What books mean to me - part 1

I read an awful lot. It wasn't always like that. There was a time where I refused - absolutly refused - to read anything but Enid Blyton's Famous Five. And then, one day in Eastbourne Central Library's most excellent children's section, with their seasonal displays of Sylvanian Family in the glass fronted issue desk, my dad said something along the lines of  "For goodness sake Hanna. Try something new." 

So I did. I tried Enid Blyton's Secret Seven, which I didn't like, and Enid Blyton's Adventure series, which I did like. And my dad sighed and no doubt thought he'd take the smaller victory. Wise man that he is. I doubt he even remembers that Saturday now.

That was the start though. I tried those, someone introduced me to Arthur Ransom's Swallows and Amazons, and the rest of the books in that series, Noel Streatfeild, Jenny Oldfield's horse stories and more. I started reading at every spare moment I had, and my dad, and my uncle did - do - the same.

And then one day I ran out of stuff to read whilst visiting my uncle, and he gave me Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsong, and I loved it. And I realised how much I loved the genre. And I still do. I consumed everything else of hers that I could get my hands on. After that I moved onto people McCaffrey had collaborated with. Mercedes Lackey, Jodie Lynn Nye, Elizabeth Moon and that moved me on to people like David Webber, Diane Duane...

I would say that now, about 60% - 80% of the books I read are science fiction or fantasy. There are a lot of other writers I also read, in a lot of other genres. I have books I read because the are a good story. They're well written and I engage with the characters so I'll read them.

I started this post with the intention of talking about what the books mean to me, why I read and have read. This post would be better entitled what I read and how I go there. I'll have to write another post on what I was actually going to write.