The first story I ever remember writing was in the first year of primary school. It was entitled "Why I Don't Like Milk." I would count this as fiction if I was being kind, an outright lie if I'm being honest. I did like milk, I just didn't want my compulsory quarter pint bottle of milk we were made to have every morning. I still have the exercise book it is written in but I will spare you the embarrassment of reading the whole 58 words of this masterpiece. If I tell you that 15 of them were the same word in a row, you will have a very very very very very good idea of how truly terrible it was :-) It didn't work either, I still had to drink the milk. As to the first 'adult' book? I can't remember being unable to read. My father started reading everything aloud to me when I was old enough to sit up, running his finger under each word as he said it aloud, so by the time I was four I could read anything. Sadly, that is not the same as understanding a single word of it. I suspect the first book I ever read was therefore some extraordinarliy dull tome on statistics. At the time, he was studying to become an auditor. I got "The Hobbit" when I was six years old, and at the time, I considered it a very adult story book. Then as a teenager, I thought it was a childrens book. Now, I'm not so sure. I went on to read "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy and thereafter drove people insane with my illustrated adventures of Bilbo (I never liked Frodo) all in smudged chalk colours on my little blackboard. Shanna :-)