Honestly, I do not remember. My childhood wasn’t nice, there was a lot of loneliness, abuse and trauma. My parents where not good parents. So I turned to books. I started early and I read whatever I could get my hands on. The first ones where the typical German kids books, like “Peterchen’s Mondfahrt”, “Räuber Hotzenplotz” und “Die kleine Hexe”, then everything from Enid Blyton and Astrid Lindgren of course. As a teenager I turned to books for grown ups. Jaws, long before the movie was out, the biography of Rose Kennedy, Lord of the Rings of course. There was this one book that hit my like a truck. “Das Mädchenorchester von Auschwitz” (The musicians of Auschwitz), a autobiography of Fania Fénelon. I remember, I started in the early afternoon and read the entire book without break through the entire night, crying along the way. I still start to cry when thinking about that book. That day I learned that the cruelty of humans has no limits.
Today I’m at the end of my 50ish and I still “read” (I switched to audio and ebooks at some point, because my home is too small for all the books) every day. I adore Terry Pratchett and I miss Marion Zimmer-Bradley. The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher are a must every year. There are so many awesome authors that I never run out of books I want to listen to.
Hhhmm still can’t remember the first book I ever finished. Can you?
Somewhat Patchy 