Task

I hear some people would find it easier to write if they were given a task. I did plan tasks for your blogs (that's what ELT blogs are all about), so here you are:

• I would like to see a post on each and every blog of yours about the first book you read in English. What it was, why you read it, how you felt about reading in English and what it gave you as a language learner. I mean "real" book, not readers or magzines: a novel, let's say.

Mine was Steinbeck's East of Eden, and that was right after my matura, like 100 years ago. I wanted to have had that experience before entering my English philology studies. I went to Zakopane with my best friend (still!), and we walked the mountains during the day and spent quiet evenings relaxing after the turmoils of all the matura and entrance exams. And so I read it - from cover to cover. I was so absolutely proud of myself! I felt it was the tallest mountain I climbed that summer. The book was not probably the best choice for the start, but I just picked it off my Grandfather's shelf and followed His advice. Not that it was bad literature - I loved it. But it was not very easy to read and at some points a bit depressing.

Anyway, that's my story, and now I want to read yours :)