/lit/ origin stories

Share how you originally got into reading

>be me
>14 year old weeb
>friend introduces me to Asian girl online
>wellwouldyoulookatthat.jpg
>flirt and form bond
>soon sperg out
>lose all contact
>remember she liked to read
>pick up generic fiction off my shelve
>heythisisnice.png
>soon start getting into literature and history
>discover /lit/ a couple months later

I still don't have a girlfriend but at least I have my books to comfort me.

Pic unrelated, I just really like Pedro.

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Other urls found in this thread:

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>be me
>21 years old virgin NEET
>bored all the time
>miss clicks into /lit/
>hmm, i can be an intellectual if i read these books right
>reads blood meridian, crime and punishment and two chapters of ulysses
>reads the problems of philosophy, history of philosophy
>shitposts about joyce and dfw and pynchon without ever reading them
>shitposts about philosophy without ever reading beyond wikipedia and history books
>eventually the shitposting gets boring, goes back to playing vidya, feels bored by it as well
>is bored right now
my ennui has no ending.

>start using /b/
>start using /mu/
>start using /tv/
>start using /lit/

I was high iq and jewish and 6 years old. The rest is her-story

Yes, Jewish. Incels.

My parents didn't allow me to use pc too much so I spent time reading our home library to ward off boredom.

I was born to a literate family.

I read my dads tom clancy books when I was like 5, then I read my entire elementary schools library. About halfway through middle school I found out some indian kid got more "AR reading points" than me and banished me from my throne. I instantly became racist considering that should be impossible as I had read every single book in that tiny room they considered a library.

>be me
>be four
>find a bright green book
>it's full of poetry
>i hide it in my t shirt
>took it to bed with me
>learning the lines that seemed to sound most grand
>and round the nursery there floated wonderful words no one could understand

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>Be me
>Depressed kid going into high school fresh off a half-assed suicide attempt
>Have a big brother ten years older that I look up to for everything
>He moves out but leaves his bookshelf
>Suggests which ones I should read
>Start with Vonnegut, move into Russians and eventually start finding more options on my own
>Now I'm 21 and he asks me for suggestions
Thanks Paul

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>start using /b/
>start using /u/
>start using /t/
>start using /tg/
>start using /m/
>start using /v/
>start using /n/
>start using /c/
>start using /h/

>start using /lit/

Haven't read a book yet sadly.

>be me
>15
>want to get into reading
>look up "best books of all time"
>see The Castle by Franz Kafka
>look it up because there's a GOAT Australian comedy film by that name
>the absurdist plot resonates with me
>read it and its like a gothic, Eastern European version of the Australian film
>6 years later still my favourite book
youtube.com/watch?v=tf8AjYvQZmE

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>very young, probably 8 or 9 years old
>get first harry potter book for christmas or birthday, can't remember
>say I don't like reading and dont want them
>mum forces me to sit down while she reads
>I start crying because I dont like reading
>she makes me listen to the first couple of chapters
>once she stops I carry on on my own
>~20 years later still read every day

Thanks Mum.

>be me
>15 and getting bored of high school gamer friend clique
>realize I can get away with being a pretentious asshole if I read Marx and co.
>start reading crit theory and postmodern lit in lieu of forming an identity

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>be me
>be 5 or 6
>in school library with class
>see cover of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, think it's awesome
>ask to check it out
>"idk user that's a big book!"
>want to be smart, check out anyway
>don't understand it
>mom buys me an adapted version for children, pic related
>it is awesome

thank u mom, thank u Jules

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I've always loved reading. Goosebumps and the Warriors books were like crack to my childhood brain.

>weeb
>learn japanese for weeb shit
>try out novels to make i can understand the language for "real"
>hey this is fun too
>branch out to other languages

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>read a lot between ages 6 and 15
>read The Stranger at high school
>existentialcrisis.bmp
>fast forward 6 years (mid 2000s)
>completely addicted to anime and videogames
>movie night with friends
>know I'll have to wait 2 hours for them to arrive to the cinema
>pick up Anna Karenina on a whim off my parents library (it was a 4 volume copy and the first tome fit in my pocket)
>Start reading and 20 pages in, I
finally realize that literature is the superior genre
>But why do they have so many names, and why are there so many princes and shit
Haven't stop reading since.

>born into a literate family
>started reading at 3
>perused 300 volume strong home library by the time I hit puberty

>be me
>be ~14 yo and get bored of vidya every day all day
>mom gives me her old Dean Koontz novels and dad gives me his old Sci-Fi stuff
>read it without a problem
>think to myself “well now it’s time to read something harder I guess”
>ask dad for something harder and he hands me Blood Meridian
>sounds like a badass cowboy novel so I’m into it
>it takes me ~4 months but I finally finish it and decide for something even harder
>go to B&N and pick up Moby-Dick
>it takes me ~4 months as well but I finally finish it
>gradually build up a larger library and start reading more and more each day
>start using Jow Forums at around 15 yo becuase of /mu/
>one day I saw the /lit/ tab and clicked it
>been here ever since

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>be me
>babby
>have mommy show me the picture book
>YES YES YES
>fast forward 20 years
I fucking love Japanese doujins.

Abusive father made me read the bible out loud, memorize passages, and quizzed me regularly on my biblical knowledge. If I fucked up, he would beat me up.
So I guess that's how I got into reading.

Why the Bible? Was he actually retarded? Did he think that what he was doing was right?

He was an alcoholic christcuck and a failed law student who had studied a bit of theology. This was probably his idea of how a child should be properly educated. Obviously he wasn't 100% right in the head.

My dad said I could only read an animorphs book when I read a book he deemed educational, so a read a lot of the easier canon as a kid as well as some of those fucking 1850s type "literature for young men" pieces so I could read about kids morphing into hawks and stuff.
I definitely didn't take enough away but I got through enough to answer his questions verifying that I was at least paying attention to plot, characters, details, and was forming my own opinion.
One time my mom, administering one of these quizzes, caught me lying about having read The Red Badge of Courage so I could read the next animorphs book, and when I came home from school that day he'd printed out like 25 copies of that fucking Scott quote about tangling a web and used double sided tape to put them around my room, like on every door handle and mirror, pretty much every obvious surface and then hidden in random places like under my bed or in the bottom of my drawer or something.
Never really thought about it but I realize now I know him as an adult that he must have been splitting his sides laughing when he wasn't putting on his serious discipline dad face. Fucking bastard, I must have been younger than 10 based on the house I remember this happening in.

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It’s going to be pretty basic /lit/fag stuff I think.

You could say I was read to a lot as a child. My grandmother took care of me while my parents worked and she read to me a ton. I also was a pretty good reader as a kid, but nothing special, I read Redwall and Alex Rider, etc. in high school I read To Kill a Mockingbird and really loved it and felt a connection because my family is from the South. I enjoyed the way she captured the culture and described different details, like the red clay that lined dirt roads, or the experience of going to an all black gospel church.

Then I read the Great Gatsby probably sophomore year and I really attached to that as well. Never was much of a student but my teachers always pegged me as one of the good writers, and I wrote for the school newspaper. When I went to college, I was working a summer job after my freshman year, (which was disastrous due to depression and laziness) and I decided I would read Fitzgerald’s other work. I loved the way that he wrote, even from the first few lines about not criticizing people because “they haven’t had all the advantages you did.” I admit I admired Gatsby first, but then I recognized that the true talent was Fitzgerald, who could imbue characters with beauty and charisma and make a story feel like the good old days that you always looked back on with nostalgic feelings. So I read This Side of Paradise and then Tender is the Night. I then read some Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men and East of Eden, and then As I Lay Dying, and that summer I decided it was really writing that I wanted to do, and I’d always been wishy washy with other stuff but writing was what I was too afraid to try.

Eventually I found /lit/, I don’t remember how, read a lot of Russian literature, Hemingway, some magical realism, some Joyce, and now I’m here, and it’s my last year of college.

I’m sure many of you have a story much the same.

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Damn user, sorry for you

Sorry bro, that sucks. May the rest of your life go smoothly and pleasurably.

>socially abandoned by the only friend I ever had at 4
>put my ""advanced"" intellect to good use by reading above my age level instead of making friends
>never stopped because reading is fun

>be 18
>first year of college
>they set up your schedules so you always have an hour between classes
>homework was easy and didn't take up time
>no wifi back then so I figured I could trying picking up reading to pass time
>go to B&N and pick up a big Lovecraft tome because it sounded badass

also realized I could be a prick too by bragging about how much I read

>watch TV and films all the time sports too
>get very bored and start looking for new past time
>go through a bunch of hobbies photography, cooking, hiking,chess
>none of them cut it
>start board hopping
>find /lit/
>read classics
>haven't left since

that sucks, keep your head high

My mom used to read books with picture for me. The economy was booming and there were many books around. I notice that people are impressed when I read so I kept doing it.
Plot twist: it took me 30 years to actually begin to read rather than to pretend that I enjoy reading.

>read a shit ton of lemony snicket, harry potter, other YA crap in elementary school
>met girl named kali online in 8th grade, she told me about perks of being a wallflower, more gay YA crap
>read bukowski freshman year of high school, as per recommendation of my art teacher. Think “he is me bro”
>gradually get more familiar with canon.
>end high school loving hemmingway, david foster wallace, celine
>get to college, think i need to read harder to distance myself from plebs - read kafka, and will self
>read john barthes, adolfo buoy casares, borges in years following
>go to study abroad, read a bunch of theorycel shit in my critical theory class. End up loving barthes
>get into post-structuralism, conceptual poetry
>get bored with it for being unromantic and penniless,
>read french lit (redonnet, houellebecq, etc)
>graduate college
>return to reading philosophy (not theory stuff,) more lit, and everything in between

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My mom read me everyone poops and shel silverstein when i was 2 years old

I found a sci-fi book one day when I was 14 and I have not talked to a female human being since

Does this shit actually work? I was thinking if I make my kids sit and listen they'll just end up hating it (and me) even more, they being the little contrarian shits that they are.

So the first turning point came in fifth grade. Teachers got a deal with publishers and like I said the economy was booming so each of us was supposed to buy and read a book.
>hey user what's wrong I thought reading is your thing
>yes but I don't like Uncle Tom Tom Sawyer Abridged Paradise Lost Wrath of Grapes ...I only like this illustrated encyclopedia
In high school I learned there is a difference between stamp collection and real science. But I didn't know it was talking about me. So I have been stamp collecting for 30 years

Too late, theyre already hooked on spiderman elsa mickey mouse youtube videos and snapchat. They'll be watching porn and swapping nudes with their classmates in a year or two.

All I ever read was political crap. Someone criticizing the other one. This party blaming that party. Until one day I decided to get to the bottom of things and began reading history

After I read 4 years of "bottom" I realized I am just stamp collecting. No point at all.

user, you're browsing this site. Chances are your kids will hate you anyway.

> be me
> 18 years-old
> Complete failure
> Find Watamote
> Become obsessed with it
> Find out stories are more than simple entertainment
> Stories can be great teachers too
> Decide to become a mangaka
> Wax my carrot to fiction and non-fiction asian girls
> no progress on manga
> Can’t draw stick figures
> This goes on for months
> Find jordan peterson
> “Learn to speak. Learn to read. Learn to think, bucko”
> HolyShit.jpg
> Crack open a copy of Welcome to the NHK
> Realize books are more than just cheap movies
> they’re a venue to express thoughts and philosophy
> Read Lolita
> Begin writing Incel action fantasy light novel

And that’s where I am today boys.

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It worked on me. Then again that was before the internet and videogames so I don't know what I would have been doing otherwise.

>7 years old
>dad reads to me every night
>reading the hobbit, a chapter a night
>fucking love that shit
>can totally read everything as he's reading it but am a lazy shit who likes someone reading to me
>dad has a plan
>reads me first chapter of fellowship of the rings
>if you want to know what happens next you're gonna have to read it yourself lol
and so i did

i'm old enough this was way before the movies too

>be me
>17, struggle to read anything longer than a paragraph
>think I'd really like reading if I were better at it
>learn about adhd and that it can be medicated
>get diagnosed and prescribed ritalin over summer break
>super excited to try reading now
>start going out everyday to the botanic gardens with a book, my pills and a water bottle
>read for 3-6 hours at a time
>bliss

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Hi Soren

>Marx

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>was
Did you get braindamage before or after you converted, postkike?

What's it like reading with ADHD? I believe I have it, but I can't be certain

>be me
>go to grannies hoose
>read dad and uncle's old copies of Oor Wullie and The Broons
>Find the pulp fiction kids were reading in the 60s
>Alfred Hitchkock, Blyton, some war stories with manly men
>skip a few years
>find the Hobbit in the library age 10
>mindblown.jpg
>read Lord of the Rings
>get book in English class, finish it next day, spend next few weeks coasting
>fall out of love with reading
>age 21, life is shit, get thrown out of house, fuck a girl with big tiddies. Discover Bukowski
>laugh my ass off
>found /lit/
>STARTED THE GREEKS

The journey was just beginning

Be ready for the most autistic story

>be me
>16
>kicked out of high school
>full neet, except by some lessons with a private teacher
>bored as fuck
>thought sherlock holmes was cool
>buy the first book and loved it
>buy the rest of them and loved them
>watch all the movies and loved them
>watch the Jeremy Brett series, talked his flawless performance with everyone
>fully obsessed with sherlock holmes at this point
>start making nonsense deductions of my family behavior
>at some point belived grandma was selling drugs after finding what in the end was regular flour on a table
>buy a pipe and walk with it around the house pretending I smoke
>put an ad online listing myself as a private detective
>keep reading detective stories, like Raymond Chandler and stuff
>SLOWLY grew out of it, Agatha Christie was starting to get boring and predictable
>read Steppenwolf, Demian, really loving Hesse
>read Metamorphosis and The Trial, Kafka was then my new favourite author

In the end I think it was a way to escape, at least mentally, the shitty family I had who yelled at me all day for nothing. Glad I don't have to see them anymore, but I've kept the reading habit

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you're going to make it hero

>Read a lot back in high school
>Stop because of anime and games addiction
>Come home from work early, ready for wild gaming session
>Best friend is still lying in bed. lol dude, get up, what u doing? Won't wake up. Touch his leg. Cold. Dead. Destroyed me to my core. I was a complete wreck for months. Took a year before I stopped randomly crying
>watch anime about a squid girl with my friends. She has a weird head. A boy makes a paper hat like her head, she's stupid and thinks she's found another one of her species, becomes super happy
>wind blows hat off. When she sees the hat, she thinks her new friend is dead.
>all of my friends are laughing their asses off at how stupid she is
>I'm sitting in my back of the room, tears pouring down my face, fucking shaking and desperately trying to keep silent. Everyone's oblivious to how painful that is. Everyone's having fun and I don't want to ruin it.
>Luckily we're watching in the dark, excuse myself to the bathroom
>Just stand there, hand against the wall, weeping
>Surrounded by friends who love me. Have a healthy, loving, and caring family. Friendly and understanding co-workers.
>still alone
>It's a special kind of hell
>Have long commute. Listen to music on it, drown out the noise.
>for 2 or more hours every workday, daydream about a fairy who goes on a magical adventure to save her best friend from dying. She fails. I end up randomly crying on buses and trains quite frequently.
>This continues for about 4 years
>I can't stand having this shit inside me anymore, never had artistic talent at anything
>fuck it, i'm going to write. I don't care whether I die, but I have to get this out and written well before then
>remember there's a /lit/ board
>Started greeks a few years back, devouring every book about writing I can find
>used to love my job, now I hate it since it gets in the way of studying

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>getting emotionally demolished into a sobbing wreck by Ika Musume
JUST

Didn't love Hemingway enough to figure out how to spell his name, though.

Yeah. It was the last series I watched with him before he went. Near that time even just hearing the opening sequence was almost enough to crack me.

Keep it up man. Everyone start's somewhere

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>6 yo shy kid
>move to different country
>don't speak the language
>dad is afraid I'll trouble at school
>whole summer spent reading aloud for half a hour every single day
>first book is peter Pan
>finish it in 3 weeks
>next is Paul Street Boys
>Goosebumps
>book on the life of Leonardo Da Vinci
>Start school
>have no trouble keeping up with the class

I stopped reading aloud shortly after but never dropped the hobby.

Read mostly fiction until my early teen years.
At that point I was already trying to read Nietzsche and failing miserably.

Then I started attending a Gymnasium . Humbled up and Read Homer for the first time. Then came Plato and The Tragedians. Aristotle, Herodotus and Thucydides.

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>be me
>be 8
>take book from class shelf
>read book
>finish reading book
>read another book
story of my life

Please post khazar milkies. I lost my virginity to a jewess and I would really love to suck on her milkers again.

I hope youre a female

>be me
>going to college
>most people are normies, no one plays vydia
>vydia no longer fun if cant play with my highschool buddies
>start going to the library and read
> search for litelature online
>find /lit/
Never found better faggots

I'm too stupid for literature but i own a lot of it.

There was a mandatory classical literature class in school and I liked it.