Grown-up books

I read The Hobbit when I was 10.
I went to a very small school (60 pupils) and had read every book they had so my teacher, Miss Milson, brought it in for me.

When I started senior school, we were given a reading list, I was probably the only child in my class who read through it, introducing me to John Wyndham, Alan Paton (not sure on the spelling) and of course Stan Barstow. Had my parents known we were reading ‘A Kind of Loving’ in class, they would have had a fit, there was enough trouble over Billy Liar.
I also loved Jean Plaidy and Anya Seton.

I think it was 'The Black Tulip' by Alexandre Dumas, which was extremely bloodthirsty and I didn't enjoy at all. I borrowed it from the Junior Library at school, but soon discovered Katherine by Anya Seton, Sherlock Holmes and a range of historical novels by Margaret Irwin, Jean Plaidy and Georgette Heyer.
I attempted to read Peyton Place when my mother borrowed it from the library but she kept hiding it away from me and I never read it properly.

Victoria Holt

Victoria Holt rings a bell, but I can’t remember any of her books specifically, did she write historical novels?

I think that I was in my early teens when I started reading "grown up " books. I couldn't definitively say which was the first, but I do remember becoming a wee bit obsessed with science fiction and with horror. Typical teenager? H.G. Wells The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, John Wyndham The Day of the Triffids, The Midwich Cuckoos, The Kraken Awakes, Trouble with Lichen. Also enjoyed Dennis Wheatley and Bram Stoker. If I was a teenager today I suspect that I'd be a Goth. DH and I actually attended the Goth Festival in Whitby about 5 years ago, suitably attired, as a one-off bucket list treat. Had a great time and met some lovely people.

I forgot to add Jean Plaidy to my list, read many of hers and I believe she wrote under the name of Victoria Holt.

From about 8 or 9 I read Reader's Digest condensed books. My dad had a good number of these in the bookcase. I don't remember any particular one, tho.
I think I was about 10 when I came across Agatha Christie - The Pale Horse. I read any of hers I could get for years after that.

I don't think I read any of the books on the school reading list, or only by coincidence.
I liked Rumer Godden, who may have been on the list.

Gerald Durrell books were favourites - oh and I sneaked a look in my mother’s drawer where I knew she’d hidden Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Later it was Daphne du Maurier and Francoise Sagan for me.
At senior school during quiet reading I felt rather proud of myself when the teacher said ‘well done’ when she saw me reading The Natural History of Selborne.
I read no end of natural history books now.

The Whiteoaks of Jalna series was another when I was still pre teen. All borrowed from relatives IIRC.

It wasn’t the first by a long shot, but I well remember Forever Amber being passed around surreptitiously at school, when we were all maybe 14, for sharing the naughty bits. Which were very mild by today’s standards, of course.

I honestly can't remember a time when I didn't read what would be called 'grown-up books'. As an only child, I was an avid reader anyway. I read The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit etc at a very young age and I distinctly remember working my way through a set of encyclopaedia in the spare room.

Witzend

The Whiteoaks of Jalna series was another when I was still pre teen. All borrowed from relatives IIRC.

I didn't find those until I was an adult and they helped me through a rather uncomfortable pregnancy! 🙂

Blondiescot

I honestly can't remember a time when I didn't read what would be called 'grown-up books'. As an only child, I was an avid reader anyway. I read The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit etc at a very young age and I distinctly remember working my way through a set of encyclopaedia in the spare room.

The New Book of Knowledge, my parents bought the set for me when I passed the scholarship. I loved dipping into them.

I loved The Hobbit but got bogged down halfway through the trilogy in a boring battle and have never finished it.

Jane Ayre when I was 10, then a Thomas Hardy a term from II at Grammar school
A naughty older cousin let me read Lady Chaterleys lover while staying in her house.
I was supposed to read "Ulysses" by James Joyce and "Women in Love", by D H Lawrence as we were studying other books by them for A level but my father wouldn't let me. He did lend me his copy of "Andocles and the Lion".
I also remember Peyton Place going home in a different satchel every night. There was a series on the TV at the time.

We all seem to have read many of the same books when we were young.
What we didn’t have was Young Adult books which came later, full, like older kids’ TV, of poverty, prejudice, pregnant or drug-taking teenagers, abuse, crime and misery. I’m told that the current ones are even worse. I loved Dickens but his presentation of social problems was pure fiction, not realism.

When I was a child I was a pretty indiscriminate reader, unless it involved romance, which I thought was boring. My reading was never restricted in any way and I used to read lots of things I really didn't fully understand in the News of the World and Reveille at a very young age.
At about age ten or eleven I read all the Biggles books (godfather's bookcase). I then started on John Wyndham and eventually Alastair McLean. Dennis Wheatley sneaked in there at some point too. I do remember Harold Robbins books being passed around the girls at school. I was never a fan of the books we "had" to read at school. Books for me were to be enjoyed, not studied and dissected. As for poetry I just didn't get it and just wanted the author to get to the point....and quickly. It was only many, many years later when I read Wilfred Owen, one of the war poets, that I could appreciate the power of some poetry.

I have no idea what the book was called, but it was a collection of (adult) ghost stories.
At the time, I was about 12/13, and I borrowed it from the library. It was a dark late-autumn evening, and I started reading it as I walked the mile home, half of which was along isolated country roads. By the time I got home, I was absolutely terrified!

Georgette Heyers and the complete Jalna, family saga by Mazo de la Roche.
Aged 14 or so and babysitting, read bits of Lady Chatterley’s Lover hidden under a cushion.

I read my parents Nevil Shute books from about the age of 10

John Wyndham’The Chrysalids’ aged 12.

Agatha Christie when 9 or so.
I can still remember those Pan and Fontana covers. They take me right back to my childhood.

Oldnproud, very likely they were by M R James - his are seriously scary! IIRC one of his, ‘The Mezzotint’, was a BBC Christmas TV offering a year or so ago - and very well done it was, too.

I think there were actually quite a lot of "crossover" novels watermeadow.
They may not have been "teen problems " and drugs but they were others.
May have been late 60s but there was Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising series, Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea books and Alan Garner’s novels such as Elidor or The Owl Service.

Then there are the well known books which were probably written for adults (as teenagers didn't seem to exist till after WWII) - books by Lewis Carroll, Francis Hodgson Burnett, and Edith Nesbit for example.

My parents weren't big readers. The only books we had were a collection of Chares Dickens books with fake leather covers.

I used to enjoy reading. I had my own books and visited the library every week.

The only time I saw my mum read was on holiday though. One year she was reading what turned out to be a non fiction guide to 'loving'. I can't remember the title now but it was quite tame and didn't have sex in the title.

I 'borrowed' it from her bedroom drawer when we got home and read it from cover to cover. It was very informative and not sleazy. I wish I could remember the title. It had a yellow cover.