When I was a child, my favorite book was... You're kidding?!

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When I was nine, I was reading some silly books that school required, but my real favorite was... Traffic Code! It was a true revelation and an eye-opener. Suddenly I realized that there were rules and patterns behind those seemingly chaotic movements of vehicles on roads. The best part was of course the visual one: road signs. It felt as if I learned to read for the second time. Within a couple of days I undertook several bike expeditions and learned all road signs within 2 kilometer radius of my home. Lasting benefit: legalese doesn't scare me a bit!

So, as kids, did you obsess over any books on unusual subjects? The weirder, the better.
(No dirty literature, please.)

I think mine might be fairly common among AS people - I used to read the dictionary for pleasure, it was fascinating. I also loved to read the encyclopaedia (Oxford Junior). I suppose I thought that factual information was the 'missing link' that would connect me to the world and make me part of it, rather than outside it, looking in. How wrong can you be?

I read the dictionary, a set of encyclopedias, and an Atlas most often. Also an Audubon Bird Manual that my mother had and a driver's manual I managed to find somewhere (I still can't drive though). I spent way more time in the reference sections of the library than any one else. I was a library aid for the duration of my schooling though, so at least that went somewhat overlooked.

How weird would an introductory calculus and a Euclidean geometry text be?

At what age?

12

Not bad at all, in my opinion, especially the calculus!

How about this.... In september 1995 my high school health class took a trip to the local landfill. After that I became obsessed with landfills, I went to the local library and checked out every book I could find on landfills, I learned landfills top to bottom. I lived landfills, I dreamed landfills.

And then, like most of my obsessions I've had, it died out after about 2 months.

When I was seven and a half/eight, I got an old traffic code book and was fascinated by it. I memorized as many roadsigns as I could. Later, I memorized the time every red sign lasted in my town so when I said "now", and it would turn green right away. But I do not consider the traffic code as a big fascination for me.

I also read the dictionnary. I think it is very interesting. I read it in French and in English. More generally, I like to read encyclopediae, and also any book related to science.

Loy

I read the encyclopedia a lot. But when I was just about 8 or 9 I was reading some fictional stuff, virtually all science fiction. A Wrinkle in Time, a book from a series called Darkover, a book about astronauts I forget the title. When I was a little older, about 12, I was reading two college level psychology textbooks.

i seem to remember a book on weather..i memorised the bits on the different types of clouds (and as with a lot of things ask me now and i havent a clue) so that i could actually forecast the weather. I was 7 or 8 at the time I think.

Dictionary-reader here too. Ehe I also had quite a thing for realities portrayed in books that could conceivably be real to my tender young mind, but had not come to be as such yet... a slightly surrealistic edge, if you will. Sometime later, the game of Myst with its imagery of "linking books" had me hooked.

Hey, that's a fantastic skill! Unfortunately, my hometown has a population of 2 million, and although I know it pretty well, there are still many more places where I have never been than those that I have seen.

Going back to the topic of books, another one that I remember vividly was devoted to the subject of building a nuclear reactor. I believe I have read it at 6. It was a very good book on particle physics intended for young children. Of course it was not detailed enough to be of use to North Koreans or Iranians. I wasn't really keen on dictionaries (unless they had pictures, diagrams or schematics in them), but my visual mind enjoyed encyclopedias and - especially - atlases and maps. I also gladly studied train/bus/plane timetables, that were puzzles full of patterns for me to discover.

I did read fiction, of course, but I don't remember it so well, so I guess it was less interesting to me. If I remember something, that would be technical or topographical details, not the plot.

"Reading" the dictionary is up my alley. I have attempted doing so several times over the last 5+ years, but I never end up doing it.

Perhaps there are some pointers...

Last edited by Tom_FL_MA on 10 Nov 2004, 11:06 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I read mostly fiction. I loved a Wrinkle in Time and The Prydain Chronicles. I loved catalogues. I also read a lot of my mother's occult/new age books starting sometime in elementary school. I still love all of the above. Except for the catalogues, I wouldn't say any of my reading was typically AS-material. Oh yeah, I also liked reading about cats (non-fiction) a lot sometime in jr. high. I love animals.

I was also really into reading the psychology textbooks... when I was like 10, LOL ...and encyclopedias, and biology books, especially ones that classified animals and insects.