I didn't read much of anything till I was 15, except Alistair MacLean and Michael Moorcock - the sword and sorcery novels - when I was about 13 or 14.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I wasn't really comfortable reading until I was 12.
Until I was 16, I read nothing but science fiction. I loved William Gibson and I still do. But my favourite book when I was growing up, for a long time, was 'Snow Crash' by Neal Stephenson, which I must have read about a dozen times when I was a teenager.
When you're 14, anything with a sword and a dragon is pretty cool. But when you're 21 and you've read 2,000 fantasy novels, you start to realize that some of those books, well, they weren't really good. OK, let's be honest. A lot of them were crap.
I've always been drawn to writing for young readers. The books that I read growing up remain in my mind very strongly.
I read a whole lot as a child, and, of course, I still read children's books.
I loved to read and would read anything that roused my interest, whether it was below my age level or above it, even if I could barely make sense of it.
I could read at a very early age and I loved stories, losing myself in stories, novels.
When I was 8, I was reading 'Gone with the Wind' and 'Pride and Prejudice' and all that, not knowing it wasn't my reading level.
I started to read at a very early age, and I just thought that books and reading were really the most wonderful thing that life had to offer. I think I wrote my very first piece of fiction at the age of 12, but then I didn't write any more for quite a long time.
I'm not as well read as I was when I was younger - I just devoured books.