I clearly remember my first novel. I was fourteen and my mother told me not to read it but, of course, I did anyway. The book was "From Here to Eternity" by James Jones. It was a best seller and later made into a movie with a brilliant cast of stars (at that time): Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Montgomery Clift, Ernest Borgnine and Donna Reed.
I was hooked and my nose has been in a book ever since. However, my choice of reading material has changed from novels to non-fiction in the form of memoir, current political events and economics.