The first book you read that was written for adults (2026/07/13) > Likes and Comments

Actually this is a question quite close to the book we read last month, Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham, as I remember that to be the first contemporary literary fiction book I bought as a 15 year old. It was soon followed by Ghostwritten by David Mitchell, The Passion by Jeanette Winterson, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. These all are still some of my overall favourite authors. I am curious how this is for you, what books did you bought or read a precocious teenager and how do you see those books have influenced your reading preferences. Did they have staying power?

My first foray was Camus’ The Outsider followed by Orwell’s Animal Farm.

My big leap which cemented my love for literary fiction was Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

The Official first contemporary book I bought was Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting a year later when I was 16.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy and Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte (13th birthday presents from my Mum).
I read all of Hardy's books as a teenager (probably teenage angst phase). This Bronte is my favourite.
When I was a teenager there wasn't YA, so a jump to the classics was the next step. Reading of the classics dominated my reading in my teens, 20s and 30s (when commuting was perfect for a chunky read). Now in my 60s read more lit fic and translated fiction.

Ha!
Difficult to remember the actual first one.
I read The Lord of the Rings across much of 6th grade. Does that count? Several cyerpunk novels by William Gibson and Rudy Rucker in middle school. The Antichrist in 10th grade.

As a teenager I read a lot of classics - an early effort at self-education which has become a lifelong quest. But the writer that introduced me to contemporary fiction (and nonfiction) was Barbara Kingsolver. I was gifted High Tide in Tucson : Essays from Now or Never which lead me to read The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven, after which I read Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year and Rosie.

Gateway books for sci fi/fantasy included Tolkien, of course, then David Eddings Belgariad and following series, the Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time.

I can tell you my first single and LP but not my first book . I worked my way through my parent's paperbacks and grandma's hardbacks How Green Was My Valley, A Horseman Riding By: The Complete Series, Ice Station Zebra, Neville Shute, Cronin A. J., As an avid reader I would read the contents of the cornflake box

I got into my father's Stephen King collection way too early in elementary school, so it was one of the shorter books. Probably The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon or one of the short story collections.

The Red and the Black, by Stendhal... Fantastic.

Sonia wrote: "When I was a teenager there wasn't YA, so a jump to the classics was the next step. Reading of the classics dominated my reading in my teens, 20s and 30s."

Totally identify with this!

I think my first adult book was maybe Jane Eyre? Or Lord of the Rings, if that counts; I read it when I was nine. I read all of Sherlock Holmes around the same time as Jane Eyre I think (12 or 13).

It took me forever to get into contemporary fiction, to the point that I don't even know where that started for me.

The first adult book I purchased for myself was 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', it was a lovely tiny hardcover with a woodcut print. Followed by 'The Outsider' (aka The Stranger). That same year I bought 'The Handmaid's Tale' which was still contemporary at that point. Oh and 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' was one of my other firsts.

@Rose - I also read "The Bean Trees' and 'Pigs in Heaven' when I was a teen. The super colourful Vintage trade editions lured me in. I remember feeling a lot of warmth for the characters.

I remember buying White Teeth by Zadie Smith when I was 14 years old with my pocket money. it certainly introduced me to a lot of adult themes, often in quite a humorous and gripping way! I suppose it changed my experience of reading in making me see books as a fun way of learning about life.

The first thing that I specifically remember was The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare. My mom let me watch "Kiss Me Kate." Afterwards, I realized that I had seen the name "Shakespeare" on a book on my dad's bookshelf. I had to do some climbing to get to it, but I pulled down a one volume collection of the plays, and found "Taming." I still remember laughing out loud at it. I was 8.

My parents had a number of books that I read in elementary that I read. We had a copy of Perrault's Fairy Tales with the Albrecht Durer prints that I was mesmerized by. My dad read me tales from The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1, and let me carry that off to read as well.

The first grown-up book I chose at the bookstore was a collection of Ogden Nash poems, which had great pictures.

I read HG Wells' War of the Worlds when I was quite young, maybe 7ish. I saw the 1953 movie on TV and my dad said it was based on a book. When I said I wanted to read the book, he got me a copy.

As a teen, I read any dystopian novel I could get my hands on after reading Brave New World in middle school. Dystopian lit then wasn't what it is today. This was the 1980s--decades because The Hunger Games, lol. I was into dystopian lit before it was cool!

My high school English teachers liked me because I was more interested in literature than your average high schooler. I loved Shakespeare so much that my teachers let me tutor my classmates that were struggling with the texts. I loved Joseph Conrad and WWII writers like Joseph Heller and James Jones, as well as African-American literature. But I tended to dislike the books we had to read for school. I'm still not over how much I hated The Return of the Native.

Probably my first memories of reading a book for adults was The Great Gatsby (but we read this in high school).

I can ot rembr the title but it was probably a book on primitive humans or ancient civilizations with classifications like Early Stone Age, Late Stone Age, Age of Bronze, etc.

CJ wrote: "My high school English teachers liked me because I was more interested in literature than your average high schooler. I loved Shakespeare so much that my teachers let me tutor my classmates that were struggling with the texts..."

I could have used your help :D

My first experience with highschool english was 'Catcher in the Rye' and reading along with the class really didn't work for me - many seemed uninterested, even though it was an art school. I found out the curriculum for the next 4 years and read everything in advance so my first impression of each book was my own.
Now I'm the opposite, I love a buddy read :D

How To Talk Dirty And Influence People by Lenny Bruce. I was 18 and a freshman in college.🙂

I just can't remember. I read whatever my mom had on her bookshelf. Lord of the Rings, Dune, The Handmaids Tale sticks out. Cujo.... I essentially read whatever I wanted. And the library never questioned a check out. My mom never once told me " I don't think you should be reading that"

It was the wonderful “The American Way of Death” by Jessica Mitford. I loved her irony and sarcasm. I wanted to become a muckraker

Like others I read a lot of classics as a kid and I don’t particularly register anything as being adult or out of reach among those. What I do remember vividly is Stranger in a Strange Land when I was in middle school because it had so much sex and such a radical utopia, especially compared to all those Victorians, and also because my dad had given it to me to read!