The Lord of the Rings, for sure. But then I did not read for a few decades, and recently got back into reading thanks to audiobooks. Since then, the first book that I loved every moment of was The Lies of Locke Lamora.
I remember being 12 or so and when I finished The Lord of the Rings, I felt a sense of loss. I just wanted the book to go on forever. I suppose that is the first book I truly loved.
Still one of my all time favorites. I've tried suggesting it to a few people, but none of them can get past the first page. I think that says more about my friends than anything else though.
Read it as a child. Cover to cover. Painstakingly sounding out each word. Repeatedly. Then for years I forgot about it.
As an adult I came across it in my bookshelf, buried deeply (it having fallen down the back a bit) and read it again. It is a completely different book when you read it as an adult…
As a child my favorite books(and thus the first ones I remember loving) were:
Harold and his Purple Crayon
The Monster at the End of the Book
and The Giving Tree (which admittedly has a much different meaning to me now)
The first “grown up” book I remember reading and loving (at ~11) was Watchers by Dean R. Koontz
My favorite books as an adult are:
Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
and The Watermelon King by Daniel Wallace
“So you want to be a wizard” by Diane Duane. Opened my eyes to magic systems that just aren’t just hocus pocus and wand waving. Remarkably well designed for YA.
Urban fantasy with well thought out magic systems are still my favorite type of books to read today.
Probably Northern Lights (the first of His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman or maybe Bloodtide - Melvin Burgess. I'm a sucker for alternate/near future reality and world building and these both did it really well.
Can’t remember the name of it, but it was about a mouse who went surfing on a tongue depressor/popsicle stick. Checked it out repeatedly from the school library in first grade.
A book about numbers 0-9. I probably had this book earlier but the first read-throughs of my own I remember were at 4. It already started with a banger, "0 is not nothing 0 is a number", a sentence I have since quoted to my software developer colleagues on multiple relevant occasions. I loved the book so much that even more than 30 years later I remember it by heart.
Unfortunately, Harry Potter. Was so confused when You-Know-Who came out as an absolute piece of shit. I couldn't agree with her bullshit and didn't want to stop loving what I used to say was my favourite book.
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What’s the first book you remember loving? | Spyke
Cosmos by Carl Sagan
The original tv series opened my eyes so much, i really wish it was made available somewhere.
Arr it be available if you look in the right places
The Lord of the Rings, for sure. But then I did not read for a few decades, and recently got back into reading thanks to audiobooks. Since then, the first book that I loved every moment of was The Lies of Locke Lamora.
My parents gave me that book when I was 9 because they thought it was a collection of fairy tales. I fell in love with the first sentence.
I remember being 12 or so and when I finished The Lord of the Rings, I felt a sense of loss. I just wanted the book to go on forever. I suppose that is the first book I truly loved.
Illuminatus!... At the age of 11.
Adolescence felt pretty straightforward after a book like that.
Still one of my all time favorites. I've tried suggesting it to a few people, but none of them can get past the first page. I think that says more about my friends than anything else though.
They sound exciting.
The Velveteen Rabbit
2nd time I see this question, so my answer is my second book:
The color of magic by Terry Pratchett
The Little Prince.
Read it as a child. Cover to cover. Painstakingly sounding out each word. Repeatedly. Then for years I forgot about it.
As an adult I came across it in my bookshelf, buried deeply (it having fallen down the back a bit) and read it again. It is a completely different book when you read it as an adult…
Bridge to Terabithia. Yeah, I was a kid, but I cried when a main character died.
The Six Bullerby Children by Astrid Lindgren. I was maybe 9 at the time. I should reread it someday.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle
As a child my favorite books(and thus the first ones I remember loving) were:
Harold and his Purple Crayon
The Monster at the End of the Book
and The Giving Tree (which admittedly has a much different meaning to me now)
The first “grown up” book I remember reading and loving (at ~11) was Watchers by Dean R. Koontz
My favorite books as an adult are:
Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
and The Watermelon King by Daniel Wallace
Ah, I was going to say the Monster at the End of this Book too! Such a brilliant bit of writing for kids, Grover's expressions are priceless 😁
War of the Worlds
“So you want to be a wizard” by Diane Duane. Opened my eyes to magic systems that just aren’t just hocus pocus and wand waving. Remarkably well designed for YA.
Urban fantasy with well thought out magic systems are still my favorite type of books to read today.
Probably Northern Lights (the first of His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman or maybe Bloodtide - Melvin Burgess. I'm a sucker for alternate/near future reality and world building and these both did it really well.
First? The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree. I read the Oz books pretty early. I read all the Sherlock Holmes books in junior high, I think.
The Swiss Family Robinson. My father read me a chapter each night & it was one of my fondest memories.
Can’t remember the name of it, but it was about a mouse who went surfing on a tongue depressor/popsicle stick. Checked it out repeatedly from the school library in first grade.
The Bodyguard by William C. Dietz - literally the only book I have read more than once, and I may have read it at least 4 times.
Where.The Red Fern Grows
By Wilson Rawls
Loved it at about 12. Read it twice. 👍
A book about numbers 0-9. I probably had this book earlier but the first read-throughs of my own I remember were at 4. It already started with a banger, "0 is not nothing 0 is a number", a sentence I have since quoted to my software developer colleagues on multiple relevant occasions. I loved the book so much that even more than 30 years later I remember it by heart.
Peter Carey - The unusual life of Tristran Smith
I didn't really love reading until I hit my 20s. A Brief History of Time really did it for me.
Unfortunately, Harry Potter. Was so confused when You-Know-Who came out as an absolute piece of shit. I couldn't agree with her bullshit and didn't want to stop loving what I used to say was my favourite book.