but reading just seemed a normal part of life in my family. My mother and father were both readers. My brothers and I were read to, and we read to one another, and dinner-table talk often turned to descriptions of what we were reading. I do remember my mother telling me that if you like to read, you never need to be lonely or bored. There's a lot of truth to that.

Later in life, I saw how my mother actively encouraged her grandchildren to enjoy reading. No doubt she did the same for me, but as a child, I didn't recognize it for what it was.

My mother was an elementary school teacher so she always encouraged reading and read to us daily when we were small. As I got older I gobbled up all her old books. She had vintage Nancy Drews, The Dana Girls, and Cherry Ames series books as well as classics like Little Women, Eight Cousins, The Swiss Family Robinson, and Jane Eyre, all of which I read multiple times. We didn't use the library as much as we might have, I have no idea why, though I can remember bringing home the occasional stack of books. And I lived for the school Scholastic Book Fair.

My birthday and Christmas wish lists always included books (and still do).

However, it was my Dad who introduced me to Tolkien, fantasy, and science fiction. I felt like I'd found my tribe and that was almost all I read for decades. I'm still a fantasy fan (and Tolkien remains the gold standard, IMO) but my reading tastes have expanded, changed, and wandered off in different directions.

Everyone here at RP has collectively been an enormous influence on my reading. I've discovered so many authors and read so many books I would never have known about otherwise, and I am very grateful!

Frieda ask for eg's of 'influences' on our reading choices. A need for influence/input for me happened while at senior school when ages about 13 years I won first prize in a competition for an essay set by 'Brooke Bond Tea' (as the BBC says as this point "Other makes of tea are available" . . . they are not allowed to advertise)

I received a book token worth 10/6 which is about 50 pence in 'new money' but then was quite something.

I was let out of school one Saturday morning with a friend to keep an eye on me in case an occasion of sin presented itself and spent ages roaming the shelves of the only bookshop in town.

I had no idea what to purchase or even what I might have enjoyed and landed up buying some 'school-girl' story, but I felt I should have gone for something 'worthy' to enhance the book-plate that came with the token.

I should add that this book was not taken from me by the nuns . . . but then I never offered to show them my purchase!

Vee, did the nuns eventually return the confiscated books they gathered so the girls could at least take the books home at the end of the school term or at holidays? I'm surprised more of the girls didn't rebel and keep a cache. But the pupils must have been more compliant about following the rules than some of my classmates were . . . or I was. Or were the boarding school girls more afraid of the nuns?

I do recall the attitude toward reading books for pleasure as being a selfish activity -- not in my immediate family but among some of our more distant kin and some of our neighbors.

"I do remember my mother telling me that if you like to read, you never need to be lonely or bored." Kathy, I find myself explaining to puzzled non-readers why I am not too lonely or bored in my now-widowed state because I like to read. They just look at me. In fact, two of the ladies who came to my coffee afternoon this week asked me if I had read ALL those books on my shelves (and they hadn't been in the den where there are many more books). It makes me wonder what they do in their spare time. Work all the time, do you think? Cook? Or, horrors, TV?

Frieda, I did read some Nancy Drew books but did not have access to the others you mentioned. When I got to high school where there was a small library, I just read what was available and don't remember mysteries among them. I do remember that it took me two weeks to read Quo Vadis, which was unheard of for me.

My parents and siblings are all readers, though some more so than others. However my own children are not. They regularly read for information but rarely read for pleasure. However, now I am working on the grandchildren. Christmas and birthdays bring gifts of books from Grammie, along with a toy or two to entice them.

Carolyn, reading certainly fills the gaps doesn't it? I will even pick up a book during the (muted) commercial breaks.

I am so thankful that my late husband was a reader too. We had a code, saying "last chapter" which meant no interruptions were permitted, short of a fire breaking out!

Vee, I could hear that BBC announcer in my head as I read your post!

I admit I don't understand the soul of a non-reader. One of the first things I will ask a young person or child whom I have just met is if they like to read. Then we'll have a common ground to discuss their favorites ! ( apparently I am the annoying retired teacher who asks probing questions :0))

Although I have friends who don't enjoy reading, I find that those who share my love of books are richer relationships on many levels.

Yoyobon, the affinities among fellow readers are marvelous, especially when the people have read many of the same books. I've noticed, however, some non-readers have the mistaken impression that all readers must be alike, as peas in a pod. When I moved to a new town, word got out among my acquaintances that I like to read.

Aha! I often heard from my newfound friends I should be introduced to 'Dorothy' because Dorothy likes to read, too. I did meet Dorothy soon, and she almost immediately quizzed me on what books I had read. She asked: "Do you like John Grisham's books? Robert Ludlum? Tom Clancy? Patterson? Baldacci?" One after another I had to say I had never read them. Finally she asked me with a hint of disappointment: "What do you like to read?" We never came to much common reading ground, but we wound up gabbing about a world of other things and were glad we met.

True, Friedag.......I have also met readers who love the burnt out authors and don't seem to read much beyond that scope.

And , like you, I don't read those books !

It is a joy when I encounter someone with diverse tastes in books and particularly when they've loved one that I've also relished !

I must add that I do love my non-reader friends dearly.

My mother loved to read and read to us when we were young. I was the only one of four who turned out to love reading from the beginning, though my sister has become an avid reader as an adult. For me reading was a wonderful glimpse into the rest of the world outside my small town suburban experience and I soaked it up.

Cherry Ames, that really brings back memories. A neighbor girl a few years older lent me some Cherry Ames books. We were quite young of course and very influenced by them. We played nurse all the time for a while, and were convinced we would be nurses when we grew up, in spite of the fact I couldn't stand the sight of blood!

Freida, I've had the same experience. I remember one woman bringing me a bag of books she had read and no longer wanted because she knew I was a "reader". They were all Harlequin romances.

Kat....ack, ack ,ack........they are the ugly stepsisters of actual good books !

Yoyobon, you make me chortle and snigger (snicker to most Americans).

I'm not sure if I've ever read a Harlequin romance, but I have read representative samples of the Mills & Boon products. They can be good for some laughs and the sheer poignancy of the need for escapist reading material that some readers crave like candy (mostly women, by all accounts). I suppose some of them could be examples of what George Orwell called "good bad books". They do serve a purpose.

Which reminds me: Did you and your peers have certain books that you shared -- perhaps clandestinely -- among yourselves? I remember how my 'mates and I furtively passed around Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls, circa mid 1960s. I didn't have to be sneaky because my mother never put any limit on what I was allowed to read. Like Carolyn's mother when Carolyn was reading Tobacco Road (mentioned above), Mama figured I would get a book out of my system on my own if I didn't really understand it. Trashy books (in the eyes of the beholder) could be deliciously subversive to my friends and me! What about to you?

Not a person, but my interest in reading started at my public library, the summer reading program.

Socks, how did your participation in your library's summer reading program come about?

I loved those summer reading incentives at the library. I remember my first year getting a large stiff card with a train outline printed on one side. On the back side were numbered blanks to be filled in with title and author of each book I read (and a place was included for my mother or a librarian to initial each title to verify that I read the book I listed). Each time I completed a book I got a sticker in the shape of a train engine, box cars, tanks, flatbeds, etc. that I adhered to the train outline on the front of the card. When I finished twenty books, I think, I was proud of getting a caboose sticker! I was so enthused I was issued a second card that I had almost filled when the summer program ended.

Did you do something similar?

Friedan, what a great memory.

I recall a small, grey booklet, not very interesting. (Your train theme is much more appealing!) On the pages we were to write a bit about each book we read. Cannot remember the prize or incentive. Just remember I liked doing it.

The public library in my community still does a reading incentive program for children.

My my mother was a reader, and I remember her reading a lot of non-fiction. She was also president of our Friends of the Library group.

Put a book on every bed ........and idea that has been widely promoted by the literacy foundation :

Celebrate the giving season

Here’s what to do: On Christmas morning (or whatever holiday you celebrate), make sure that each child in your household wakes up to a wrapped book at the foot of their bed. The gift could be a new book or an old favorite from your own childhood. If your family celebrates Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, imagine the possibilities for starting each celebratory morning with a story!

After the child unwraps the book, the most important aspect of this gift is unveiled, when the parent sits and shares it with the child. The sad fact is that more than a third of families in the United States do not regularly share books with their young children. Starting a celebration morning by reading together will forge an unforgettable intimacy for both the child and the parent.

I read to my daughter at bedtime until she was ten years old. She liked television (and still does) so much that I was afraid she would never like to read to herself, but she does. We pass some authors back and forth, and I recommend some books that I read from the library to her. I don't buy many books anymore, but she still buys several authors.

In my own turn of being the influencer instead of the influenced, I'm not sure how successful I have been.

I read to my sons often, until they were teenagers in some instances, including The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy twice. The Adams book was not my usual type of thing to read for myself or out loud to others, but it's probably one of the best reading experiences my boys and I have shared. All those funny names of the characters we still talk about!

My older son became a reader. I suspect it was his own inclination, although he certainly observed my ongoing love affair with books and may have subconsciously incorporated my example. My younger son is an informational reader only for himself, but he reads to his daughter frequently -- she demands it of him! I think that's funny and delightful. Interestingly to me, my younger son -- the one who read fewer books than his brother -- remembers the books we read together in greater detail and with more enthusiasm. Just to hear them talk, it could be misconstrued which was/is the inveterate reader.

Frieda asked about series: not only was I an avid reader of Nancy Drew, but as well Cherry Ames, the Dana Girls, the Hardy Boys, and the Bobsey Twins!

My girlhood friends and I used to swap Nancy Drew mysteries until we had read them all. I still have one of the original Drew mysteries with old illustrations, before they changed the language. In it, Nancy's car is a "roadster." Her dresses are "gowns". River Heights seemed like the ideal small town American life, and Carson Drew such a splendid father!

Later on, my best friend in high school was Jewish. We read The Diary of Anne Frank together, wept together, and discussed it at length.

Insofar as some of the generations of the previous centuries not being avid readers, possibly due to hard manual labor and other reasons, I can only claim to have had exceptional grandparents on both sides. I know this because I have inherited their own books and letters and diaries. One set of grandparents had a large farm in NC while raising 11 children, the youngest of which was my mother. That grandfather was also a school teacher and passed along his books to my late mother, who taught school before she was married. The other grandfather was a Methodist minister who kept a large garden and a diary, as did my paternal grandmother, his wife. Both cherished books and reading, even purchasing an encyclopedia from 1900.

You all might find this very recent article in US News Wellness section, giving suggestions on how to encourage ones children to read, very interesting. I did. And, I might add...I'm delighted to see such subjects in the news these days. Perhaps there's hope beyond the current virtual world of gadgets and printed matter will become popular once again.

https://health.usnews.com/wellness/for-parents/articles/2018-12-18/9-ways-to-make-sure-your-child-loves-reading

Winter: I, too, am glad articles on the subject of reading are still appearing these days. Perhaps such excellent suggestions as those listed will be helpful in generating the love of reading. I hope so. I hate to think of a world without books (or printed words in some format to be usefully and pleasurably deciphered by readers). I'm also keen to have reading folk demystified. We aren't all the strange loners that some (too many) people might think we are! :-)

Woodnymph, looking back on the book swapping experience of my youth with my friends, I have such fond memories. It really was special -- to me and I'm pleased to read that it was just as special to you and your friends. Just as we had special songs that were our songs when we heard them played on the radio or a jukebox, we had books that were our books, especially when we shared them and the fogeys couldn't spout their naysaying to us.

I have paid attention to those of you who have mentioned your reader or non-reader spouses. I've had one of each. My first husband was the boyfriend I mentioned in my opening post who loved The Hobbit so much. He had a profound influence on my reading in spite of his love of fantasy never rubbing off much onto me. If I hadn't lost him so young, he might have accomplished it though!

My current husband (of going on forty years) is mostly a doer not a reader. However, he's brilliant! :-) He will read for pleasure, but just not books that are too long in his estimation and not very often. He read To Kill a Mockingbird just 'cause he knew what it means to me. He's a wonderful reader-aloud. He puts so much expression into his reading with his booming voice.

My father was a reader, but my mother is not. She has never read a novel to my knowledge (the horror of it!!). However, my sister had polio in the last epidemic before vaccinations were common, and was given a lot of books as presents, since she wasn't able to skip/bike/play ball games etc. As she is 7 years older than me, by the time I was ready for the books, she no longer wanted them, so I had a lot of Noddy books, all the Famous Five books, lots of other Blyton books, one Bobbsey Twins and one Cherry Ames (Cherry Ames, Dude Ranch Nurse) among many others. I also borrowed from the school library and the council mobile library, and spent a lot of time reading.

I remember one birthday the lady next door, who was a good friend of mum's, gave me an old book of hers. She had 4 children, but they were all boys, and this was called Thirteen Thirteens, about a group of girls at a new school, all 13 years old and all called Margaret. I still read it every now and then.

Envy

When I was
a kid, my father, mother and my older brother used to read novels in the living
room on Saturday , and I used to read cartoons. I was envious of them because it seemed to me only adults were able to read books. So from time to time I tried reading a book, there was one in particular whose cover attracted me, there were a boy and a girl and in the background a lighthouse , but every time I started reading it I got bored after a few pages.

But one Christmas I was ten or eleven, an aunt of ours gave my brother quite a good
present. It was a little bookcase where forty book were stored.

There were all the classic ones. Little Man and…. Little Woman and… Tom Sawer , Mompracem Tigers (Sandokan) Uncle Tom’s cabin , White Fang , The Call of the Wilde, Ivanhoe, Ben Hur, Quo Vadis, Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and so on. Among them there was a title that enticed me “The Paul Street Boys”. I started it and I got hooked. The story is about two young bands who are fighting for a place to play, which is owned by the Paul Street Boys, it is an old timber yard, so the other band the Red Shirts wage war on the Street Boys. First they make an agreement about the rules to follow, about who must be considered dead or caught and other ones, because there is not any meanness between them, the Red Shirts wage war because their hangout is in a botanical garden and they need a place in order to play football. The story is set in Hungary and the author is Ferenc Molnar.

Of course there are other plots , but the main thread is the war.

I liked it so much that once I finished I reread it eight times on a row, except the last
chapter because one of main character dies of pneumonia and this made me cry a
lot.

Afterward I read all the other ones.

This is how I started reading novels.

msgt, what a neat way to have started reading novels. One of my cousins always had a lot of comic books that I read whenever I visited her. One of them was my introduction to Les Miserables.

I read that there is to be a UK TV mini-series of Les Mis , Vee do you know about this?

You are right Annpan. I just checked and see if will be on BBC TV in 6(?) episodes. It is not the 'musical' but taken from the 'book'. I must admit I have neither read the book or seen the musical/film.

BBC Adaptation of Les Mis

Many years ago, when I was in high school, I had a summer job for which I tramped through a nearby city assessing the number of living units in houses. I was paired with an older guy (he was probably only in his 30's but he seemed much older to me), a teacher. We talked about books; he was appalled by the number of important books that I had never read (I was a big reader, but had no real guidance). So he wrote up a long, long list of books that he said I MUST read. I embarked on reading those books (and more) with delight, and am forever grateful that he took the time and made the effort to create that list for me and give me such a good foundation!

What great experiences you all have related!

Kkay, please share a couple of the titles your benefactor gave you in his "long, long list of books that he said [you] MUST read." -- especially ones that turned out to be some of your all-time favorites.

I probably never took full advantage of whatever reading guidance I had . . . and I had a lot! I think I had a reasonably good foundation, but it was more by chance than by my own effort. I was always most delighted when I found a book or author 'on my own'. But was it really on my own? I suspect not. :-)

Vee, I saw Les Mis on stage when I was in the UK on holiday in 1988. My husband bought me a ticket to go while he went to a men-only dinner but didn't realise it was situated in the topmost tier! I could see the stagehands moving scenery from my eyrie! I saw the film musical too. I now look forward to the TV adaptation.

I have been watching "Victoria" which is done (almost overdone, too many lavish scenes IMHO) very well. Although I found the "lost in the Highlands" episode a bit of a fantastical stretch!

Ann, I remember some of those old London theatres where sitting in the 'Gods' required a supply of oxygen. As a child I would used to worry about falling over the 'edge' into the orchestra pit.

At that Les Mis, one girl freaked out when she saw the height! Her friends had to persuade her to stay! Those seats were called "the gods " with good reason.

My grandmother couldn't sit any higher than the first tier (The Gallery?) so sometimes my grandfather had to book three months ahead. Her father said gloomily that they could be dead by then!

They saw wonderful shows, well worth waiting for. I was rapt listening to their descriptions, especially of the Pantomimes where the theatres tried to outdo each other with the number of "Transformation scenes" which were proudly advertised on the posters outside.

It isn't only with books that people can influence you. Musical tastes as well. I was exposed to all kinds by my family.

Sorry about the white space, I must have hit a wrong button! Help!

Maybe it was the cranky librarian in our junior high school library who had such a mean look that I was terrified to do anything other than read !!

It isn't only with books that people can influence you. Musical tastes as well. I was exposed to all kinds by my family. -- Annpan

Everything indicates this is true, I think.

Do you hold with the theory that the influence on a person's lifetime musical preferences will most likely always be those formed from about the age of 10 through about age 25? In my case those years were from 1960 through 1975. Of course, it doesn't mean a person won't like or develop a taste for music that came either before or after those years, but perhaps music that is most nostalgically pleasing to them will fall within that range of taste development.

My mother was a music teacher, and if there's such a thing as a musical gene I inherited it. My family was immensely influential on me, no doubt. I like a wide variety of music (with an active dislike of a few styles and perhaps a dislike of quite a number of individual songs). When I've analyzed why I like or dislike particular types of music, sure enough the ones most deeply imprinted, in my case, are the ones most influenced by my peers of 1960-1975. These might not have been the greatest musical years in history, but as far as I'm concerned, they are probably the most vivid and vibrant.

Maybe there's a similar correlation with books and reading preferences, but I think I've gone through a lot more reading phases than musical ones. Probably everyone's experience is different, however. What do you think about yours?