Yesssssss…
A Wizard of Earthsea, the cover with the hawk-transformation, from the children's section of the library, creating a kind of parallax view of fantasy with LotR, like "Oh, you can do this TOO…"
Buying Perdido Street Station in White Dwarf Books in Vancouver, wishing it wasn't so far to get home so I could read it… Burning Chrome, the first page of Johnny Mnemonic in the Coles, 13 years old and having my brain set on fire and forever changed…
Close second would be reading these big "scary stories" collections I got from the library while camping in our family's tent trailer. First time reading Ray Bradbury (Homecoming) and Theodore Sturgeon (It!). Reading by flashlight or Coleman lantern in the tent trailer.
When I was a kid, my mom read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to me and my brother over a couple of summers. Can't read those books without remembering lying on the couch in the old house, or sitting on towels after swimming lessons.
This sounds amazing, TBH.
The last paragraph of this one really spells out the reason this has become such a problem, in a way that is extremely depressing.
Reading about how astronomers worked out these careful theories of planetary formations based on our solar system, then found exoplanets that absolutely blew those theories up, like "What the HELL? Hot Jupiters? 4-day orbits? This is BULLSHIT!" and then they had to do some very angry math.