What books do you read and re-read?

Cafe Society
1

It’s been a couple years since there’s a thread like this, as far as I can tell…

Me:
All the Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan-verse books. I’ve read all at least three times, and we’ve purchased (in one form or another) most of them more than once.

Harry Potter, of course - both as they came out (e.g. when 5 came out, I re-read 1-4), but periodically since then. Right now I’m slogging through book 1 in French (made much easier by purchasing a dictionary for my Kindle). Knowing what’s going on helps me figure out what’s happening when I don’t quite get the idiom being used. Plus hey, I’d much rather be a Moldu (Moldue? the book isn’t clear whether one should feminize the noun) than a Muggle :D.

Some classic SF - have read most of Heinlein at least twice and even sprung for the audiobook of The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.

2

The Best and the Brightest, by David Halberstam (1972)

It’s non-fiction, and provides a detailed perspective of how and why we got stuck in Viet Nam, but his character studies and anecdotes are better than any fiction I’ve ever read. Read it when it first came out, and take it on vacation about every 5 years.

Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov.

I re-read it to see what I missed the first 12 times I read it.

3

I would estimate that I’ve read Gone With the Wind cover to cover over a hundred times.

Jane Eyre is my comfort book, I can pick it up and start on any page and instantly feel better.

The Narnia books and various Stephen King books are next most read.

4

David Eddings, Belgariad. Always find something new in them every time.

The Harry Dresden novels.

5

Robert Heinlein-Time Enough For love
Alan Sherman-The Rape Of The AP*E**
Terry Galanoy-Down the tube;: Or, Making television commercials is such a dog-eat-dog business it’s no wonder they’re called spots
Jessica Mitford-The American Way Of Death

6

Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio

Penelope Fitzgerald, The Beginning of Spring

7

I reread John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee series about once a year, and usually get to Condominium and On Any Sunday somewhere in the same term.

Lawrence Watt-Evans’ Ethshar series gets a readthrough on a regular basis.

A wonderful and obscure novel about the craziness of the tech industry before there was a tech industry, Robert Grossbach’s Easy and Hard Ways Out… which may contain the real genesis of Dilbert and in any case will be highly amusing to anyone who’s worked in tech.

Thomas Perry’s Butcher’s Boy novels, although the third one may not ever become a re-reader.

And fork me, Czarcasm, I didn’t know anyone else had ever heard of Galanoy’s book!

ETA: The complete Heinlein used to make up much of my “old shoe” reading, but I honestly haven’t read a word of RAH in well over six years. It’s a very long story. Why, I mean.

8

P.C. Hodgell’s Kencyrath novels. Every time a new one comes out, I reread them from the beginning.

I do the same with Butcher’s Dresden Files, though that’s becoming more of an undertaking.

I return to Barry Hughart’s Bridge of Birds regularly, and the other two chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox are among the long list of books I re-read occasionally.

Calamity Trail, by Dan Parkinson, stand out as my only frequent re-read that’s a Western. Indeed, it’s about the only Western I’ve ever liked. It’s still funny, no matter how many times I read it. I’m about to start scanning my copy, before it falls apart completely.

9

Thought of another: Good Morning, Miss Dove, by Frances Gray Patton

10

A Fool’s Progress by Edward Abbey
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein.

11

Most Pratchett.

12

I enjoyed most of those, although I thought she mailed in Cryoburn. But the one book I’ve read almost annually for the last several years is her non-Miles Curse of Chalion. I’d have to say that as of now, it’s my favorite novel ever.

13

Once a year, I buy The Alienist by Caleb Carr, read it then give it away to someone who hasn’t read it.

14

The lion-shaving story is my favorite.

15

No, no. Slamming the hood on the tiger’s tail… or is it “On Thursday she was bald…” or is it the downside of using European models… oh, hell, they’re all classics.

And it made Mad Men seem very familiar.

16

It’s been over 10 years since I’ve last read it but I’ve read Of Mice and Men a whole buncha times. I’m not a fan of Steinbeck otherwise, but I really got into that book for some reason.

17

Thank you for reminding me of another I love rereading.
John Steinbeck-Travels With Charley.

18

Assuming you’re talking about rereading from cover to cover, and not just going back to revisit favorite passages, then there are only two books that I’ve read more than three times, and intend to reread again: Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman, and The Cuckoo’s Egg by Clifford Stoll.

19

Me: The Ramona series by Beverly Cleary. I’ve purchased them several times over with different cover arts and illustration styles; the stories are the same great stories that Beverly wrote all those years ago and that I’ve enjoyed both in print and audio (and still do to this day), but this current crop of illustrations and covers by Jacqueline Rogers, in my opinion, is the best treatment to date that I’ve ever seen of Ramona, Beezus, and all the other denizens of Klickitat St. in Portland.

20

Atlas Shrugged. Going through a re-cursory-reading right now, in fact.

The Book of Basketball, Bill Simmons.

Cities in Civilization, by Sir Peter Hall. I rave about this book whenever I can, and if you’re interested in either history, cities, or how the forces that changed mankind developed (wait, that’s three!), then this is your book.

A Penguin History of the World, JM Roberts. Like a lot of old farts, I prefer the first edition rather than the constant updates - for starters, it reads better as it is a complete narrative w/o the subsequent revisions and, worse, excisions. :frowning:

A World Lit Only by Fire. This is, simultaneously, the most-poorly researched yet entertaining as hell, history book I’ve read. It’s the Cheeto’s™ of history books - not at all good for you, and you know this while consuming it, but damn! They’re so tasty!

Other than AS, I don’t really have any fiction that I’ve kept up with through the decades. I still have copies of David Brin’s Earth, SR Donaldson’s Gap series… but I don’t know if I’ll ever re-read them.

The one exception is Peter F. Hamilton’s Pandora’s Star, which pretty much has everything I want in a space opera: cool interstellar societies, conflicts that can devastate star systems, lots of characters involved in the highest levels of society, business, and the government, and, handwaving away the miracle wormhole technology that makes it all possible, it’s relatively believable given today as a starting point.