That first book you couldn't put down.

[Johnny Impact]

I can't ever remember a time when I could put books down.

This.

My folks bought some of those Time/Life book sets that used to be advertised on TV before everything went digital. As a wee lad I remember opening and devouring each new Childcraft (I think that was the name, it was a subscription educational book series for kids) as it came in the mail. I was always years ahead of average in comprehension and absorbed a LOT of information. Led to some interesting moments in school later:

Teacher: There is a type of fish that was thought to have been extinct for millions of years until one was caught in the early 1900s!
Me: Yeah, it's called a coelacanth.
Everyone in the room, teacher included: How do you know that??
Me: (actually I just shrugged, but I should have said "BOOKS, motherfuckers!")

While other boys were out jumping their bikes and lying to each other about having felt up a girl, I was reading Lord of the Rings, the Dark Elf Trilogy, and the story of Finn MacCool. In seventh grade our reading teacher let us read whatever we wanted, as long as we read a certain amount and logged it. I read so much I couldn't even keep a log. Considering the previous year the conceited hippo I had for a teacher had made us all read Anne of Green Gables, which was the closest I've ever come to being put off books forever, this was heaven.

 

[Drathnoxis]

One of the first novels that really grabbed me was Hatchet by Gary Paulson. It was a story about a kid trapped in the wilderness with nothing but a hatchet and the clothes on his back. We had to read it for school in grade 6 and I liked it so much I read it twice, and the sequel.

Either that or Captain Underpants, man did I like those books.

 

[09philj]

Not sure what the first was; I've been a voracious reader basically since I learnt to. The last thing I can remember which really grabbed me was Libriomancer by Jim C Hines.

 

[Xeros]

Novels have a hard time holding my attention, but when I got 'At the Mountains of Madness' in my hands, my mind was lost.

[sub][sub]Eh? Get it?[/sub][/sub]

 

[Lilani]

Super embarrassing confession time: Twilight. Yes, THAT Twilight.

Once upon a time, a teenaged Lilani very much disliked reading. A reading program which plagued her throughout middle school and junior high turned reading from a fun pasttime into dreadful homework, which required her to read a certain number of books each year and take tests on them. This was to earn an arbitrary number of points by the end of the year, which meant she was choosing books based on an arbitrary point value rather than her actual interest in them. By high school, this program was no longer required for her grades, so she enjoyed a long hiatus from reading books of any kind.

Then, her friends began chattering about a wonderful book called Twilight, magically suited for young women of their exact age and description. After much hype and exultation, Lilani finally broke down and read the book. And she couldn't stop, hiding in her closet in the middle of the night so she could read long after she was supposed to have gone to bed. She plowed through the series as the other books came out, and while she realized they were poorly written they had ensnared and captivated her imagination, and rekindled her interest in books. She has since read many other books of a much higher quality, but Twilight was still the book which relit the flame.

These days, Lilani simply doesn't have the time for reading, but her line of work allows her to listen to things on headphones, so she enjoys her literature mostly in the form of audiobooks now. But she still buys and enjoys hard copies when she can, still loving the feel of a book in her arms.

 

[hermes]

The first Foundation book. I stayed up all night reading it.

 

[visiblenoise]

It might have been Tom Clancy - The Hunt for Red October. I found it in my dad's bathroom.

I'm pretty good at putting them down now, though...

 

[Silvanus]

The first one would probably have been the Beaver Towers series, when I was likkle. Nothing grabbed me quite as much after that until Harry Potter, I don't think.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

When I was toddler age I absolutely loved the Bearenstein Bear books and a bunch of other golden books. When I was about kindergarten age it was things like the Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt manual that helped teach me how to read. In school however, the books on required reading lists didn't do much for me...at least until we got to Castle in the Attic which was a book I really really enjoyed. I've always really liked contemporary fantasy. Yeah, the main character isn't playing Doom but you know his neighbor probably is.

 

[Eliam_Dar]

Well.. I was taught to read from a very young age, my grandfather read to me books constantly. So when I started going to school I was way ahead of most the other kids, and the books they read were boring at best... then it happen, my grandfather gave me a book called "The black corsair" (I am not sure if it was ever translated to english, you can look for "il corsaro nero" or "El Corsario Negro" for the italian or spanish versions), I still remember how much impact the first chapter of the book had. I loved every bit of it, and then I asked to my grandfather for the rest of the books of the saga, and he gave them to me. I still own the books, and from time to time I like to open them in a random page and read. Somehow they are the most vivid memory I have of my grandfather.
So that is the first book I couldn't put down.

An here is a bonus:
A few years later, after he died, I found in his library the book "Shogun" by James Clavell, I didn't remember that book and as I opened it I read on the first page "Para mi nieto"(for my grandson) handwriten by my grandfather. Needless to say I treasure that book too.

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

the first book i couldnt put down was Stephen King's It. i was 8. i was kind of wierd i guess

That was mine too! I was 10 when I first read It (ha!) for a 6th grade book report. It's also the only book that I've read twice; in fact, I've read it three times.

 

[MoltenSilver]

Orwell's 1984 is the first time I remember reading a book where I found myself continuing to read despite being physically exhausted and uncomfortable because I had to see what happened next that badly.

 

[AgedGrunt]

Not a bookworm, but Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. Weird that I'll write fiction but it's non-fiction stories that hook me. Still remember going through a case of vanilla coke during a summer reading this one.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I can't ever remember a time when I could put books down.

Definitely this. I don't recall ever having the ability to put a book down, not even for dinner at times. I've been reading since I was about 3 years old thanks to a great pair of grandparents encouraging me to read... The first book I recall loving was a child's dictionary... weird I know but I loved learning new words so very much that I've spent as much time with my nose in a dictionary or thesaurus as I've read any book, fiction or non-fiction.