I’ve read every book I own at least twice, and some many times more. The only one that jumps out at me right now is The Stand, which I’ve read every summer for the past 7 years, and usually during winter break, too. Both the edited and unabridged versions.
You really don’t want me to list all the books I’ve read twice… (checks OP) good, you don’t. I’m a compulsive reader, and anything I liked even a bit, I’ll probably reread.
Madeleine L’Engle’s science fiction and diaries, particularly Two-Part Invention
Narnia, and anything else by Lewis, particularly A Grief Observed and The Abolition of Man
Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper
LOTR (I first read it about three years ago, at a friend’s urging. I read the whole series in four days, and I was convinced I’d turned into an Ent…
Little House… Laura Ingalls Wilder
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams, my second-favorite fantasy author, after Tolkien
Orthodoxy, G.K.Chesterton (I kept lending it to people, and not getting it back for months. I finally got another copy, so I’d have one to lend, and one for me.)
Outlander series, Diana Gabaldon
Four Quartets, T.S.Eliot. Also Choruses From The Rock
Those are the ones I really love. The others are just filler. I’m hacking my way through the Otherland series right now, also by Tad Williams. One series I’m not going to reread is The Wheel Of Time. I’d be shot first.
All J.R.R. Tolkien books:
The Hobbit- 3 times
The Lord of the Rings- 6 times*
- ‘Shadow of the Past’, ‘Council of Elrond’, and Appendix A
Chapters- Over 10 times each.
The Silmarillion- 4 times
Unfinished Tales- 4 times
I still love that series.
My favorites are:
The Wizard of Oz series (all 14 books; they’re absolutely thrashed since I reread them at least once a year).
London Fields by Martin Amis
Dead Babies by Martin Amis
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis
Anything by Geoff Nicholson, but esp. The Food Chain and Footsucker
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
As I’m only 16, I haven’t had a chance to read any book dozens of times. So far my fiction list is topped with Catch-22 at six readings, *Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas * at four, and * Johnny Got His Gun * at three.
I’ve probably read Caesar and Christ three times over the years. I’ve spent most of this school year reading the entire series.
Why is that? I’ve read that series probably a dozen times. More for the early ones, less for the later ones.
There isn’t a fiction/fantasy/sci-fi book that I’ve read that I haven’t read more than once.
mostly I’ve read and re-read stuff by Zelazny, Robert Jordan, Niven, Eddings, Moorcock, and Tad Williams.
Add me to the list of “The Stand” re-readers. Probably a half-dozen times.
I’ve read Ferrol Sams’ “Run with the Horsemen.” “The Whisper of the River” and “When All The World Was Young” at least 3 times each. I’ll reread them a dozen times more I’ll bet. I love them love them love them and I will die a happy woman if another Dopers tells me he/she has read them.
I’m not giving any estimates on these. I reread books obsessively…I’ve been known to finish a book and immediately start reading it all over again.
I’ve read all the Harry Potter books so many times I have dialogue memorized. :o I can’t think of any other books, aside from the infinitely quotable ones, where I’ve done that.
Madeleine L’Engle’s books, but especially A Swiftly Tilting Planet and A Ring of Endless Light.
The Martian Chronicles is my favorite, specifically There Will Come Soft Rains.
Alice in Wonderland, but that was more because I wrote a paper on it recently. But I read it a lot when I was younger too.
I read T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral aloud twice. I love the emotion that lies underneath the words. I can’t get the same effect from reading it silently, but my family does tend to frown upon dramatic readings in the living room, so no luck.
jessica
Sherlock Holmes - The Hound of the Baskervilles
Dracula
The Hobbit
Memoirs of a Geisha
Lonesome Dove
I’m glad I got to this thread late, because by the time I got to the bottom I finally remembered my most-read book. 
Red Storm Rising - Tom Clancy.
After that, I’d say the entire Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony.
Of the many, many books I read as a child - the most often repeats would probably be * Little House on the Prairie* series, Madeline L’Engle’s Time Quartet (I wanted to be Meg!), the Miss Bianca series by Margery Sharp (the first Rescuers Disney movie was based on these characters) and the Narnia series.
As an adult – whoo boy - just about every book I own I’ve read multiple times.
THHGTTG series (Douglas Adams) probably wins out - I have a sentimental attachment to those books (Hi Chris!)
Close behind would be Heinlein, Spider Robinson, Terry Pratchett (finally completed the Discworld collection!) & Stephen King. Oh yea - Piers Anthony - the early Xanth books & Incarnations of Immortality.
Senior year of high school I devoured Ayn Rand & Vonnegut’s works – and I eventually got better I do re-read both on occasion.
Well, the champ would have to be Tolkien: I cycle through The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillion each about every year or 18 months. The Hobbit would be the most, but just because that’s the one I read first.
Other contenders are L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time and sequels, Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia (I had The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe darn near memorized before I even started reading), and Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain.
Little House on the Prairie books because I read and re-read them as a kid/teenager/adult and now I’m reading them to my kids.
Books I’ll re-read every few years:
Gone with the Wind, Pride and Prejudice, The Thorn Birds, All Creatures Great and Small series and Lonesome Dove
well, being 15 i haven’t been able to re-read alot of books. but i have!
let’s see…
the hobbit 2 or 3 times.
first 3 **sandman **books at least 4 times each.
death: the time of your life: probably 7 times.
the stand is here at 2. hey it’s a huge book! the unedited version, of course.
stardust:about 4 or 5 times.
neverwhere at 3.
any far side book i own: about 50 times each. i guess they don’t count though.
jonathan livingston seagull: about 8 times.
the angry clam: about 20 times. hey, it’s short.
thats what i can think of.
hm, that is kind of a bit.
Glad to see several nods to Tad Williams. I picked up the first Otherland book for $.50 in a bargain rack (Hardcover! Jacket and all!). I’m now twice through all the Otherland novels and three times through his Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series. I read pretty quickly so the total immersion into several thousand pages of story is a rare pleasure.
More often than not I reread things, even if they sort of suck. I always assume I missed something. Some of my favorites not mentioned above, 3+ reads: *Little, Big, * *Foundation, The Complete Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald, 2001, * MZB’s The Fall of Atlantis and The Firebrand, Antonia Fraser’s *The Kings and Queens of England, * and (don’t laugh) Diana Gabaldon’s time travel/romance series Dragonfly in Amber. I even have the companion book complete with unpublished text and recipes.
I hadn’t thought about it in years but I recall being about 13 and trying to read my mother’s copy of Gravity’s Rainbow. I must have read the first fifty pages over and over again trying to “get it.” One of those moments where I didn’t realize I’d forgotten something. It really does belong on my Now That I’m a Grown-Up List.
-Polyhymnia-
(narrowly missing death-by-lurking)
The Stand ~6 times (once the original the other ~5 the unedited version)
of Mice and Men between 7 and 15 and the end always makes this big tough guy cry
Watchers by Koontz Have a Nice Dayby Mic Foley and IT all twice.
I dont read anywhere near as much as I used to in high school.
dead0man
I scoff at such self-imposed limits. I’m 17-- reread plenty of books so far. Just compulsively reread one or two books every few weeks or so and you’ll get the numbers up there pretty far.
My school library still used a “sign the card” method of checking out books up until January of this year…on some of the books I’ve checked out recently, my name has been written on the cards four or five times in a row. I guess I really am the only one who checks fiction out.
And I forgot one on my list earlier:
Contact by Carl Sagan. I love that book so much.
jessica
Does it strike any one else that many of these books are science fiction or fantasy? Is this because these genres invite multiple readings, or is it something in the type of person who reads these genres?
Oh, and add in the Amber books on my list, and Steven Brust Vlad books.
Well, every book I have in my house I have read at least 3 times so I’ll give a list of authors I re-read the most.
Stephen King- All his books at least 4 times each.
Peter Straub- See King
Tad Williams- See King
Tom Clancy- The Jack Ryan series, probably 3 times each.
Orsen Scott Card- Mainly the Ender series but also some Alvin Maker stuff and other assorted novels.
Slee
Ender’s Game/Ender’s Shadow- 2x each. Incrdible books, Ender’s Shadow took a couple of times before I understood everything that goes on. I have yet to read shoadow of the hegemon, speaker of the dead, etc.
Which are worth reading, In your opinion?
On another note, the internet word is that there’s a movie in the works for Ender’s Game. I hope it works out with all of the special effects, and the length of the story. Check it out.
Chronicles of Narnia- 3 times. Great books. I’m not big on fantasy, but these books bring a brief child-like mentality, which makes my mind very receptive to everything around me. In other words, they make me feel young again. Woohoo!!!
I know this is a bit of topic, but I’ve read books such as Hyperspace a couple of times (2nd time after refreshing my memory on physical concepts), and have understood them much more clearly. Don’t forget those introductory level books folks!!!