I choose that one because my step-father (who is an AWESOME guy) picked it for me to read when I was about 10. Up to that point I'd been reading a lot of the standard fare that 10-year-old girls enjoy: Sweet Valley High, some R.L. Stine, classic novels like "Treasure Island" and such. But I've always had a natural bent for science and a love of adventure, so he figured I could handle it. It's not a long book, but that's some damn heavy content for a 10-year-old. In the 22 years since, I bet I've read about Louis Wu, Nessus and Speaker-to-Animals crashing on that crazy ring at least two dozen times. He gave me Heinlein's "Podkayne of Mars" at the same time. I'm not sure he ever actually got either of those books back.... Oh, and he also gave me Matheson's "I Am Legend" to check out. To be honest, to list all the really great books he has recommended for me to read over the years would comprise a virtual Who's Who of scifi/fantasy. Dude has good taste.

At any rate, "Ringworld" was the book that really fostered in me a true love of science fiction, which then blossomed into a love of fantasy. I have to credit him with turning me onto WoT, also, because when I was about 13 he picked up a paperback copy of EotW at a garage sale (mainly beacuse he liked the cover art), read it, loved it and passed it to me.

I should really get him a kick-ass Christmas present this year.