What’s the first book you ever finished and still remember to this day?

The book should be started and finished. Isn’t it, though? Okay, there are books that are a bit hard to understand, boring, or that you can’t get into the flow of the story, so you give up reading them. To be honest, it happened to me 2-3 times. And it isn’t something I usually do, but I couldn’t continue and put the book aside, without trying a second time to finish it.

As for the one book I gave up on, it wasn’t because of the story’s failed narrative; it was because of the bad translation. The book was Dostoevsky’s, “Punishment and Crime.” The German translation of the book was terrible. Years later, I picked up the title again, read the English translation, and finished it. Further excited, I bought another title by Dostoevsky. That makes it clear how important a translation is.

As for the first book I read, and of course I finished it, and it was “Emil and the Detectives.” But don’t ask me about the details, as many years and decades have gone by. However, it had a positive effect on me; it sparked my habit of reading, so I continued to read more books. Isn’t that, at first hand, what a book with its story should do?