Books though the ages

A bit of a ramble about my favourite books, from when I was tiny until now. I think only one book has really influenced me deeply (and it will probably be no surprise when I say it is more a series than one book!)
I have always loved books. Mum and Dad always told me that I could read before I could talk - work that one out! - and I am lucky enough to have a library more or less on my doorstep (well a few minutes walk) so I have been a regular there for a good 20/30 years now.
The first set of books I can really remember is the Ladybird books - the Read-it-yourself ones, the Well-loved tales ones (and I can remember being terrified of the wolf on the front of "The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids"!) and, my personal favourite series, the Rhyming books. The Rhyming books were perfect at bedtime, to send you asleep. Mum and Dad both read to me when I was younger (maybe it is no surprise that I love audio books now!) but Dad had a way of doing the Rhyming books. My favourite was always "The Runaway", about a escaping rabbit, and even now can repeat some of it. There was also "The Tiger who came to Tea" by Judith Kerr - which is still going even now!
I read the Mr Men books too, and of course, Enid Blyton. Blyton was my constant companion. Some of the stories were similar, and of course some of them aren't very PC these days - they have been rewritten for the younger generation - but I never tired of the Famous Five etc. Even now, I have been known to pick up a few favourite ones.
In my teenage years, I read the Babysitters Club and the Sweet Valley books. They were OK (some of them!) but didn't make much of a lasting impression on me. I must have found Agatha Christie in my teenage years - probably my first Christie was "Murder is Easy", without any famous detective - and I still love Christie now (no surprise there!). No matter how many times I read "And then there were none", I always forget how well written it is.
Onto a series that I discovered late in life - "only" eight years ago in fact. That, of course, is Harry Potter. I "found" Harry totally by accident. I had heard of the series (I think only three of them were out in December 2000, if GoF was out, it was quite a new one), but I considered them "Children's books" at best, and also was frightened they would be too much like "Lord of the Rings". I had read the series (Dad was a great fan of the Hobbit in particular) but I found them too long, and some of it make so sense.
But on Boxing Day 2000, I read that Stephen Fry was going to read Philosopher's Stone on Radio 4 - complete and unabridged. Seeming I was always at a loose end on Boxing Day - the day after Christmas, full to the brim with the food from the day before - I decided to see what all the fuss was about. Even the first few sentences intrigued me. Why did the Dursleys consider themselves "normal"? What was their secret - because no one could have been so unpleasent and Vernon! I think I was totally hooked by the time Dumbledore walked down Privet Drive, and the cat turned into McGonagall. I think that first chapter - "The Boy Who Lived" - is one of the best written in the whole series.
After absolutely loving listening to it on the radio, I hurried to buy books 1 to 4 and the cassette tapes to go with them - which I have now upgraded to CDs! The Potterverse has helped me through some hard times, and also helped me make some wonderful "virtual" friends