Re-re-reading one's favorite novels

[In The Woods]

How many of you have a collection of favorite novels which you re-read more or less regularly along with the newest acquisition to your library? I have several which I enjoy going back to every now and again, so much so that our late son used to ask me, "Well, dad, how many times have *you* read LOTR? A couple of thousand, or so?"

I have re-read LOTR many times in the past thirty-going-on-forty years, and some others besides. My current fave is Phillip Pullman's Golden Compass trilogy. This is one which improves with re-reading, IMO, and it is one that I wish was longer than it is. (There are some others in the other camp: Samuel Johnson said that no one ever wished Milton's Paradise Lost longer than it was.) I also love The Wind In The Willows, and E. Nesbit's Five Children and It along with any of the Oz books I can lay my hands on. Who else likes to re-cycle their novels?

With best regards to all.

Stephen S. Mack

[Dale]

Not that much re-reading of novels. Some. I've read 1984 three or four times in my life. I'm currently re-reading a few Cormac McCarthy novels and currently I'm midway through through the "Border Trilogy."

I find that in order to want to re-read novels, there needs to be a lot more there than just a great story. You can read McCarthy once to get the basic experience, and again to appreciate the poetic, almost liturgical language.

[mutepointe]

What really sucks is when one of those novels self-destructs or gets lost and a replacement can't be found. What doesn't suck is when I find a replacement at the local Goodwill for a quarter.

[cowtime]

I re-read any that I've really liked. Sometimes it's been long enough that I've forgotten a good bit .

[dwinterfield]

I don't recall ever going back. But most of the books I read wouldn't warrant it.

[brewerpaul]

I have several that I've read multiple times:
Moby Dick (read it last while at sea on a cruise)
Huckleberry Finn (and various other Twain)
Dune (just the first: I found the sequels decreasingly interesting)
Dracula (have a new annotated edition that I'll go through soon)
Shogun
Sherlock Holmes (any and all)

There are some others that I remembered fondly,but was disappointed when I went back to them.

[Redwolf]

I have so many that I read and re-read, it's impossible to keep track. Some of them well-known (such as LOTR and The Chronicles of Narnia), many of them more obscure. Sometimes I'll read a book and come back to it many years later, and it's like rediscovering an old friend.

I have to admit that, while I enjoyed the initial reading of the "Golden Compass" trilogy, I've never felt any impulse to read it again. The ending was just so bleak and bland and hopeless ("And so they're separated forever and never have any hope of seeing one another, in this world or the next. That's the way it is...pfffft. The end" Yeah, I know that's not what he said, but that's what he implied)...it completely destroyed the books for me. I haven't even bothered to see the movie...when you know that the ending is both terribly sad and irrevocably final (especially given the philosophy of the author, and his stated reasons for writing the trilogy) it hardly seems worth the effort.

Redwolf

[chas]

I often find re-reading books, especially those I liked in my youth, to be disappointing. Some that I never tire of are Zelazny's Amber books. I've read the first five probably 3-4 times, and the first one more than that.

One that I didn't discover until recently (they're still being written) are Kristen Britain's Green Rider books. I haven't re-read the third one yet, but will just before the fourth one comes out.

There are a few Sinclair Lewis books I've re-read. I just noticed Free Air in a room I was cleaning yesterday. That one's definitely worth a re-read.

I haven't read Narnia even a first time. It's one of my wife's faves, and it'll probably be time for he young one to read it within a few years. Maybe I'll read them along with her.

[rebl_rn]

I read the Chronicles of Narnia at least once every 2 years, since I was about 8 years old.
I've read "The Stand" about 3-4 times. Not a huge Stephen King fan, but I really like that book for some reason.
Diana Gabaldon's "Outlander" series (especially the first book) is another that I've re-read more than once.
I have a bunch of other books I want to re-read someday, but the problem is I also have a whole bookcase of books that I haven't read yet! So I don't get back to favorites very often.

[furrycelt]

...
I have to admit that, while I enjoyed the initial reading of the "Golden Compass" trilogy, I've never felt any impulse to read it again. The ending was just so bleak and bland and hopeless ("And so they're separated forever and never have any hope of seeing one another, in this world or the next. That's the way it is...pfffft. The end" Yeah, I know that's not what he said, but that's what he implied)...it completely destroyed the books for me. I haven't even bothered to see the movie...when you know that the ending is both terribly sad and irrevocably final (especially given the philosophy of the author, and his stated reasons for writing the trilogy) it hardly seems worth the effort.

Redwolf

i totally agree. I thought the His Dark Materials trilogy was an AWESOME book... until the end... yep like you said... "pfffft".

i have so many that i want to read that re-reading always takes a back seat. and i have little time to read what i have now given that i have a demanding job, and 3 kids (ages 7 yrs down to 9 months).

however, the only re-reads i have done were ones that i read as a kid/teen that i wanted to take another pass at. and i am glad i did cause i got alot more out of them. one is Nightfall by Asimov (novel version with the co-author), and two is Childhood's End by Arthur C Clark.

-ian

[Thomaston]

I've read Lord of the Rings, The Stand, and Ender's Game several times. His Dark Materials will be worthy of a re-read one of these days. I've read that Pullman is writing a story called The Book of Dust, so there's hope yet of a more fulfilling resolution.
PS- I wouldn't even bother with the Golden Compass movie.

[devondancer]

I re-read almost all my novels! If I really don't like a book when I first read it, I don't keep it - or if it's a library book I won't try to buy it. But if it is good enough to have a permanent place on our bookshelves (of which there are many) then I will re-read it, probably many times. Luckily I have collected books all my life, so now I have enough that it takes a long time to re-read them all!
LOTR is the most often re-read: every year, at least, although I do sometimes just read The Fellowship of the Ring and not the next two.

[chrisoff]

Unless I really don't like a book then I'll always re-read them. Just like I'll always watch a DVD again. I don't really understand why people don't do that. If you enjoy a story why wouldn't you want to lose yourself in it again from time to time?

Sometimes I wonder if people are just ticking off lists, watch a film - tick, seen it so now it's off the list. On to the next one!

to

[Innocent Bystander]

Books that I like, I will definitely read again. Sometimes I will reread books I don't like, just to see if my attitude has changed. But you have to let them stew in your mind for a while - a couple of years, mostly.

The Good Soldier Svejk, by Jaroslav Hasek
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Fifth head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling
...in fact, anything by Kipling...
Shikasta by Doris Lessing - just about due for a re-read of this series...

I have a soft spot for Epics, and have translations of "The Chanson de Rolande", "The Fall of the Nibelungs", "Beowulf", "Laexdaela Saga", "Tain bo Cuilaigne" and others. When you read the real thing, Tolkein looks shabby and longwinded in comparison.

My wife and I can tell if we are sickening for something: she reads Robert B. Parker and Dick Francis; I read Kipling and Dickens.

I have a shelf of poetry that I read through from time to time. But am I the only one to enjoy reading drama? Once in a while only a Shakespeare play will satisfy. Buy I have a bunch of Tom Stoppard's plays - "After Magritte" is a delight, and "Dogg's Hamlet" and "Cahoot's Macbeth" are a stirring pair of plays. Currently I'm reading Ionesco's "La Leçon", as well as a biography of Coleridge which is hard going, mostly because Coleridge was such an unreliable eejit. If I knew him, I'd thump him. I liked Ionesco's "Rhinoceros" and thought his "MacBett" was wonderful. This one ("La Leçon") doesn't move me.

I liked "His Dark Materials" for the ideas it provokes. I found the ending not just satisfactory but necessary: the universe was saved, but at a cost - a real cost, one you could feel.

[fearfaoin]

I tend to use our excellent public library
rather than buying books. But I do own
ones that I know I'll reread, such as some
of Christopher Moore's hilarious novels
and Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker series.