What age did you get involved with AE and what is your method of study?

I've known of the site and had a vague understanding since I was 17 but I haven't committed to actually learning it until my current age, 20. I regret waiting till now and feel like I need to catch up to the predominantly younger following I've seen here.

Since I know the general positions I've jumped right into Human Action (on the second chapter from reading online) and waiting for the pocket edition to arrive in a few days. Some seem to not like my preferred method of going with the main, heavy texts and instead work around from the edges with essays, Mises articles, etc. Personally, I find this an inefficient method in the long run, but I'd like to hear how you prefer to learn and why.

I don't think jumping straight to HA is a good idea, honestly. Start of with stuff like

- economics for real people (callahan)

- the austrian school (de soto)

- An introduction to austrian economics (taylor)

and then move on to the combination of essays and more advanced books, e.g.

- socialism 

- economic calculation in the socialist commonwealth

- the ultimate foundation of economic science

- man, economy & state

- anything by Salerno/Boettke/Hulsmann/White/Gordon/Reisman/Garrison/etc. 

and then finish it of with Human Action. 

If you need a break between the books listed above, I'd recommend reading The Economics of Liberty. It gives a lot of examples against government bloat in the economy, so it will give good arguments to use in "elementary" debates with leftists/progressives while being quite entertaining to read.

20, I started with the heavy stuff (Prices and Production, Pure Theory of Capital, Theory of Money and Credit) and misunderstood it the first and second time around. Also, the fact that i was majoring in economics was very helpful (introduced me to the basics and some technical stuff).

I had known about this website since about age 16, but never frequently visited it until about age 17.

In early 2008 (age 15, maybe) I became interested in Ron Paul's campaign (for no particular reason, it seems), and from there a friend (who has now become a Stalinist, oddly enough) recommended lewrockwell.com to me. Either from that friend or LRC I heard of mises.org, and after I picked up The Revolution: A Manifesto, my study of AE started shortly after Christmas 2009. I've only read mostly introductory texts so far (Economics in One Lesson, An Introduction to Economic Reasoning, Economics for Real People), but once the "easier" books are out of the way, I'll be moving on to the more complicated stuff. Socialism, Human Action, and Man, Economy, and State are all on my bookshelf waiting to be read.

I started when I heard about Ron Paul's campaign in 2007 and was hooked on him from the first Republican debate.  I searched daily for Ron Paul videos on YouTube and found a clip from "Money, Banking, and the Federal Reserve" by the Mises Institute. I then watched the whole video and liked it.

My first book I read on Austrian Economics was actually What Has Government Done to Our Money and The Case for a 100 Per Cent Gold Dollar by Murray Rothbard.  I enjoy free market economics books that explain the history of economics from primitive exchanges to barter to money to banking receipts to fiat currency to explain the importance of free exchanges and the ludicrosity and fraud of fractional reserve banking.

Thanks for the input everyone. I just finished Jim Cox's "A Concise Guide to Economics" (which was a good read) and started on De Soto's "The Austrian School" that AdrianHealey listed.

I saw some say in Amazon reviews that Carl Menger's "Principle of Economics" was a good primer before reading Human Action. Thoughts?

slugmises:

Thanks for the input everyone. I just finished Jim Cox's "A Concise Guide to Economics" (which was a good read) and started on De Soto's "The Austrian School" that AdrianHealey listed.

I saw some say in Amazon reviews that Carl Menger's "Principle of Economics" was a good primer before reading Human Action. Thoughts?

I'm not an opponent per se, but I do think reading it isn't that great if you look at oppurtunity cost. There are some mistakes in it and all. I think everyone is better of reading the 3 introductions I listed and than moving on towards more specific topics. (You definitely want to read the Taylor and Callahan book I listed too, imo.)