# which books do you read again and again.. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 21, 2008, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563 "2008-02-21T14:24:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/1 "2008-02-21T14:24:18Z")
and again… may be over a period of one year … ( Bible excluded ) I read sherlock holmes series at may parents’ place ( they have a huge collection of books), and I do read someof those stories every visit …Plus some novels in my native language… ( It is sheer magnetism of the prose in those books, which makes me go for them 🙂 ) How about you ?? **what makes you read them again??** ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/2 "2008-02-21T14:30:42Z")
Gone With The Wind Jane Eyre The Haunting of Hill House Watership Down Various Stephen King books Anything I enjoyed once I’ll enjoy again, but these are the main ones that bring me back. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/3 "2008-02-21T14:38:54Z")
Oh, goodness…most of them! It seems like I rarely get captivated by a new book these days, so my old friends are trotted out a lot. There are two I make an \*effort \*to read yearly: _The Mists of Avalon_ and \*[The Seventh Telling](http://www.amazon.com/Seventh-Telling-Kabbalah-Moeshe-Katan/dp/0312289227) \*. I guess those are sort of my Bible - they remind me of my spiritual truths, although I don’t practice the precise religion mentioned in either of them. But I like the annual inspiration and reminder of what I think about the world. I’m on my fifth year of _The Seventh Telling_; I eagerly look forward to my seventh…I sense it will be significant. Other books that are just comfort food for my brain are Susan Cooper’s _The Dark is Rising_ series and Lloyd Alexander’s _Prydian Chronicals_. Mercedes Lackey, Isaac Asimov, Jennifer Roberson and Charles DeLint’s assorted stuff get reread probably once a year or two, as well. Not always the same volumes, but often when I start reading one, I’ll then go through the whole series again. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/4 "2008-02-21T14:40:42Z")
Moving thread from IMHO to Cafe Society. ---
**Author:** ![kivrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@kivrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kivrin)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/5 "2008-02-21T14:49:04Z")
_Gaudy Night_ by Dorothy L. Sayers, for the ruminations on vocation and relationships, and the witty dialogue. And the characters. The Deptford Trilogy (_Fifth Business_, _The Manticore_, and _World of Wonders_), by Robertson Davies, for the prose, the snark, and the characters. _Traveling Mercies_ and/or _Bird by Bird_ by Anne Lamott, for the sympathetic evocation and depiction of emotional states. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/6 "2008-02-21T14:49:59Z")
Nothing yearly. But of everything I own, I’d say on average I’ve read 80% of everything at least twice, and 50% at least 3 times. That takes a bit of doing given that my walls are all bookshelves. 😉 Music on the other hand, there’s songs I’ve heard upwards of 500 times if not a 1000 times or more, I’d be certain. ---
**Author:** ![Purgatory\_Creek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/74df32/32.png) [@Purgatory\_Creek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purgatory_Creek)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/7 "2008-02-21T14:56:08Z")
_Gone With the Wind_ - Because it’s like being there through the Civil War and Reconstruction and, well – **Rhett Butler!** _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ - The best Heinlein ever _Time Enough for Love_ - waiting for Lazarus to die 😃 _Glory Road_ - reminds me of my youth _Malevil_ - I love end of the world books Most of the _Dragonriders of Pern_ series - The only books that can almost make me cry _The Martian Chronicles_ - no explanation needed _Stainless Steel Rat_ books - because they make me laugh out loud _Weaveworld_ - because it’s impossible for something to be that beautiful and that scary at the same time ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/8 "2008-02-21T15:12:09Z")
[QUOTE=indian] I read sherlock holmes series at may parents’ place ( they have a huge collection of books), and I do read someof those stories every visit ..Plus some novels in my native language.. ( It is sheer magnetism of the prose in those books, which makes me go for them 🙂 ) [/QUOTE] I hope you don’t read Sherlock Holmes for the magnetism of the prose. (But I do re-read them from time to time.) One book (novella) I’ve re-read a lot is Tonio Kroeger (Thomas Mann), both in German and in English. Otherwise, I feel there are too many good unread books to re-read the ones you’ve read so much. ---
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/9 "2008-02-21T15:20:56Z")
[QUOTE=guizot] I hope you don’t read Sherlock Holmes for the magnetism of the prose. (But I do re-read them from time to time.) 😃 reading holmes is a sure way of time travel into 19th century london… and the language is hmm… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/10 "2008-02-21T15:32:41Z")
The Heinlein juveniles. I read them first when I was about 8-9 and I reread them every now and then for nostalgia…my son has started reading them, too, which is cool. Also, I find myself picking up SM Stirling’s Island in the Sea of Time trilogy again when I can’t find anything new to read. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/11 "2008-02-21T15:43:49Z")
**The Day of the Jackal** by Frederick Forsyth **The Lord of the Rings** by Tolkien All the Sherlock Holmes books and stories (I have BOTH annotated editions, besides the clasic Doubleday omnibus) All my Dave Barry Books **Bored of the Rings** All the James Lileks books **Expanded Universe** by Heinlein **Science Made Stupid** and **CVLTVRE Made Stupid** by Tom weller C.S. Forester’s Horation Hornblower novels Paradox Press’ “Big Book of Whatever” Series Larry Gonick’s books, especially his “History of the Universe” and related books ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/12 "2008-02-21T15:44:16Z")
Stuff (fiction) I’ve read more than twice: [ul] [li]_Ulysses_ and _Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_[/li][li]Pynchon’s _The Crying of Lot 49_ and _Gravity’s Rainbow_ (finally re-reading \*V. \*for the third time now)[/li][li]Bulgakov’s _The Master and Margarita_[/li][li]Nabokov’s _Pale Fire_[/li][li]_Tristram Shandy_[/li][li]Chandler’s _The High Window_[/li][li]Mark Harris’s Henry Wiggen baseball novels, _The Southpaw_ and _Bang the Drum Slowly_[/li][li]Jim Thompson’s _Pop. 1280_ and _The Killer Inside Me_[/li][li]Most of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories/novels, _Young Men in Spats_, most of the Blandings stuff[/li][li]Tom Sharpe’s _Riotous Assembly_ and _Indecent Exposure_[/li][li]Evelyn Waugh’s _Decline and Fall_[/li][li]Donald Harington’s _The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks_ and _Let Us Build Us a City: Eleven Lost Towns_ (the latter being nominally non-fiction, but really belongs here more than in the non-fiction group)[/li][/ul] Non-fiction: [ul] [li]Daniel Dennett’s _Darwin’s Dangerous Idea_[/li][li]Matt Ridley’s _The Origins of Virtue_[/li][li]Greil Marcus’ _Lipstick Traces_[/li][li]John Thorn and Pete Palmer’s _The Hidden Game of Baseball_[/li][li]Bill James’ _The Politics of Glory_ (aka _Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame_)[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Missy2U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@Missy2U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Missy2U)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/13 "2008-02-21T15:51:28Z")
I still reread my Nancy Drew books. And Stephen King stuff now and then. Oh, and Danielle Steel. And James Patterson. For some reason I have the feeling most of you are pointing at me and laughing… ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/14 "2008-02-21T16:17:03Z")
[QUOTE=Missy2U] For some reason I have the feeling most of you are pointing at me and laughing… [/QUOTE] Hey, I admitted to not only reading, but _re-reading_, Mercedes Lackey AND Jennifer Roberson on a website only slightly less geeky than HanSoloIsGod.loser! I’m astonished there are no pitchforks in sight. Yet. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/15 "2008-02-21T16:27:06Z")
Haven’t re-read anything in a while, but for a few years, I would go back to DRACULA, FRANKENSTEIN, ATLAS SHRUGGED, THE STAND, C.S. Lewis’ THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH, Taylor Caldwell’s DEAR AND GLORIOUS PHYSICIAN and BRIGHT FLOWS THE RIVER and Walker Percy’s LOVE IN THE RUINS. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/16 "2008-02-21T16:32:25Z")
_Fifth Business_ by Robertson Davies. So very rich, yet in the “plain style”. My wife and I still debate who REALLY killed Boy Stanton. The other two in the trilogy I read from time to time. \*Star Kings \* books and \*Cugel’s Saga \* by Jack Vance. These are books I can grab for a plane flight or a trip to the doctors office. I know they will be good and I even have a good feel for how long they will last. _Candide_ - Voltaire - Short, funny, slightly bitter with a sweet after taste. Based on the others here, I need to break out by Heinlein again. Once upon a time I grazed on those. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/17 "2008-02-21T16:32:55Z")
No mention of my faves? Too easy, but I reread \*\*Moby Dick \*\* at least once every two years, and \*\*War and Peace \*\* has more hidden in it on every reading. My light entertainment reading tends towards crap, and I cannot imagine ever wanting to reread a Douglas Preston novel… ---
**Author:** ![Weaver\_of\_Nightmares](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/73ab20/32.png) [@Weaver\_of\_Nightmares](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weaver_of_Nightmares)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/18 "2008-02-21T16:32:58Z")
_Lord of the Rings_, and the _Silmarillion_. _Waking the Moon_, by Elizabeth Hand. _Discworld_. _The Cat Who Walked Through Walls_. _Stranger in a Strange Land_. And a dozen others which will come to me after I post this. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helen_s_Eidolon)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/19 "2008-02-21T16:41:27Z")
I re-read almost everything I like now and again, but the books that I re-read most consistently are L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series (only up to 5) and the Blue Castle. I get something emotionally fulfilling out of reading them. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563/20 "2008-02-21T16:42:38Z")
I’ve got the complete Sherlock Holmes. I’ll often grab it if I get out of bed in the middle of the night and I’m unable to sleep. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-do-you-read-again-and-again/438563.md?page=2)