Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Memories

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and it's a way to share what you're loving in list form. The topic changes every week, so there is always something new to discover!

This week's topic is a freebie, so I'm going with:  Top Ten Bookish Memories.  Oh man, books and reading hold very special places in my heart and there are so many events that I can vividly remember being associated with reading.  These are my top ten book-related memories.

• The Reading Fort.  Being a top reader throughout elementary school and having the privilege of utilizing the "Reading Fort" in the library.  This was the highlight of all library visits for students.  The fort was three levels, where the first level was an alcove on the floor, the second was a platform that you could easily climb onto, and the third (the most coveted) was accessible by a ladder and filled with comfy pillows.  Those days were the best! 
• Books associated with this:  Anything Ramona by Beverly Cleary and The Babysitters Club by Ann M Martin
• Scholastic Book Fair Days!  These days were my absolute favorite in elementary school.  I loved getting the newspaper-like handout prior to the event and perusing it for the books I had to have.  I'm so glad my parents encouraged reading and would buy books for us as kids.
• Book associated with this:  Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar
• Browser's Bookstore in Albany, Oregon.  I loved this used bookstore so much.  So much!  There was a general organization to the shelves, but with so many people pawing through the stacks, things were inevitably disorganized.  It smelled dusty and awesome.  Plus, there was a cat!  I still visit this place...
• Books associate with this:  Fear Street series by R.L. Stine and, as I got older, Heath Graham's historical romance books
• Golden Books and My Bookhouse.  These were our go-to selections for nighttime reading in our house.  My mom would read to my sister and I every night and we would choose from a vast collection of Golden Books or a few stories from the big "White Book" collection...that's how we referred to it anyway!  I recently came across the entire Bookhouse collection at Powell's and I am very tempted to buy it.
• Books associated with this:  Little Golden series and the My Bookhouse Treasury collection
• Author Reads and Book Signings.  The first author reading and signing I ever attended was in 2004 at Western Oregon University.  Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, visited campus and was amazing.  My next wasn't until 2007 at a small used bookstore in Edinburgh, Scotland.  It was a very different atmosphere.  Both were incredibly rewarding.
• Books associated with this:  Dead Man Walking: The Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty that Sparked a National Debate by Helen Prejean and My Life in CIA by Harry Mathews
• Everything Shel Silverstein.  These books were my first introduction to poetry and I loved every minute of them.  I was obsessed with memorizing these works of genius.  So good.
• Books associated with this:  Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Poems and Drawings of Shel Silverstein  and The Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
• First Pre-Order.  The first book that I ever pre-ordered was the fourth in the Harry Potter series.  I can't believe that I had never pre-ordered a single book before then.  At the time, Walden Books was still a much-loved destination in the mall.  Man, I loved that place.  I haven't pre-ordered a book since then...
• Book associated with this:  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling
• Scared Straight.  I loved, loved, loved scary stories as a kid, see my RL Stine entry above, and would attempt to replicate them through my own writing.  Though those books didn't necessarily scare me, I still loved being scared.  Actually, it was a love-hate relationship.  Regardless, I still like scary things but I do get freaked out.
• Book associated with this:  Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
• Book Hangovers.  I'll admit that I rarely have book hangovers.  While I love books and am sad when they end, there has only been one time where a book severely affected me to the extent that I had to take a break from reading...thank you JK Rowling!
• Book associated with this:  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
• Foreign Language.  Learning a second language is a rewarding struggle.  They say that you really "know" a language when you begin dreaming in that language.  This is true.  But one of the things that I was most excited about was reading my first complete book in German and not needing a dictionary for reference (10th grade).  Accomplishments!
• Book associated with this:  Max und Moritz by Wilhelm Busch and Gabriele Jockel

Ah memory lane!  This was a fun post.  What are some of your favorite bookish memories?

Also, look for next week's top ten:  Books I Plan To Have In My Beach Bag/Books I Think Make Great Beach Reads

Happy reading!