What was the first adult novel/book you read, and how old were you?

[Antarcticant]

Inspired by a comment on the 'Rather Dated' thread.

What was the first book you read that wasn't written for children? How old were you and what did you think of it? Did it become a favourite?

Mine was 'Animal Farm' and I was eight. I think it had been mentioned on Radio 4. I was fascinated by it. Orwell went on to become an author I love. I read 1984 in the year in question when I was 10 (everyone was going on about 1984 in 1984!) and gradually worked my way through my mum's collection of Orwell novels.

I also read 'Jane Eyre' around this time and was bowled over by it. I continued to like it well into my 20s, but later become disillusioned with it when it crossed my mind that Rochester wasn't really a very heroic man.

I read the Jilly Cooper girls's names novels when I was quite young because one of them had my name and I was intrigued 😀. Funnily enough when I read them I thought the lives depicted were entirely unbelievable. Re reading as an adult they actually seem reasonably realistic.

I remember being 12 and having Forever taken away from me in school and being asked if my parents knew what I was reading. Seeing as though I was reading the above plus Virginia Andrew’s at home, my mum was unimpressed when school called.

Magician by Raymond Feist. I was 8. Got a bit confused in the middle when the main character has a name change. Read it through again and got it.

The Lord of the Rings when I was 8. I also distinctly remember reading the Clan of the Cave Bear when I was about 12 and my teacher being outraged that my mother allowed it (I came through the experience unscathed...)

Yes! My dm bought me that at about the age and I was fascinated.

I was just thinking about some books that are quite good "transition" books that straddle the child/adult readership and I put forward James Herriot and Gerald Durrell.

We had a small local library when I was little. The books used to get changed reasonably regularly. I used to watch to see if there were a couple of big locked wooden boxes left on the steps and then I knew there were new books.

I read most of Jules Vernes works (there's a couple I read but can't find now - the masterless man and the unwilling dictator (I think)). Also read Conan Doyle. Mum had lots of Cookson and Mary Stewart books which were OK.

Is that a bit of Hieronymus Bosch?

The cover I mean

Lots that have been mentioned here but the one I read over and over was Fast Friends by Jill Mansell. It sounded so exciting being a grown-up - I couldn't wait! Re-read it as an adult. What a pile of unadulterated tosh!

Gone with the wind, the two parts, and then Scarlett (same characters different author) at 13

I remember reading A Christmas Carol at about 8 and finding it very dull. I read The Happy Prince as well around that time,(which isn't necessarily an adult's book but it was wordy enough that I was very pleased with myself for liking it).

I think I was about 11 when I read Lolita. So wildly inappropriate but I did enjoy it.

I read Deenie when I was about 8. I was confused by Deenie touching her "special place."

Jaws. My brother gave it to me for my 9th birthday. My mum thought it was just about a shark and was not pleased when she read it after me and discovered the sex scenes. But it was too late by then 🤗

@merryhouse - my first was also a Jean Plaidy - Madonna of the Seven Hills about the young Lucrezia Borgia - I was about 7 and had read her children's books - Young Elizabeth and Young Mary Queen of Scots so it seemed like a sensible progression. I then went on to read every Jean Plaidy the local library had. I still have a soft spot for the Borgia novels though.

Can I check if the shark featured in the sex scenes?

When I was 10 I snuck my mums copy of Bridget Jones' Diary and read it in secret!

When my parents split up my mother moved back to France and took us with her, unfortunately. But for my 11th birthday, my father gave me a collectable edition of The Hobbit. It was the only book I had in English. I wasn't allowed to speak in English or my mother would hit me but I could read The Hobbit. It is one of my most prized possessions.

"
Can I check if the shark featured in the sex scenes?"

😮😆

Me too. I remember buying it at a jumble sale

I Robot by Iassac Asimov aged 11.
I loved it and got super into sci-fi for a bit.

Thorn Birds - 13yrs
Around the same time but possibly younger (maybe 11) any Readers digest condensed (as per OP).
Also got Adrian Mole for 10th birthday and not sure that was 100% appropriate
Later I went through a wierd phase of reading Danielle steele/flowers in attic/those SAS books (can't remember who wrote them!), Neville Shute and a load of random stuff I could lay my hands on from horror to Jilly Cooper. Certainly nothing appropriate for a 13/14/15 year old! Our crappy impoverished 80s comp did not have a library. Hard to believe but true.
Despite having an Alevel in English I was in my 29s before I started reading anything considered literature by choice (as in it wasn't a 'core text')

Wilbur Smith's Rage. It had sex and violence in it, I was morbidly fascinated. It was a hobby of mine when I was 8/9/10 to scour my parents bookshelves for unsuitable looking books and nick them and read them in secret hoping to find swearing or sex.

Probably my mums library books. They were often by James Hadley Chase and had pictures of scantily clad women holding onto the leg of a man holding a pistol. Then Jaws, and some awful slave porn nonsense from the 70s. Then discovered Johns Wyndham and Steinbeck and got my own library card 😃

Pet Semetary 😱. I was 11 - an older friend lent it to me. I wrote a book review for school and the teacher phoned my mum!

Luckily I was too young to understand it properly. I remember her wanking him off in the bath and saying she learnt it at Girl Scouts more than any of the horror 😬.

I rad my mum's Georgette Heyer books when on a camping holiday when I was 10. Two weeks in the wilds of Scotland and I ran out of my books so started reading her's. Around the same sort of time I started reading the Reader's Digest hard back leather bound books at my Nana's house as I'd run out off anything to read and I was a voracious reader.