Do you remember the first time?

[bossk]

I suddenly got curious about how people first discovered SRD and where they bought their first book. I remember mine, because it was so surprising.

When I was a teen, my dad, a teacher, would take us on extended visits to his parents' farm in northeast Arkansas during the summer months. It was a conservative, sparsely-populated, rural area. I was mostly bored. All-day games of Monopoly with my cousins were a highlight.

There was a small bookstore in one of the nearby towns, so when I complained enough about boredom, my dad took me there and said he'd buy me a book. I looked at several, I'm sure, but I settled on Lord Foul's Bane with no real understanding of what the book was about. It was fantasy, and it intrigued me, so that was good enough.

When I had read partway through, I started wondering "how on earth did this book end up in this shitty little town?" I guess its best-seller designation gave me the lucky opportunity to start a life-long love of SRD's work, despite the fact that I was stuck in a town where his defining ethos would generally go over like a lead balloon.

That's how I started (I think I was 13 or 14 at the time). How about you?

[lurch]

HAA!! How can I forget? It haunts me to this day.

Valentines Day. I get the idea to take my significant other out for diner, She and I had known each other for close to 2 years and started cohabiting perhaps 6 months. I like a good BBQ so we ended up at the mall where there was a " Luv's Barbeque" Maybe the choice was sending too strong a signal, since what I thought was a good time , by end of meal, turned sour. I suspect she anticipated a ring . To be honest, it hadn't entered my mind. So for a walk around the mall we went to help digest the hot and spicey while displaying cold and closed. Nothing I could say warmed her up so I soon kept my mouth shut. Into a book store we wandered. A sale was going on. On a table were stacks of books 10%-25%-35%-50% off. She moved a few around and pulled out Lord Foul's Bane. The cover art of the flame eyes and bridge etc seemed to catch her attention. Alls it caught from me was..a derisive comment about " Fantasy" and a suggestion to buy a work of art like any of the classics that were on sale over on the other table. Of course, that sealed the deal. On the way home, I took the chance to remove the book from the bag and opened it up to read since I was getting no communication what so ever from the driver. By the time we arrived home and she parked the car, I was hooked.

I pigged the book until I completed it,,and then wanted to re-read it ,,which earned me a real tongue lashing. I finally got to re-read it with her still not completing a first read. She never finished it as I recall. It galled her that I found so much ,,in a book that she found...that was supposed to demonstrate her individuality, her needs and wants to me.

I know I probably wouldn't be here , today, if it wasn't for her. I don't think she was ever able to deal with my complete and total glom of that book. On that Valentines Day, I got the first inclination that we would be going our separate ways. Little did i know, that it would be just the beginning of a life long fandom of Donaldson's work.

[dlbpharmd]

Awesome story, Lurch!

[Iolanthe]

What a good story Lurch. Two perhaps life changing experiences in one go.

Mine is a much more boring story. Stuck at home with two small children in the early 80s and I belonged to a detective fiction book club. Nothing I wanted that month in the detective line, but an omnibus edition of the 1st Chronicles was on offer, and for some reason I went for it. I had read some fantasy before - Alan Garner (children's writer), Tolkein etc. but this one really hooked me.

[lucimay]

i have no clear memory of purchasing LFB nor even the bookstore i might've been in.
it's possible i may even have first gotten it at the library.
they have always had a pretty good public library in Lexington
and they had (and still have) a "New" shelf for fiction and i can
imagine finding it there but i just don't remember.

i do remember reading the synopsis in the book jacket and thinking
it sounded interesting and deciding to read it. just don't have an
"ah ha" moment attached to finding it.

[Vraith]

huh...I think I remember remembering this better before. Maybe it's around here somewhere in a different thread.
[[it's weird to me to remember remembering about something without remembering the thing...it happens a lot, but it still seems weird]]

I know I first READ it because of my best friend in High School. And I didn't own/buy it right then. That's certain.

I remember getting LFB in worn paperback at a yard sale...BUT, I remember that buying it then was to replace a copy I no longer had, and I don't know where/when I got the first. Maybe I'll remember another time.

[bossk]

I was half-expecting someone to tell me it had been done before, but I couldn't be bothered to check first.

[Cagliostro]

Actually, Bossk introduced me to it. We became friends partly because of a love of Star Wars and we had both started reading Lord of the Rings around the same time, if I remember correctly. We met in grade school and became semi-friends that probably would have parted ways and never saw each other again if it wasn't for the fact that, (a) he moved out of town, (b) was tenacious in writing letters, and (c) had invited me to Arkansas where he was bored (a bit more to this story), and honestly, (d) he occasionally came back to town to visit.
I remember we were pretty much ready to lose touch when I received a letter from him asking if I wanted to come up to Arkansas to join him during his bored summer. And surprisingly, my mom agreed that I should go visit - probably because she wanted me out of the damn house for a week or so. I took the bus for the first time, and it was kinda scary and exciting.
I can't remember if Bossk had come to visit and loaned me his copy of Lord Fouls Bane, or if he loaned it to me once I arrived, or if he suggested I read it and I bought it before the trip. All I know is that I was reading it while I was there. Six things stand out from that trip - an introduction to Covenant, a certain lifetime friendship, an appreciation of Led Zepplin, particularly Stairway to Heaven (I bought Led Zep 4 used right before leaving), memorizing Monty Python and the Holy Grail, an appreciation of nature, and my first adult stirrings of love.
Bossk and I spent our time running around the Ozarks fighting invisible Evil Warriors, setting off fireworks, being idiots, looking at his dad's porn collection, listening to an audio recording I made of Monty Python and the Holy Grail from the television with all the family noises, and when we needed temporary downtime from each other, reading Covenant. I think Bossk was usually a book ahead of me.
Bossk's dad ran a canoe rental business, and right in the beauty of the Ozarks. The highlight of the trip for me was when his dad allowed us loose with canoe and Bossk's female cousin on the river. I had met her a few days earlier at the 4th of July celebration where we had a large amount of fireworks. I got along with her like a sister, and didn't feel the usual awkwardness that I usually felt with girls I had an interest in. But the adventure on the river WITH A GIRL was something special in my newly teenaged mind. And, if I remember correctly, after the 4th, I had trouble sleeping thinking about her at night. So on the bus ride back home, I was very moved thinking about her, the canoe trip, Stairway to Heaven playing on my Walkman, and the introduction to the Land that I was reading.
Next year I went back to Arkansas to visit again, with every intention of telling her how I felt about her, reading The One Tree (which might be why I appreciate that book more than the average Covenant fan), and not expecting the disappointment that would follow that she wouldn't be able to join us after a year of pining. I admitted to Bossk at that time that I had a crush on his cousin, and he said he knew, and we had what we came to know as our first "adult" conversation, starting first with a long discussion of all things Covenant and ending with that. Our friendship deepened greatly that second summer.
Sorry, I tried to keep it short.

[dlbpharmd]

Another awesome story from Cag!

[aliantha]

Mine isn't nearly that good.

When I was in college, a friend was reading the 1st Chrons and told me they were terrific. After I'd graduated and was working at my first job (little teeny radio station in LaPorte, Indiana), I spotted the books at the library, checked them out, and devoured them. I subsequently bought book club editions of the 1st Chrons, and real-deal hardbacks of the 2nd Chrons. All of which, like a doofus, I later gave away.

[Sorus]

Mine isn't very interesting.

I remember walking into Crown Books, looking at their display of new scifi. I picked up Chaos and Order to read the back, and immediately put it back down because there was no synopsis on the back, just a picture of a spaceship. How annoying is that? I wandered off, but something about it must have intrigued me, because I went back and bought it.

For better or for worse, I have been Sorus for 20 years now.

[sgt.null]

back in junior high there was a kid named George Woods. I am Dennis Wood. well they kept confusing us. so one day I was called to the office for what turned out to be a message for him from his mom. while waiting I picked up a copy of Lord Foul's Bane that was sitting there. it was not a library copy so I asked the assistant principle if I could have it and he said yes.

btw, George and I would be become best friends.

years later Julie was on a Vincent Donofrio board. one of the women there saw that I liked SRD and recommended this site.