I've only reread books that were initially for school, like The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye, also I have read Ragtime by Doctorow twice, both for school as well.
I've only reread books that were initially for school, like The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye, also I have read Ragtime by Doctorow twice, both for school as well.
Jane Austin ALWAYS delights me, no matter how often I reread her.
Since the Grandchildren came along, Peppa Pig.
Watership Down. I must have read it six or seven times since I was a little kid. What's funny to me is that until a few years ago I could not pick up a book twice, but somehow this great book about a bunch of whacked out rabbits heading cross-country...I just can't resist reading it again every so often.
The book I am tirelessly reading over and over is the Prophet by Khalil Gibran. He was a mystic and hardly have I come upon a better book that could demystify spirituality or truth. I have read this book ten times and each reading was a different revelation and I suggest to all to read this wonderful spiritually moving book. It has no parallel. I became different, a little more transformed after reading the book
“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””
“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.
I recently re-read both these books after a similar gap in time, and you have a point, although I found both still to be worthwhile reads.Originally Posted by Seasider
I find the description of the bumbling Lord/amateur scientist and his vile Marxist assistant in PCP irresistibly amusing, and Huxley always goes quite deep in pursuit of ideas.
I still admire the first few chapters of Brideshead - the descriptions there are not 'falsely attractive', I feel, but 'very attractive'. Vague memories of the 'bumbling Lord' and 'gleaming spires' were what drove me to re-read these books. But for long stretches both novels did seem much shallower, and more boring, than I remembered! Too many characters in PCP were two-dimensional at best, just ciphers Huxley could use to explore his ideas (and the black shirt stuff was rather dated...) Waugh just seemed to run out of inspiration as Brideshead dragged on. So I doubt I'll re-read them again.
On the other hand, I just re-read War & Peace after a ten year gap and that was *wonderful*. I re-read Hardy's Jude and I'll be re-reading that again, and his other main works. I re-read Shakespeare plays quite often, with undiminished joy. Dickens also bears re-reading (who wouldn't want to reacquaint him/herself with his wonderful, zany characters...) Jane Austen too, you could never get tired of her wit and well-drawn characters.
Last edited by mal4mac; 03-30-2011 at 07:13 AM.
It's not too much of a stretch to say that I've read Henry Thoreau's Walden 20 times. I've made it a point to read it every year since I first read it back in 1995. And in some years, I've probably read it twice. Other books such as Watchmen, the Republic, My Antonia, Emerson's Essays, Leaves of Grass, and Lonesome Dove, I've read in the 3-7 times (range) each.
“Oh crap”
-- Hellboy
[QUOTE=prendrelemick;1020554]Jane Austin ALWAYS delights me, no matter how often I reread her.
ditto. And I feel the same way about Tolkien. And the Bible - there's definitely enough in there to merit many re-reads.
I tend not to re-read. But this the books I have read the most times.
"The Stranger" - Albert Camus
"Crime and Punishment" - Fyodor Dostoevsky
"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" - Haruki Murakami
"Doctor Glas" - Hjalmar Söderberg
And when I was young I also read "The Catcher in the Rye" many times.
Last edited by Gregory Samsa; 03-30-2011 at 03:36 PM.
There is hope, but not for us.
Notes from the underground and Ecce Homo.
Middlemarch did very well on a second reading for me. have reread Shakespeare several times. never gets old. just reordered Brothers Karamazov from Norton. i tend to reread to test an initial high opinion. wondering of late if rereading great books is more productive than spending time with the lesser ones.
If one comes to admire Henry James, he becomes a lifelong project, and in this sense, I literally never abandon his work, akin to Shakespeare, who cannot be abandoned by any serious writer of ambition.
Rereads are tricky, especially as one grows older, but for me this includes AS Byatt, who is richer on a second journey, Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, though I have abandoned her after Beloved, as I am in a distinct minority who believes this novel pitches toward sensationalist guilt, and is an offense on otherwise sensible admirers, Zola, Balzac, sometimes Flaubert, perhaps Grass, if I can unlock some of his allusions to German fairytales, Musil, a little Dickens (I actually like Bleak House!), Wilkie Collins, and maybe John Irving, definitely Umberto Eco.
Poetry goes without saying, as no poet ever abandons their genre.
I think I read "The Poky Little Pony" at least 100 times, 98 of which were pure hell.
I'm big on re-reading stuff. I've read The Grapes of Wrath a good ten times, all of the Swamp Things that Alan Moore wrote about fifteen times, Watership Down maybe five times, and I've gone over some chunks of my non-fiction books dozens of times, especially the ones on psychology and classic mythology because they seem to come in handy.
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
probably one of Eric carle's books. From when i was a wee-wee child
PG Wodehouse claimed to re-read the entire works of Shakespeare every two years
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