In another thread I mentioned that I am reading War and Peace, maybe 25 years after I last read it. Got me to thinking, are there any books that you read “every-so-often”?
I’m not necessarily talking about a personal fave. For example, I read Harry Crews’ The Gypsy’s Curse every couple of years. But I’m talking about something “substantial” that you read, and then sometime later you go back to it to see if you feel the same about it as when you previously read it.
I’m thinking about making my way through Graham Greene again - it’s probably been 15-20 years.
It depends on a number of factors, including and especially how much I like it, and how easy it is to do. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve re-read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, or the Iliad and The Odyssey. I’ve got the last two on audio, so I’ve gone over them many timesd – it’s easy. Is The Lord of the Rinfs a classic? Lost track of how often I re-=read that long ago. It’s a few dozen times by now.
I re-read plays all the time. Shaw’s works, Robert Bolt, Peter and Anthony Schaeffer. Bernard Pomerance’s The Elephant Man.
Jules Verne? I’ve read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at least half a dozen times. Having the annotated edition helps. I’ve also re-read my annotated Alice in Wonderland, Gulliver’s Travels, Frankenstein, Dracula,and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner more times than I can recall.
is Arthur Conan Doyle classic? My copies of all the Sherlock Holmes works are tattered (and i have both annotated editions.)
I read Pride and Prejudice and To Kill a Mockingbird every 5 years or so. Those probably count as personal favorites, though. I recently re-read All the King’s Men. I’d read it in high school and enjoyed it then, but this time I was blown away by it.
I seem to read Catch-22 about once a year, just picking it up randomly. I’ve read The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden three or four times each. And although I haven’t read it since…well, at least over a decade, 1984 was a pretty constant companion during high school. I just reread Cat’s Cradle (does that count as a classic) which I haven’t read since high school.
Most ‘classics’ seem to get read once and put on the shelf, and I’ll occasionally revisit them piecewise as some theme clicks, or I need to reference something within. I have such a large stack of books (mostly nonfiction) that is on my to-read list that it is hard to go back and justify reading, although a new translation of Don Quixote is waiting, right underneath Pauling’s General Chemistry (which in my mind is a classic, if not a literary one).
Not read Graham Greene in 15-20 years? Good lord, man, what is holding you back? Start with The Ministry of Fear, The Quiet American, and Our Man In Havana.
I’ve read To Kill a Mockingbird, A Tale of Two Cities, Jane Eyre, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Alice in Wonderland, A Confederacy of Dunces, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and quite a few others at least ten times.
There was a period where I read his entire ouevre. Ended probably right around the time he died.
Read Man in Havana and Heart of the Matter since then when recommending books to my kids.
If 5 years of so has passed, I find myself feeling Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge and Far from the Madding Crowd could do with a reacquaintance.
Those first two are my favorites - and I have both of them on CD for my car - so I “read” them very often during my commute - maybe a few times a year even (its like listening to the same music over and over). I only read them on paper every few years.
My favorite book is Ulysses. I have no idea how many times I’ve read it straight through–probably no more than half a dozen. But I’ve read the individual chapters countless times. Oh, I recently got the unabridged audiobook version (on 22 CDs), so now I’ve also listened to it all the way through.
Wow! my entry for the “I’ve tried many a time but never made it all the way through” thread! Try as I might, I always end up getting gored by those oxen!
This is always a dilemma for me–the balancing act between rereading books I love and experiencing new books (both classics and newer publications). The simple answer is that I reread “classics” all the time. I usually have one good old comfortable book that I’m rereading at a nice leisurely pace, savoring it, and one new book that I don’t dare set down because something might happen while I’m away.
Try as I might, I always end up getting gored by those oxen!