"Mysterious World" by Arthur C. Clarke, and the other two guys, who actually wrote 95% of the book, but pretty much never get credit anywhere, was the first book from Clarke I ever read, and it got me onto reading his entire (sci-fi) bibliography. Reading it again now, it looks pretty non-impressive, however for my 9-year old mind, all these "mysteries" (many of which were not), were the most magical, most exciting thing I'd ever known (in my first 9 years of life). Although I still have the original book (in Croatian translation, and looking pretty shabby 35 years later, although the initial seller cheated me and sold me a damaged book for the price of new, but hey, it is my own fault, right?), I actually re-read a PDF from the web of the original British mail-order edition.
I was not impressed. From my "middle-aged man with multiple graduate degrees" point of view, the book is pretty disappointing, just another cash-grab to follow the (mediocre) series from 1980 on Yorkshire TV. But hey, my childhood memories are still fresh and brilliant, and this book is an indelible part of them, so there's that.
I do still credit this book for getting me onto the next "real" Clarke book, "Against the Fall of Night", written when he was 29, and much better than the later "re-work" (basically, another cash-grab) "The City and the Stars".
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