I remember reading a few different Edgar Allen Poe short stories that really stuck with me. I think it was The Cask of Amontillado or something like that where the main character gets his enemy drunk and lures him to a horrible death. For some reason i read that one more than any of his others, it was just so creepy and confusing for a young teen, I couldn't understand hating someone so much that you'd go through all that trouble to torture your enemy. Still can't understand that intensity of hatred but i know it exists in the world.

My favorites were LOTR and just about anything Louis L'Amour, but especially The Walking Drum and The Last of the Breed. Interesting that my two favorites from him are not westerns. I read both of them around 15 or 16 and The Walking Drum really affected how i felt about coming of age and gave me courage to step outside my comfort zone. Looking back on it, that was a big part of why i chose A&M over staying local for college. I wanted to have an adventurous start to adulthood and i knew that staying in Abilene would just be a continuation of my boring high school years.

A few that stick in my mind:

I have a nice memory of my mother sitting by my brother and I reading White Fang to us a child. I did the same with my kids once they could sit in my lap. It was so amazing watching their imaginations take off and they developed a love for reading that they still have as teenagers. I tell all you parents to always take time and read with their kids when they are very young. The rewards are palpable and worth it.

My aunt gave me LOTR series when I was in 4th grade. I remember running around our farm with my little brother claiming I was Elendil. We slayed a lot of orcs.

My dad bought me Red Storm Rising on a camping trip and I read it by flashlight in our tent for hours. Finished it in one weekend.

For high school lit we had to do some poetry and I got into Tennyson. I can still remember most of Crossing the Bar.

As a teenager I was reading Fellowship of the Ring for the first time and while on the chapter on the Old Forest before meeting Bombadil the radio in my room was on and Miss You by The Rolling Stones was on.

To this day if I hear that song I am immediately taken to that set of pages from the Hay Gate to Old Man Willow. It's a very visceral reaction.