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I've never had any interest in reading the "classics" and for that, I blame my high school English teachers. I loved reading when I was young, and not just fluff like The Hardy Boys. I read The Hobbit and the LOR trilogy for the first time when I was 14, and I've loved those books ever since, rereading them several times.
But I could never get behind being forced to read books that I found incredibly boring at that age, like Great Expectations and Les Miserables to name a couple, and then having to go to class and analyze them. "David, what was the symbolism behind the silver candlesticks"? I don't know! Maybe they were just freakin' candlesticks! Talk about killing the joy of reading.
Now that I think about it, I remember how I got introduced to Tolkein. My 8th grade English teacher (whose name escapes me at the moment) read The Hobbit to us. A little each day. No pressure, no boring discussions about what the author was trying to "teach" us. Just a captivating story that made me go to the library on my own and borrow the LOR trilogy because I wanted to read the rest of the story. He was a very good teacher.
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