Books you reread over and over

When I was ten, I received Gone With the Wind as a Christmas present. Three days later, I finished it, and immediately turned back to the first page to start again. Since then, I’ve read it well over a hundred times. I haven’t picked it up in years, but I don’t really need to anymore.

Jane Eyre is another that I’ve read many times. I didn’t care for it at first, but during a time in my life when I had access to few books, I tried it again and dug it a lot more.

Jane Eyre is one of mine- I especially like re-listening to Thandie Newton’s audiobook. My others are Lonesome Dove (all of the series, especially Lonesome Dove & Dead Man’s Walk) though I don’t re-read Streets of Laredo often, and Stephen King’s The Stand.

It’s OK. Not one of his better books, IMO. The four I listed are his best, and if I had to pick just one it would be “The Moneychangers”, about the banking industry. Of course, when I was a kid I was obsessed by airplanes, so it was “Airport” I read over and over.

The Lord of the Rings and everything I own by Arthur C Clarke and Jack McDevitt.

Huh. I think the only time I’ve ever reread a book is when it was part of a series that was currently being written to refresh myself for the new books. Like, I reread the first 3 ASOIAF books before A Feast for Crows came out.

All of Alice Munro’s short story collections, again and again.

Until recently. :frowning:

Me as well, first started reading them around 6th grade and have been rereading them up until today. I’ve seen both miniseries multiple times as well.

I’ve also read The Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy many times over the years. I’ll add Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. Before the Kindle era, I’d have an old paperback copy permanently in my shaving kit to bring along on trips.

Edit: I’d also include just about every single one of the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels, especially Hound of the Baskervilles.

Ah yes, I’ve also read “Murder on the Orient Express” several times.

I don’t think these count as part of a series, but I have often re-read Heinlein’s juveniles, as well as his other standalone (as in not part of his Future History books) such as Double Star and Citizen of the Galaxy.

The ones I’m more or less proud to admit:

Dune (1, 4-6)
Tigana and Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay
The March series by David Weber
The earlier Raj Whitehall novels by Stirling

Not recent, and somewhat embarrassing to admit:

TT-RPG manuals - MANY.

Because I am/was a power-gamer / rules lawyer sort, and I used to (my in person group fragmented a decade ago and almost all live out of state these days) and I would happily re-read trying to find new, unexpected synergies, as well as thinking of making characters for games I’ve collected but never had a chance to even play.

And then there’s a large quantity of junkier pieces that I re-read over an over that I won’t list because they’re the familiar junk reading for riding the stationary bike or while in bed. Because then I don’t want to concentrate, I just want to be distracted but not too involved.

You can throw in an entertaining non-fiction book, like Asimov or Bryson. But right, not reference books.

All great choices but all series- not standalone books.

Nice ones.

It is as racist as the film was?

Try-"The Napoli Express" a Lord Darcy Mystery, which I would have included except it is a couple + books. Randall Garrett. A fun take on a great mystery.

Not really. Each stands alone.

If not more so. It went over my head for a long time.

The Fool’s Progress by Edward Abbey. Beautiful language, and a heartbreaking story.

It’s part of a (loose) series, of course, but I’ve read P.G. Wodehouse’s “The Code of the Woosters” at least 10 times (and I re-read it whenever I’m of a mind to acquire a silver cow creamer).

On a somewhat different tack, I’ve read John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” and “The Grapes of Wrath” probably five times each.

I’m another one who only rarely rereads a book.

Alas, Babylon – Pat Frank
Metzger’s Dog – Thomas Perry
Lest Darkness Fall – L Sprague de Camp
Final Blackout – L Ron Hubbard
Replay – Ken Grimwood
Star Rangers – Andre Norton
First Cycle – H Beam Piper and Michael Kurland
Tunnel in the Sky – Robert A Heinlein


Tarzan of the Apes (Burroughs) and Swallows and Amazons (Ransome) are the books I’ve read most often – eight or nine times each – but they’re both the initial book in a series.

Fantastic book! And I do reread it- also not as good but interesting- Household Gods

by Judith Tarrand Harry Turtledove.

My wife is the big Burroughs fans here.

Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins (best novel ever written, IMHO)
The Garden of Forking Paths and The Aleph,
by Jorge Luis Borges, master of the short story
and, of course
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

True. Some of them have tie-ins to other books or stories, such as "Space Cadet (and I believe some others) mentioning Ezra Dahlquist from “the Long Watch”, but that’s about it.

Have you read Island in the Sea of Time and its sequels, by S M Stirling? The same sort of thing, but instead of one person going back in time it’s the entire island of Nantucket, along with a passing ship. I like it much better than Eric Flint’s ‘1632’ series.

And speaking of Household Gods – much of Stirling’s latest book, To Turn the Tide, is set near 2nd-century Carnuntum, and the main characters visit Umma’s tavern near the end of the book.