Grown-up books

It wasn’t the first by a long shot, but I well remember Forever Amber being passed around surreptitiously at school, when we were all maybe 14, for sharing the naughty bits. Which were very mild by today’s standards, of course.

The Whiteoaks of Jalna series was another when I was still pre teen. All borrowed from relatives IIRC.

Gerald Durrell books were favourites - oh and I sneaked a look in my mother’s drawer where I knew she’d hidden Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Later it was Daphne du Maurier and Francoise Sagan for me.
At senior school during quiet reading I felt rather proud of myself when the teacher said ‘well done’ when she saw me reading The Natural History of Selborne.
I read no end of natural history books now.

From about 8 or 9 I read Reader's Digest condensed books. My dad had a good number of these in the bookcase. I don't remember any particular one, tho.
I think I was about 10 when I came across Agatha Christie - The Pale Horse. I read any of hers I could get for years after that.

I don't think I read any of the books on the school reading list, or only by coincidence.
I liked Rumer Godden, who may have been on the list.

I forgot to add Jean Plaidy to my list, read many of hers and I believe she wrote under the name of Victoria Holt.

I think that I was in my early teens when I started reading "grown up " books. I couldn't definitively say which was the first, but I do remember becoming a wee bit obsessed with science fiction and with horror. Typical teenager? H.G. Wells The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, John Wyndham The Day of the Triffids, The Midwich Cuckoos, The Kraken Awakes, Trouble with Lichen. Also enjoyed Dennis Wheatley and Bram Stoker. If I was a teenager today I suspect that I'd be a Goth. DH and I actually attended the Goth Festival in Whitby about 5 years ago, suitably attired, as a one-off bucket list treat. Had a great time and met some lovely people.

Victoria Holt rings a bell, but I can’t remember any of her books specifically, did she write historical novels?

Victoria Holt

I think it was 'The Black Tulip' by Alexandre Dumas, which was extremely bloodthirsty and I didn't enjoy at all. I borrowed it from the Junior Library at school, but soon discovered Katherine by Anya Seton, Sherlock Holmes and a range of historical novels by Margaret Irwin, Jean Plaidy and Georgette Heyer.
I attempted to read Peyton Place when my mother borrowed it from the library but she kept hiding it away from me and I never read it properly.

When I started senior school, we were given a reading list, I was probably the only child in my class who read through it, introducing me to John Wyndham, Alan Paton (not sure on the spelling) and of course Stan Barstow. Had my parents known we were reading ‘A Kind of Loving’ in class, they would have had a fit, there was enough trouble over Billy Liar.
I also loved Jean Plaidy and Anya Seton.

I read The Hobbit when I was 10.
I went to a very small school (60 pupils) and had read every book they had so my teacher, Miss Milson, brought it in for me.

Oreo - how nice to find Heyer and Baldwin together in someone else's early reading! Seem strange "bed-fellows" now!

I can't remember when I moved on from horsey and boarding schools gipirls' fiction to adult fiction, probably at about 13?

Dennis Wheatley books, firstly The Devil Rides Out
Jean Plaidy historical novels
Daphne du Maurier books
Ray Bradbury, science fiction
Agatha Christie books
Animal Farm
Some were my Mum's, others borrowed from the library. My SisIL, being much older, lent me a lot of books too.

I found a copy of Peyton's Place under my mother's pillow but she found out and banned me from reading it.

NotSpaghetti

Also read - and probably shouldn't have - quite a few interesting "contemporary" adult novels by just taking them off the bookshelf at home. One was Clockwork Orange
and one was Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin - my daughter asked me recently if I'd heard of it. I think it's had a bit of a come-back.
I also read all the Georgette Heyers by the time I was 15.

It's really hard to know which was the first adult novel if you never really got to differentiate between them.
I obviously knew that the "modern" books at home were aimed at adults if they hadn't been given to me.

Mum had a few rows of books on an old bookshelf in her bedroom which I wasn’t supposed to touch, but one long Summer holiday when I was around 12 and she was out at work I took a couple of books to my room to read.
One was Giovanni’s Room which was a real eye popper being about male love! The other was a Georgette Heyer called I think Recency Buck 😄 I could see the James Baldwin book was really well written but liked the Heyer one much more.
I then went on to get all her books from the library, and enjoyed every one.

I probably started at about 13. I was reading historical novels - Jean Plaidy and Anya Seton. I read a lot of John Buchan, John Wyndham and Daphne Du Maurier.

Jane Eyre when I was ten. Then Agatha Christie. Then Jane Austen.

Conan Doyle and Dickens, but I never thought of them as grown-up books.

Also read - and probably shouldn't have - quite a few interesting "contemporary" adult novels by just taking them off the bookshelf at home. One was Clockwork Orange
and one was Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin - my daughter asked me recently if I'd heard of it. I think it's had a bit of a come-back.
I also read all the Georgette Heyers by the time I was 15.

It's really hard to know which was the first adult novel if you never really got to differentiate between them.
I obviously knew that the "modern" books at home were aimed at adults if they hadn't been given to me.

I found Victoria Holt historic romance novels in my pre-teen years and was hooked. I should find one and read it again to see what intrigued me about these.

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Not sure what I read when to be honest.
But do remember reading these (and others) in these 1950s covers.

I’d read all my books so I routed randomly through my dads bookshelf & picked up and started reading The Virgin Soldiers, I’d be around 13, I found it amusing but never finished it.
My Grandma gave me a lovely old copy of Jane Eyre around the same time & I loved it.
I also remember the Dennis Wheatley books Greyduster the one that stands out for me is ‘To the Devil a Daughter’, I have looked out for his books in secondhand book & charity shops but never see any.

My dad gave me Far from the Madding Crowd to read when I was about eleven, the start of my love affair with Thomas Hardy

I read Our Man In Havana, Graham Greene when I was 10.

I casually took it from my parents bookshelf saying that I was too old for childrens books. My mum said I wouldn't like it so I read it all and said I loved it. I didn't like it at all but didn't want to prove her right.

I think the first full length classic I read at the end of junior school was Wilkie Collins “The Moonstone”. Then I developed a taste, fostered by my father, for H Rider Haggard and John Masters. I discovered sci fi through Professor Fred Hoyle’s Andromeda series and then Nigel Kneale’s “Quatermass” series. I blotted my copy book with my father by bringing home from the library a number of Dennis Wheatley’s black magic thrillers! He thought they were beyond the pale for someone at my age and was disgusted when I told him that our English teacher had recommended them!

My G'ma had a bookcase full of penguin paperbacks and I read the lot over the years when we visited.
Started with Agatha Christie and have enjoyed crime fiction ever since.