My favorite book as a child was, still is, and will probably always be Roald Dahl's
Boy - Tales of Childhood.
As a young'un, I was enthralled by all his fantastic, real anecdotes. I wished I could do such things, but then, my upbringing was too straightarrow to abide any of that.
Then I, too, went to boarding school. It was a rough time for me at first, but I found myself going up to the campus library and reading it from time to time. It made the hard days bearable, and when every day started becoming an easy, fun day, it was a good book to dream up troublemaking with, because most high-school boarding students are excellent troublemakers.
Now, a grown man--well, strictly in the legal and physical senses--I can appreciate grown-up the parts of the book that I never really got in the past. I've taken his words of wisdom to heart: he wasn't kidding when he said (yeah, I'm paraphrasing), "the one thing that provides the author comfort and anchors him to reality is fine scotch whisky. There is nothing that will bring him down to earth after spending hours with his head in the clouds of fiction faster than a good, stiff shot." And my professional opinion is that there really isn't a better thing than that.