Many of my re-reads have already been listed: Cat’s Cradle , Adams’ Hitchhiker’s & Dirk Gently collections, Heinlein, Pratchett…
Some other re-read faves:
Spider Robinson (the older stuff)
LeGuin’s Earthsea trilogy,
John Varley (esp the short story collections)
Larry Niven (ditto)
Lots of the ones already mentioned–Tolkien, Pratchett, Adams, the Sherlock Holmes stories, and Dracula. I’m surprised how many times that has been mentioned.
I’d also add M.F.K. Fisher’s various books and anything by S.J. Perelman
Dragonlance Chronicles.
Autumn, Winter and Spring.
Also I love reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Two series by David Eddings, The Belgariad and The Malloreon. First read them in college in the early '90s and I keep copies of several of them in my car for whenever I need a quick read at the coffee shop, on my lunch break, whatever.
I’ve also read the Badge of Honor series by W.E.B. Griffin probably a dozen times in the last 10 years. I don’t know what it is about cop stories from 1970s (and in the later books, contemporary) Philadelphia cops, but I find the series very engaging and end up rereading it in its entirety about every two years now.
I don’t necessarily read the whole book over and over again all at once, but I’ve reread so many of the stories in Neil Gaiman’s Smoke and Mirrors that I’ll need a new copy soon. Some of the best short fiction I’ve ever read, and it always seems fresh.
As far as novels go, Orwell’s Animal Farm is the ideal quick read, Achebe’s Things Fall Apart holds my attention every time, and I have an inexplicably deep love for both Stephen King’s Rose Madder and Dean Koontz’s Phantoms.
A high-five to cher3 – SJ Perelman roolz, and he’s virtually never mentioned on this board.
The only novel I’ve ever re-read is Lord of the Rings, which I’ve read 5 or 6 times.
Ender’s Game
To Kill a Mockingbird
Of Mice and Men
All of my favs to reread have already been mentioned.
Wind in the Willows
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
To Kill a Mockingbird
Catch-22
Ender’s Game
Watership Down
Another vote for Tom Robbins. For years I had a habit of re-reading Still Life With Woodpecker every year around Valentines Day.
Another for Lord of the Rings, which I’ve probably read…I don’t know, too many times. Also Harry Potter. Yes, I’m a dork.
Other than that, the only book I think I’ve read almost to excess is The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis McGraw. I haven’t read it in a long time (it’s more for the younger set), but back in the day I read it over and over…
I feel like a snob, but Moby Dick is the one for me. I can read that one every year and still get more out of it each time.
You’d have to go over my bookshelf. I don’t buy books unless I get them out multiple times from the library (well I do sometimes if the library doesn’t have them… but that’s not too often)
Lots of Anne McCaffrey (especially the Dragon books)
Mercedes Lackey (Valdemar series, elf series and the Bard series)
The Horsemasters by Joan Wolf
Coyote Woman (I don’t recall offhand who wrote it)
David Eddings Belgariad, Malloreon, Polgara the Sorceress, Belgarath the Sorcerer and Redemption of Althalus…
and bunches of others
I probably pull out Lest Darkness Fall, by the late L. Sprague de Camp, at least once a year. A quick read, and such a seminal work. Would make a great movie, but Hollywood would screw it up.
I’ve reread all the Flashman books.
I don’t like to reread novels…Usually the element of surprise is important and once you’ve read a book once—the surprise is gone. But I do like to reread books of humorous essays—especially ones by David Sedaris and Bill Bryson.
Another vote for Jane Austen, any of them, but, yes, like everybody else, Pride and Prejudice especially.
Also, the Anne of Green Gables series. Pure comfort reading. I always feel like I’ve gone on a wonderful vacation with lots of fresh air.
Douglas Adams, check.
Bill Bryson, David Sedaris, check.
Oh, and there’s this one skinny Harlequin romance…Escape to Happiness by Mary Whistler. It was the first romance I ever read, probably age 11, and I think it created the basic “romance” template in my mind (for books, not life, thank goodness). It still holds up after many years (in a literary sense, the book itself is in tatters)
I’ll have to look up some of the titles that keep popping up.
I seem to always default to Paulo Cohello’s The Alchemist.
I envision you all looking at each other wondering who left the back door unlocked.
Any of the Hitchhiker’s Guide books (I used to just leaf around to a random spot and go, now Im not sure if I could start from anyplace and not recognize the scene). Also The Great Gatsby. I used to re-read some Robert Anton Wilson stuff - Schrodinger’s Cat, Cosmic Trigger - but it’s been a few years.
I was happy to see I’m not the only one who re-reads Ayn Rand.
Atlas Shrugged is a favorite, I think it’s a great love story.
The Fountainhead also gets re-read, I’m in love with Howard Roark.
Jonathan Carroll is also a great writer to re-read.
Handling Sin by Micheal Malone is another for repeated perusal.
I read a book the first time for escapism, subsequent times for therapy & escapism combined.
When I am really down in the dumps and need an injection of hope, I love Mary Stewart’s Thornyhold.
For world-myth-mixing heroism, I love Guy Gavriel Kay’s trilogy, The Fionavar Tapestry. His other books are good, too, and I own them all and have replaced several, but the Tapestry has passed into my library Hall of Fame.
For pure escapism, and a healthy serving of wry humour, Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series.
For a reminder that people are generally better than I give them credit for, Mercedes Lackey, particularly the Valdemar stuff.
I love historical fiction. My favourite time frame is the Dark to Middle Ages in Britain and Europe, but I go on tangents regularly. So, I keep and re-read Sharon K. Penman, Elizabeth Chadwick (Middle-ages in Britain / Normandy), Barbara Erskine (Scotland, most ages), Jack Whyte (the Arthurian legend from a fall-of-Rome standpoint), and Jean M. Auel (Stone Age).
And the book that lives in my bedside table, for midnight wake-up calls from my subconscious, Women Who Run With The Wolves.
These are the ones that come quickly to mind. There are more, and always will be. If I own it, I’ve read it several times. Or it’s a text book.
Every ten years or so, I have to dust off Gone With the Wind, Thorn Birds , Pride and Prejudice, Little House series and the Outlander series.
I’m currently re-reading the All Creatures Great and Small series. I still crack up about Trickie Woo and still cry when that old heifer comes trotting home after being put on the knacker’s truck.