I want to say it was Pierce Anthony books that first got me into reading this genre. I think it was a unicorn book, I loved unicorns when I was younger.

When I was a little girl, I read a lot of books about Unicorns. Anything I could get my hand on. Now these werent novels, but young adult and childrens books. As a teenager I read Mysts of Avalon by Marion Simmer Bradley and loved it. Then I got off the fantasy genre for a while. As an adult I read The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Simarillian by JRR Tolkian, the Harry Potter Books, and the Chronicles of Narnia. and it pulled me back into the fantasy realm.  My daughter had to read Fellowship of the Ring for school in 6th grade and she was hooked on fantasy ever since.  She loves the Erin Hunter Warriors books and Brian Jaques Redwall.

I will have to say the "cenotaph road" series by Robert E Valderman.  Although I had read other fantasy books before, this is the series that left a deep hunger for epic fantasy books.  I read this series many years ago and they still hold a very special place on my bookshelf.

I've always been interested in Fantasy, Science fiction, and  Horror.  I was 6 years old reading Goosebumps books lol.

Cassandra

The first books and the reason why I started reading fantasy are lost in the mists of time.  Andre Norton was among the first authors I read, but that's all I can remember. 

I remember my 5th grade teacher reading A Wrinkle in Time aloud to our class and I was enchanted.  I read the Hobbit in junior high school because my cousin told me about them and then LOTR was given to me that Christmas as a set and I was hooked.  I re-read these books at least once every couple of years from then on, I still think they are new each time I read them.

I went through a phase where I didn't read much fantasy in the 90's while going to college and it took me a long time to get back into the habit.  My brain just seemed to think reading was work and when I would try to read for pleasure, I would fall asleep!!  Very frustrating to say the least.  I met my husband  in '92 and he gave me a copy of the Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin.  It wasn't fantasy (sci-fi to be exact) but it was a wonderful book that made me think a lot.  What really got me back into reading fantasy was going to a book club a few years later and a guy there suggested an author I had never heard of-- Guy Gavriel Kay.  Tigana was the first volume of Kay I read and I was enthralled.  I picked up his Fionavar Trilogy and I couldn't put it down.  I think it is the best trilogy I have read in a long time, it gives LOTR a run for the money.  So I have read it about 3 times now and everything else Kay has written.  Wonderful blend of history and fantasy and great characters. 

Fantasy appeals to me now because life is so hectic and there is so much bad news on the radio that I need to escape periodically to save my sanity.  I love immersing myself in other worlds, cultures and all the magic they conjure up.  I just don't know what I would do if I couldn't read fantasy...it is essential to my well-being and enjoying life.

I discovered audio books about four years ago and have started listening to fantasy books that aren't as high on my TBR list but that I still want to "read".  I have fallen in love with the Redwall series, the Percy Jackson and Olympians series and then there is His Majesty's Dragon...Temeraire is a wonderful character! I feel that joy once again like I did in 5th grade when I listen.  But I still curl up with books too, nothing can replace that pleasure for me  :)

I've read Fantasy and Science Fiction as long as I can remember, but I'd have to guess that The Hobbit was my first, followed by Terry Brooks's Shannara and Anne McCaffrey's Pern.

Tolkien's trilogy, and A wrinkle in Time.

These authoris' imaginations just amaze me....how do they ever think of these things ???!!!!!!!??!

It's total escapism; whenever I'm really stressed (like during/after holidays!) that's when I read fantasy!

My dad had read "The Hobbit" to me when I was a kid, and I knew the Narnia books, tho mostly from the PBS movies - but what really got me into reading fantasy was when a friend gave me "The Oathbound" by Mercedes Lackey as a birthday present in 7th grade - I've been hooked ever since!!