His note seems to be aimed at inspiring guilt in his lifetime tormenters. How sadly futile are the suicidal-to think others really give a damn about having so tormented another human being to the point of suicide.

How insanely futile to think, as perhaps this guy did, that choosing a most gruesome and ritualistic self butchering might inspire even more guilt.

Fact is, his tomenters probably only regretted that he wasn't around to rip off anymore.

Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe
Mysterious Island, by Jules Verne
The Children Of Captain Grant, by Jules Verne
Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twaine
Some compilation book called ``Legends and Myths of Ancient Greece'' (the content should be obvious)
Illiad, Odyssey by Homer.
Lot of Yu. Lermontov
Countless textbooks left behind by my older brother (who is sixteen years my elder) (and from my grandmother, who was a literature teacher)

• How to Eat Fried Worms
• So You Want to be a Magician series
• Sounder
• Charlotte's Web

• Douglas Adams (HHGGTG but also his Dirk Gently series)
• Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Ice Nine and Slaughterhouse V are the big ones)

It's been a while since I've read for pure pleasure.. most of my reading is technical in nature, and has been for many years now.  I kind of miss it, I've been making a point to pick up some old favourites and read a few pages at a time.

At that time, I loved Jack London. I got hooked with Call of the Wild, and I still get cold when I think about "To Start a Fire".

I also had a really nice lithographed Jules Verne compilation that my grandfather gave me. It had short stories and several novels all in one big black book, it was great.

I discovered Bradbury in fifth grade, I remember that very well. I absorbed just about everything he had written in the span of a year, and now hardly remember Farenheit 451.

In fourth grade, reading took a downturn....I got my first modem, and my reading habits changed considerably.

If I read anything at that age (I doubt it) it was comics: Asterix and Tim & Struppi (Rin tin tin or something like that in the original). When I could recite these I started my first book which was "Luke the engine driver", a very popular German children's book, a real novel though. Ensuing were other children's books, some fantasy, Steven King in later teenage years and finally quite some of the old classics.

Finding myself in the company of people who read Dune and LotR when they were eight is somewhere from embarrassing to ridiculous.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
E. B. White

I'm intrigued to see that there's alot of escapist fantasy fiction in the list here. Do we think this is a reflection of the sort of literature available for children, or of the sort of people that make comments in K5?

Have just read 'Curious incident of the Dog in the Night-time' which is allegedly for kids... it was very odd. Good, but odd.

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Just how many is a Brazillian anyway?

But the book I remember most is a 1954 printing of the Encyclopedia Americana, which I spent hours musing over. Them, and National Geographics, from the early to mid 1960s. I seem to remember that the first issue I remember reading was from like 1964, and had a large article about cats in it. Thanks to these books and magazines, I learned a great deal about whales and dinosaurs, my earliest interests. I know the dates and reigns of the British kings and queens better than I know the American presidents; the royals just seemed more interesting. I could spell Australopithecus at a very early age.

I've spent my childhood in communist Romania (I still live here, but the politics have changed; for some chronology context, I'm now 30). So I didn't have access to any Western mainstream entertainment sources.

We did have the occasional Tom & Jerry on TV, along with Disney stuff mostly in cinemas. We had next to no comics -- and the few that were available were local. I used to envy other children who owned collections of Tarzan or Pif (French comics magazine).

The traditional childen books in my time were usually the Grimm stories, along with local ones -- mostly without any pictures (generally only books for infants had pictures).

The Romanian traditional youth book was the local "Ciresarii" series ("The Cherry Gang", where "cherry" is indeed the fruit) -- a feel-good, wholesome read for a 12-14 year-old; it consisted of some 5-6 books; each book was indeed a novel, not a collection of short stories.

My favourite as a child however was a book I found in the attic. It was a book without covers -- probably worn out, I don't know, fact is I only know that book in its coverless form. Quite a thick book too -- some 2 inches thick, the way I remember it. The title was something like "Italian Stories", or something similar -- but definitely Italian, not another nation. The preface said something like "this is not a book for good children -- it's a book for smart children". I sure fell for that one. The book did indeed contain very original stories, and most were quite imaginative. And more than 90% were quite gruesome too: I still remember one scene, after the main character and his friend went to sleep in a house haunted by the Devil (no less!), the main character wakes up to the sound of the Devil's voice trying to intimidate him while he was throwing bloody limbs torn from his friend's body down the chimney. Truth be said, this was one of the most gruesome stories in the book -- but anyway, presenting a child with such a plot sounds absurd today. However, apart from being followed by that image in my 30s, I experience no side effects -- maybe except for the need to sacrifice babies on full moon nights.

Its a surprisingly strange book featuring warring ancient secret societies, Herne the Hunter and most notably, a supernaturally evil vicar called Abner Brown (who can turn into a wolf...). The titular box is put in the care of the super-posh "Master" Kay Harker by a weird Punch and Judy man and he travels to various historical and mythical incidents whilst pursued by the bad guys who want the box for themselves. More spoilerful take on it, via the BBC version, here.

In the best tradition of Christmas related books, its set in the Christmas holidays and comes to a climax on Christmas Eve. Its not really what one imagines finding in a 1930s book for children, but its pretty engaging stuff. I'm not sure what the point of it is, its sounds like it should have some sort of Pullman/Lewisian agenda but I don't think it has. Its just a story I think (am I missing something blindingly obvious?). All the business of Harker being warned "the wolves are running" amidst news reports of "wild dogs roaming the countryside" was (and frankly still is actually) pretty sinister.

The BBC did a decent adaptation in the 1980s although its a little heavy on the "electronic paintbox" special effects (I believe this was shown in the US). The opening titles on the linked page sort of sums up the menacing air of the piece which isn't helped by the fact I find the Edwardian setting in and of itself a bit sinister. I'll probably read it at some point over the festive period.

Masefield's fiction is not really that appreciated now (I couldn't find very much on the web about it, despite his being poet laureate at one time) so I thought I'd give him a shout out here. I'd recommend it to anyone (and their kids) as a bit of snow-flecked December reading ideal for a chapter a night if you can time it so you finish on Christmas Eve. For a 1930s book its not as "accidentally" offensive as some are although Kay Harker is a posh kid and gets a lot of cap doffing and unearned respect put his way by maids and railways porters and so on. I suppose it is a little heavy on the Englishness so that might be a problem if you are very sensitive to that.

Lace by Shirley Conran.
The Phantom comics
Biggles
The Thousand Nights and One Night (unabridged, Richard Burton version)

That rules. I wish I still had those cheap, baby-blue set of plastic dice....

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