Tuesday, April 1, 2014

My Top Ten Gateway Books/Authors


It's time for Top Ten Tuesday!  This is a weekly link up with The Broke and The Bookish.  Today's subject is our top ten "gateway" books or authors.


1.  Houses of Stone by Barbara Michaels - this is the first "grown up" book I remember reading.  Someone had given it to my mother and she had left it laying around and I was so interested in the story that I started reading it and couldn't put it down.  Since then I've read everything she's ever written and she's my go-to author for a reread if I'm in a reading slump.

2.  Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie - this was the first Christie that really hooked me.  I think I was in high school at the time and Poirot had never really grabbed me but when I started reading the adventures of Tommy and Tuppence I was hooked and went on to read everything she's ever written multiple times..

3.  Devil's Bride by Stephanie Laurens - this is the first romance novel I ever read.  A good friend was a romance reader but I had been resisting reading the genre.  Then for whatever reason I picked this up at Target and finished it one sitting (this was obviously pre-kids!) and was hooked on the genre.  The funny thing is I reread this last summer and thought it was awful but it's the book that got me started on romance.

4.  Tears of the Moon by Nora Roberts - my first contemporary romance and first Nora Roberts.  I think I've read just about everything she's ever written except for some early ones that are too awful to start.  This one has stood the test of time better than the Laurens and I've reread it recently and enjoyed it.

5.  The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - I didn't expect much from this book when I read it in high school but it started me on my love of this author, his contemporaries and the time period in general.  I can't even begin to count all the books I've read that were inspired by this book.

6.  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling - I was really late getting to this book.  I know the majority of the books had come out and at least the first 3 movies were out when I finally got around to reading this one.  This was probably my first children's/ya book that I read as an adult and my first taste of anything supernatural other than ghosts.

7.  Christina's Ghost by Betty Ren Wright - I vividly remember discovering this book in my 4th grade teacher's classroom and becoming completely lost in it and then getting in trouble and having it get taken away.  Luckily my dad was pretty understanding and took me to the library to find it where not only did I find it but I proceeded to read and reread it until the library's copy about fell apart.  This was the first ghost story type book I'd ever read and I absolutely loved it.

8.  Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery - If I'm being 100% honest it wasn't exactly this book that got me obsessed with Montgomery it was the movie.  You know the one with Megan Follows?  I'd had this book forever and had never read it but then watched the movie at a friends when I was maybe 8 or 9 and came home and devoured the book, got the rest of the series and finished it in a weekend.

9.  Nancy Drew by Carolyn Keen - all of them and any of them.  I think I read everything available with the name Carolyn Keen on it.  This included the newer more modern books which I loved and thought were so grown up with the romance.  Come to think of it this was probably my first introduction to romance as well as mystery.

10. The Babysitter's Club by Ann M. Martin - no book list from anyone born in the 80s would be complete without a mention of The Babysitter's Club.  I started with number 1 and read them all up into the mid-40s by which time I had outgrown them.  I still have fond memories about them - especially any of them involving ghosts.  The specials were always great and once I figured out that chapter 2 was the same in every single book I skipped the boring part.  My girls actually read my old copies when they were around 8 or 9 so apparently the series has aged well.

11 comments:

  1. What a fabulous list. My first grown up book was The Bastard by John Jakes. I went on to read all the books in the Kent Family Chronicles. I was only a freshman and I remember those books as being fairly steamy. My dad probably would have killed me if he know.

    It was the movie for me with Anne of Green Gables, too. I received the first three books of the series for my 11th birthday, but never really got into them until the movie came out. Part of me was disappointed that the relationship with Anne and Emmaline's father wasn't the same in the book as portrayed in the movie, but for years I read the entire 8-book series annually.

    Thanks for visiting The Book Connection.

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    1. I agree! Emmaline's father was a much better character than the Roy Gardiner character from the book! I just reread them all last year and enjoyed them though with a different perspective than I had when I was a kid!

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  2. Wonderful list, Katherine! I think the Harry Potter books were my first real foray into YA fiction as an adult too. :-)

    I never read The Babysitter's Club books, believe it or not. They came out after I'd passed the age of being interested in those types of books, I think.

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    1. I don't remember there being as big of a YA genre when I was actually in the YA age group and I never really had the urge to go back and read them once I was an adult. I did love the Harry Potters. I'm not sure you missed much by not reading the Babysitter's Club. It was essentially Nancy Drew with more kids and less criminals.

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  3. Oh, I always have fun reading Barbara Michaels books. I was wondering though, have you tried her books writing under the pen name Elizabeth Peters? They're a little more mystery driven with less romance and, usually, a strong dose of archaeology, but you can really see that they are the same author. As fun as I find Barbara's books, I love the ones by Elizabeth.

    My TTT

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    1. I have read Elizabeth Peters but it's been a very long time. I have a bunch of the Peabody books on my Kindle but just haven't gotten to them yet. I agree that the writing is totally different. I have an Egyptology book by her under the name Barbara Mertz but haven't gotten to that either!

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  4. I was late to HP too! This series made my list this week because it was the first thing that I had in common with my brother who is 13 years younger than me! I can still remember the summer I devoured every Nancy Drew book I could get my hands on. Thanks for memories! ~Megan
    http://wp.me/pzUn5-1WB

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    1. Love Nancy Drew! Part of the reason I started reading the Harry Potter was because my daughter loved them so it's definitely fun to have books in common!

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  5. Babysitter's Club was definitely one of the first series that I really remember loving. Those and Nancy Drew and RL Stine Fear Street books. Now there seems to be SO many great YA books--I wish I had known about some of the older ones when I was younger. Harry Potter is a great gateway book. It's the first book my husband read "for fun." (they're also maybe the last--Ha!)

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    1. I forgot about the Fear Street books! I read tons of them though mostly in secret as my mother didn't approve. I somehow missed the whole YA genre when I was actually a young adult but am slowly catching up!

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  6. Great list! I had fun with this topic. :) I still have all of my books like Baby-sitter's Club in my mother's basement. I was planning to give them away, but it kind of makes me sad to do so!

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