Today, PaperBackSwap turns 14! Happy Birthday to us! And what is a Birthday Party without games?!
Since playing pin the tail on the donkey, or musical chairs isn’t easy to do online, we have come up with a game everyone can play.
We call it Favorites at 14.
Here is how it works:
In the comments here on the Blog, tell us one of your favorite books, title and author, from when you were 14, or thereabouts. And tell us why you liked the book.
It is that simple. On Friday, September 7, 2018, we will choose a winner at random.
The winner will receive their choice of 6 PaperBackSwap Credits, one year of Standard Membership or a one year subscription to Box-O-Books.
Contest is only open to current PBS members whose accounts are in good standing.
Good luck to everyone!
Tags: Box-O-Books, Contests, Free Credits, Milestones
When I was 14, it was 1960 and 1961, so most of the books mentioned here were still in the future. As I recall, I was probably still working on completing my collection of Hardy Boys Books. And the best of them, of course, is the first one, The Tower Treasure. My little brother and I would read our Hardy Boy books to each other occasionally. I still recall him reading from The Tower Treasure that the tower property was owned by Hurd Applegate, a tall, stooped old man. My brother pronounced it “stupid.” I had to argue with him for some time before he would believe me. Now I am a tall, stooped old man. Some might feel that “stupid” would be more appropriate….
14? I can barely remember being 14… Let’s see. We were living in the house a block behind the hardware store. The local library was about 2 1/2 blocks away as the crow flies, but 2 of those blocks were through the woods so I had to go up to the main highway and ride my bicycle along a bumpity bump path with cars whizzing by at 70 miles per hour (much faster than the actual speed limit) avoid being run over as I crossed the mini mart parking lot then back on the bumpity bump path to the next street where the library was about half a block down.
Ummm… Trixie Belden by Julie Campbell Tatham? Or maybe Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?
Somewhere I had picked up a copy of Margaret Mitchell’s book, “Gone with the Wind” and decided to read it. I had not seen the movie but once I began reading, I was hooked. Although it was a rather big book, I read on. At this time, I was in High School and could only read after my long commute home and when my homework was done. Then I reached the part where Rhett had returned with Bonny, and Scarlett was pregnant and Rhett did not know. Words are exchanged and then Scarlett falls down the stairs. I can still recall my emotions in turmoil at the turn of events and although I had school the next day, I stayed up to finish the book. It is one of my favorite books.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court was my favorite,I Think, at 14
That’s a long time ago to expect an accurate memory! A safe bet, though, would be the Tarzan series of books by E.R. Burroughs.
I enjoyed Little House on the Prairie by Lauren Engel Wilder. Once I started reading these books I kept reading them. I could relate living on a farm. Even though it was more modern where I lived I read the books and would pretend it was just like the books when I did my chores.
When I was 14 I read Mrs Mike by Benedict Freedman. I loved the story about a young Canadian girl who marries a mountie and moves to northern Canada. Beautiful story!
This isn’t very original, but Catcher in the Rye. I think what made the book so great for me at 14 was the English teacher in school who led our fabulous discussions about it.
I loved “I capture the castle” by Dodie Smith. Their lives were so different from mine and seemed so wonderful.
A Wrinkle in time. It was a book that I didn’t want to end.
My favorite book at 14 was “Thorn Birds”. Read it several times and still love it just the same.
At 14, my favorite book was “Thieves’ World”, the first in the anthology/shared universe series of the same name edited by Robert Asprin. I was very much into Dungeons & Dragons and all kids of fantasy novels as well as science fiction. I actually still have my original copy of that which I picked up at a library booksale in my hometown.
I can’t remember my very favorite book at 14 years old, but I do remember reading “The Chronicles of Narnia” series. I thoroughly enjoyed the adventure of Lucy and her siblings in Narnia where they met Aslan the lion and many other characters. I still have my set of Narnia books as a reminder of my earlier carefree years of reading.
One of the Lurlene McDaniel books I read around age 14 was Baby Alicia is Dying.
It’s a little hard to remember 14 exactly because I was such a voracious reader. I reread the Emily trilogy by L. M. Montgomery every single year from age 11 into my 20s, so you could count it for age 14 and indeed my entire teenagerhood. But at 13-14 what I was really into were the Elfquest comics and graphic novels. My sister and I painstakingly saved our allowances every week to buy as much Elfquest stuff as we could.
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger. This is the my favorite book of all time!
The first adult-level book I ever read was when I was 14. I was already an avid fan of “Jurassic Park” the movie but had been unaware it was a book. Was I ever excited when the teacher handed out Scholastic order forms and prominently on the second page was “The Lost World” by Michael Crichton. It took me a weekend to read it once it came in, and thus began my obsession with all things Michael Crichton. It was the most sophisticated book I’d read up to that point, and so research-heavy: I had never experienced anything like it.
i was obsessed with ebola and contagious diseases when i was 14, and it must have been because i read ‘the hot zone’ by richard preston around that time!
At 14, I was crazy about horses! So my favorite book at the time was Black Beauty, of course.
I am torn on my answer between Philippa Carr’s The Witch from the Sea and Chesapeake by James Mitchener. I spent a good part of that summer in Delaware with my Aunt and Uncle and read a ton. I remember my mom paperclipping the pages I couldn’t read on Mitchener’s book when she was finished!
Happy 14th Birthday 🎂🎁🎈🎉 my favorite book when I was 14 I would have to say was The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. I loved the plot of the story, all the characters, etc.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling was released the summer when I was 14. I remember reading it multiple times that summer and being so excited to see what else was going to happen in the next book!
At 14, I was reading Flowers In the Attic by VC Andrews. Not sure why other than I thought it was a kind of cool book about other teens being kept hidden away, which seemed way more dramatic than my life.
When I was 14 kids weren’t allowed to read many adult books unless they were the classics. I had read all the Nancy Drew series already and most of the mysteries in our junior high library. But the book that turned me on to literature was Great Expectations by Charles Dickens that we read in English class. After that I searched for more books beyond my years.
Not sure what I adored at age 14–prior to that I loved “Jane Eyre”. About that time I read the entire oeuvre of F. Scott Fitzgerald so maybe my favorite, “The Beautiful and Damned”, could be my favorite at 14. It is not as well known as some of his others, but I remember it being not as wrenching as “Tender is the Night”.
I read A Town named Alice by Nevil Shute. It encouraged my love of travel by introducing me to the beauty of Australia.
My favorite book at 14 was Jane Eyre. It is still one of my favorites. Back then, as now, I always had my nose stuck in a book! My parents would hear the neighborhood kids outside playing and beg me to go outside. “Just one more chapter . . . . ” was always my response!
This is a hard one! It’s been many moons since I was 14! :O
I think this is when I found North & South by John Jakes. I also really remember finding The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley and falling in love, so much so, I wrote my senor paper on King Arthur.
Also made my 2 best friends read it 🙂
I have always read advanced books at it was at this time that I was into my love of Stephen King and Anne Rice. So I would have to say it is a tie between them as I was always carrying around the Eye of the Dragon by Stephen King and Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice. I loved how they could both transport me from being a simple bystander to an active participant in the story. I could not put the books down as the world they created became such obsessions.
When I was 14 my parents would let me stay up as late as I wanted during the summer as long as I was reading quietly in bed. So I would read everything that I could get my hands on that was “age” appropriate. But I really liked to read books that were way beyond a normal 14 year olds range. So my favorite from that time period was Tolstoy’s War and Peace. It was a tomb. Over 800 pages as I recall. But I really enjoyed it. The depth of the characters. The twists and turns in the story. And just the way that it was told. This is still one of my favorite books of all time. If you have not read it, take your self on a journey and let your imagination run in this classic!
When I was 14 I just loved reading Flowers in the Attic. I thought I was reading something really ‘adult’, all my friends were into VC Andrews and we would all get together to read 🙂
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire! I loved how magical all of these books were, but especially this one with the Triaizard Tournament. I loved escaping into this book!
The first book that comes to mind at that age is Black Beauty. I was mesmerized by the story and couldn’t believe anyone would be cruel to an animal.
My most favorite book was I Never Promised You A Rose Garden. I have read the book over and over and it still is my favorite book.
My favorite book when I was 14 was Pet Sematary. It scared the crap out of me but also helped me to not be so scared of everyday things because they weren’t nearly as bad as what was in the book.
I can’t pick a favorite book at 14. I have to pick a series of books. When I was 14, I was majorly into the Sweet Valley High books. I loved that there were so many and I was a huge fan of the constant happenings in the lives of the twins and their friends. Plus, I have very fond memories of my stepdad at the time doing his interpretations of the books I was always reading. Now that he has passed, those memories have really endeared the books to me and I will always treasure them. As an adult, I look back on these books with nostalgia of a time of innocence. They will always have a special place in my heart.
I loved 1984 by George Orwell- dreary book I know, but I re-read it over and over. Maybe it had something to do with the year I graduated high school and was happy the world was not to that point.
Also The Admiral’s Daughter by Victoria Fyodorova. The story of how a mother and daughter survived through Soviet Russia.The mother was a famous movie star who had a daughter with an American Serviceman during WWII and how their lives changed. And how the daughter fought to find and meet her father.
When I was 14, I was scouring the library for reading material. I found The Magicians Nephew by CS Lewis. I loved the other worlds and the possibilities. I went on to read the whole series. I had no idea what I had discovered.
One of the young-adult authors I was reading at 14 was the late Ellen Conford (Dear Lovey Hart, I Am Desperate, Hail Hail Camp Timberwood) – it was *important* to me as a 14-year-old to cultivate my gift for sarcasm, and the humor of her characters helped! They could say scathingly funny things but still have a tender conscience and good motives. Many years on, now, I’ve tried to weed sarcasm OUT of my life as much as possible, but back then it felt like a rare orchid I had to tend.
Watership Down by Richard Adams
When I was 14, I remember going to the bookstore by myself and purchasing “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” by Judy Blume. It was the first book I purchased on my own with my own money.
I remember reading ‘The Good Earth’ by Pearl S. Buck when I was 13 years old. It deeply moved me and is still one of my favorite books ever. This book transported me to a far-away land, its history and the struggles faced by an ordinary family. A real classic.
I might have been too old for this book, but I always loved The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauses and Crockett Johnson. It is one of my favorite books of all time.
Actually, I never read anything at 14 (except my textbooks). I watched television. I flunked Freshman English, because I wouldn’t get up in front of the class to give a book report (I was too shy and a slow reader). I had to retake it in Summer School. That’s when everything changed. We read Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe by George Eliot, and I fell in love with books (I now own an 1899 copy of Silas Marner). I enjoy reading historical books the most; and read every spare minute of the day.
One of my favorite books at around that age was The Other Side of Midnight by Sidney Sheldon. I had never read a book like that at that time in my life. The characters fascinated me and the story kept me guessing and reading. My friends and I couldn’t stop talking about it and rehashing over and over again.
I was 14 or so and read To Kill A Mockingbird. It really opened my eyes to a lot of things. The writing is wonderfully simple and profound. I had been on two cross country trips with my parents before that. On one of them we went south on the way out and north on the way back. I still remember the “colored” bathrooms and water fountains. It was an eye opener.
I think I was about 14 when I read The Hobbit for the first time. I tried to move on to the Lord of the Rings trilogy but it didn’t enchant me in the same way. I was in my 20s when I finally read them.
Having been raised on faery tales, this “grown up” faery tale delighted me and still does.
I was just growing out of my Goosebumps stage and moving into Nicholas Sparks.
When I was about 14, I read Gone With the Wind. It was the longest book I had read at that time, and it only took me about a week. I really enjoyed it was such an epic story. Since then, it is one of the few books I have read of that lentgh that don’t have lot of slow boring parts.
WOW, 14, that was a long time ago! I do remember reading and re-reading the Little House on the Prairie books during this time….between the ages of 12-15.