Inspired by this post, which full-length books (so no short stories) do you enjoy so much that you have read them, start to finish, at least three times.
For me, it’s a pretty small list:
Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein (5 times)
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco (4 times)
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (4 times)
Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (3 times)
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (3 times)
Lempriere’s Dictionary by Lawrence Norfolk (3 times)
And I’ll probably read some of these again - LOTR, Foucault’s Pendulum, Lempriere’s Dictionary. I’m probably done with Atlas Shrugged. I last read it about 10 years ago and it was starting to look very dated to me then.
Aw, Jeez…I really haven’t had as much time as I’d like to re-read old favorites for quite awhile.
Off the top of my head, though, and not counting non-fiction and, er, internet based stories, I can think of…
War of the Worlds; John Christopher’s Tripods trilogy (still my oldest favorite); Red Dwarf; and I think I’ve read Dante’s Inferno more than once or twice.
The New Testament
probably most of The Old Testament
Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged
-Anthem
Taylor Caldwell’s Dear and Glorious Physician
-Captains and the Kings
-Bright Flows the River
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World
Orwell’s 1984
C.S. Lewis’ Naria: Lion&W&WD & The Last Battle
-Mere Christianity
-The Great Divorce
-That Hideous Strength
Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange
Brad Steiger’s Mysteries of Time and Space
Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth
-Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth
-There’s A New World Coming
-The Liberation of Planet Earth
David Chilton’s The Days of Vengeance:Commentary on Revelation
-Paradise Restored
Erich Von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Walker Percy’s Love in the Ruins
-Lost in the Cosmos
-Lancelot
-The Second Coming
John Stormer’s None Dare Call It Treason
Gary Allen’s None Dare Call It Conspiracy
Frederic Bastiat’s The Law
Robert Anton Wilson’s Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati
and Robert Shea’s The Illuminatus Trilogy
Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula
-The Bloody Red Baron: Anno Dracula II
-Judgement of Tears: Anno Dracula III
Jeffrey Sackett’s Blood of the Impaler
Mark Rogers’ The Dead
Brian Caldwell’s We All Fall Down
James BeauSeigneur’s The Christ Clone Trilogy
J. Patterson-Smyth’s The Gospel of the HereAfter
Charles Taze Russell’s The Divine Plan of the Ages
Charles Fox Parham’s The Everlasting Gospel
-A Voice in the Wilderness
Stephen King’s The Stand
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace
Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean
Beautiful Swimmers by William Warner
Happy Days by H. L. Mencken
Surprised By Joy by C.S. Lewis
Over the years I’ve pared my library down to three main categories: 1) Reference books, 2) Books with which I have some emotional connection (such as The Wizard of Oz), and 3) Books that I think I’ll reread.
There’s quite a few that I’ve read at least three times, but there’s one of them that I’ll bet hardly anyone has ever heard of: Not As A Stranger by Morton Thompson. It think it’s a masterpiece of mid-twentieth century fiction.
Shogun
The Cruel Sea
The Caine Mutiny
Rocket Boys
Carrying the Fire
The Demon Haunted World
A Fall of Moondust
Iceigger
Nor Crystal Tears
Jane Eyre
Mutiny on the Bounty
Misery
Eye of the Needle
Voice Across the Sea
Life in Nelsons Navy
Alice In Wonderland
Alice Through The Looking Glass
The Education of Henry Adams
The Picture of Dorian Grey
A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court
Gulliver’s Travels
And Then There Were None
White Patch
Fancies And Good Nights
And that might be it!
• Blood Sport: A Journey Up the Hassayampa, by Robert F. Jones (read at least 6-8 times)
• Boys Life, by Robet McCammon (3-4 times)
• Jim Morrison’s Adventures in the Afterlife, by Mick Farren (3-4 times)
• Child of Fortune, by Norman Spinrad (a ‘bible’ of sorts when I was a wee young 20-something, read at least 8-10 times)
• 1984, by George Orwell (5-6 times easily)
• Aztec, by Gary Jennings (3-5 times)
• Skinny Legs And All, by Tom Robbins, (3-4 times)
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintanence, by Robert Pirsig (8-10 times easily. When I was young, I thought it was just too fucking ‘deep’ for words; at my current age I don’t think I could force myself to read it again)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis Behind the Magic Wall by Sylvia Cassidy
Probably all of Roald Dahl’s books for children
This is actually more difficult than I thought it would be. I re-read a lot of books when I was a kid, but now I always opt for trying something new. I just figure there are so many books out there, why read something I’ve already read? And especially why read something I’ve already read twice? Jane Eyre is only on the list because I read it on my own once and then had to read it for school twice. I honestly don’t think any other non-children’s literature would make this list. Maybe Surfacing by Margaret Atwood, but I’m not sure.
But this is a nice way to find great new books to try. PoorYorick, I just requested Not as a Stranger from the library. I hope I think it’s as good as you think it is.
“A Christmas Carol” is the only book I can definitely say I have read at least three times. I read it every Christmas, and have for probably 10 years or so. Otherwise I’m not really a re-reader.
I re-read my old favorites. In some cases, I have read a book until it falls apart. I know that I’ve read Barbara Hambly’s Dragonsbane so many times that I’m on my fourth or fifth copy of the book, for instance.
I read a lot, I’m a fast reader, and I don’t watch much TV, so I read much, much more than even the average reader, let alone the average American.
Alice in Wonderland, and Through the Looking Glass, over and over
All the Narnia books
I Robot
Several John Wyndam books but definitely
The Day of the Triffids
The Kraken Wakes
The Chrysalids
Later:
A bunch of Tom Wolfe including
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
The Right Stuff
More recently:
Some Neal Stephenson stuff from when his books were short enough to read more than once
Snow Crash
The Diamod Age
William Gibson, everything (except Idoru)
Neuromancer to Spook Country.
Also, quite a long list that starts:
Guards! Guards!
Men at Arms
Wyrd Sisters
Lords and Ladies
Reaper Man
Mort
…
and I am currently finishing Making Money for the second time.
