Books That Turn Casual Readers Into Book Lovers

I've enjoyed reading as long as I can remember, but I used to be a very different reader than I am today. I would imagine that most book lovers start out as casual readers, like I did.

As a child, I was obsessed with The Babysitter's Club books. I had them all and reread them until they were falling apart. I wasn't truly a book lover. I didn't have any interest in books beyond that series. I was a hardcore fan of a specific series.

In my pre-teen years, I abandoned The Babysitter's Club for one specific book. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret became my bible. I borrowed it from the school library again and again and read it non-stop for a chunk of years. I wasn't a book lover, I was enthralled by the specific subject matter in that book.

In high school, I started m life-long love affair with Stephen King. I had seen The Shining and immediately decided he was the only author in the world that mattered. For all my King love, I was a lazy teenager more focused on boys and parties than any book. I would buy one of Uncle Stevie's books and read it on and off, never really finishing, for a year or more. I thought of myself as a book lover beyond compare. Turns out, I was only just discovering my love of horror in all its forms.

When I had my oldest daughter, every aspect of life changed. Having no time (or babysitters) to focus my attentions on boys or parties, I began actively seeking out book lovers online. Needless to say, the internet wasn't as vast and varied in 2000 as it is today and I had a hard time finding, well, anything. I did come across a few Yahoo Groups Book Clubs, most importantly (to my story anyway) one that focused solely on banned books.

I actively participated for about a year and only remember two books. I can't remember which I read first or even what exactly made them memorable. All I remember is the feelings they inspired. They set the spark, instilled the love of books, made me think about situations I had never experienced and never thought imaginable. They took me from a casual reader and turned me into a certifiable book lover.

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley is an epic Arthurian novel that I was annoyed we had to read. It's length alone was intimidating enough that I almost didn't bother. I remember thinking, holy crap there's incest in this book. It wasn't the thing that made me love the book, but it was the moment that I realized that books have no limits. An author can take a character or situation and make it something new, interesting, dangerous, hideous, wonderful or something altogether unexpected.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is a dystopian novel where due to low birth rates, society has deemed certain women only good for producing children. The book focused a lot on feminist issues and how easily womens rights could be taken away. That scary possibility showed me that even works of fiction can be so thought-provoking that they can cause readers to view the world in a completely different context.

I left the book club (there was never much interaction anyway) but I took with me the knowledge that books are possibilities in ink. Anything conceivable to anyone on the planet could be found between the pages of a book. From that point on, I read for the love of reading. I've made countless wish lists. I've searched out and discovered new authors and genres. I've purchased and borrowed too many books to even begin to count. I've lived a million lifetimes as both man and woman, young and old, human and not so human. I've traveled the world, journeyed into space and experienced lands that don't even exist. I've been murdered, committed suicide, lost loved ones, fallen in love, had both hot and horrible sex, battled evil and committed some evil of my own all between the covers of books.

It's scary to think what I would have missed out on had I remained a causal reader.

I'm dying to know, what were the first books that made you realize that reading is so much more than a way to kill time? When did you become a book lover?

Isalys & Vanessa's response post at Book ♥ Soulmates