There are books you pick up that you just want to read and reread. Which book/s got your more then once reading tick list. Do you agree that some books you read first time and you think it is brilliant then you rearead it again and gets even better because you realise you have missed bits and pieces you did not notice first time. AND Do you think the contrary is also true about some books you read second time and their novelty does wear out by the time you finished the second round?
I've read a few books twice, and more than twice. I've read The Comedy and Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri twice, both readings were different translations. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich twice, V. by Thomas Pynchon three times, Salem's Lot by Stephen King twice, everything fictional that H.P. Lovecraft wrote at least twice (I've read Lovecraft's short story Dagon at least 16 times), House of Leaves twice, and a number of plays, especially Sophocles and Shakespeare's plays, a number of times. The book I've reread the most though is Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, which I've read six times now. I love that book.
Yes Most of us wouldn’t start a second reading if the first proved drab or tedious Doubt my selections pertinent but for what it’s worth, that is, probably not very much, at 81 my mind wanders so by the time I’ve reached halfway I’ve forgotten what went before. So I place another bookmark at the beginning, subsequently reading at subsequent sittings one chapter at each setting
I've been reading the same 25 authors for the past ten years, some of their books over and over. I find something new every time. The past six months I've been trying out new authors. Mostly writer friends
Are you allowed to disclose at least of one or two writers off your 25 list? Hehe How lucky you must be to be surrounded or know of friends that are writers too. It must be an amasin gexperience.
I read some of George Orwell but I could not say the same about his books like you do. I have run few pages from 1984/Nineteen-Eighty_Four but I was not hooked in any away. He does seem to have a repetitive themes of order and selection and political forces. Are you able to say why especially this book you like so much?
I read most books more than once. The first time is for sheer pleasure. The second tme, I am more focused on how the writer accomplishes (or fails to accomplish!) his or her purposes. I don't bother with a second reading if I already know the author's style well, and the book just read is unremarkable among his or her works. And some, like King's Under the Tome, are just so bad (and in that case, so mind-numbingly long), that there is nothing worth spending more time upon them.
I don't read to be 'hooked' or to have a 'real page-turner'. I read books because they are serious discussions of serious issues. I like Nineteen Eighty-Four so much because it changed my whole world, and the way I thought. It effectively started me on the road to my current politics. It also taught me that totalitarianism and totalitarian thought is something that needs to be resisted whatever the cost.
1984 is brilliant...I've only read it the once though, which is enough, because it's not a book you'll easily forget
I am totally different. I read lighter tones and like to be somehow absorbed/hooked if you like. I however much prefer and do better at listening/hearing serious discussions on serious/everyday situations/ issues for the veryreason and that is of talking back or discussing back what I have just heard or 'digested' if you like. I do notenjor serious readings from a book but from a newspaper/radio maybe or a chat with friends. A book for me is for leisure/enjoyment/language and its richeness. Reading for me is sheer entertainment and enjoyment to the full. Serious, which I like very much too, I leave to news, listening and most importantly to being able to give feedback. Serious for is a three way situation, self informing and returning the information back for analysis and either conforming or altering depending on how it is perceived/received then aired by me and others. It is never a one situation. This is how my brain works.
I think the bookd I've re-read the most have been The Lord of The Rings and Stephen King's Dark Tower books. Both so long they easily stand up to a re-read.
When I was 9 - 10 years old, I read Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea fourteen times. I also read quite a bit of Verne's other work, along with that of Clarke and Heinlein, many times. In my late teens, I unfortunately came under the spell of Ayn Rand. I read Atlas Shrugged ten times, and The Fountainhead about six. Then I turned my brain back on and I haven't read Rand in over twenty-five years. I feel much better now. I've read some Kipling and Conrad several times. I've read Steinbeck's East of Eden and Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls twice, and I don't think I'm done with them yet. And I know I'll revisit Kipling's Kim two or three more times. I also keep rereading essays by William Gass, and the books on writing by John Gardner. And, of course, I reread some of the poetry of Robinson Jeffers a LOT, as well as that of W.B. Yeats and Walt Whitman. I've read some of Whitman's poems dozens of times over the years, and each time I pick them up they still startle me with their originality and freshness.
Hey that is amasing the amounts of time you have read books. Which would you say is one of Whitman's favourite poems?
I remember reading the Goblet of Fire 11 times when it first came out....was a massive Harry Potter addict when I was young! Even had my grandparents make me a wand and cloak!
HEE! I'm just starting Goblet of Fire for the first time today. I've re-read Stephen King's On Writing several times. As for novels I've reread all of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's books. Incredibly I think the book I've read the most times is Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard. I know, WTF? I read the book when I was young and something about it really clicked with me.
I'm currently reading The Hobbit again, and plan to continue on to The Lord of the Rings. I've read The Hiding Place by Corrie TenBoom at least six times. The Chronicles of Narnia I read several times when I was younger, and I'm planning on revisiting it soon. I've read the Harry Potter series a couple of times, but I found that they got old after the first read-through (or at least weren't as brilliant as the first time I read them, unlike The Hobbit, which so far has been every bit as brilliant).
I read Something New and Something Blue by Emily Giffin once or twice a year each. Great books, like comfort food. I reread The Sirens of Titan by Vonnegut a few years ago because I loved it when I was younger and realized it wasn't all that great.
Harry Potter 1-7 continuously My mother has the record of having NEVER reread a book in her life. (By book I mean novel)
I've read 1-6 Harry Potter books more then once, as well as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time' by Mark Haddon and Holes by Louis Sachar
In my teens I was in love with L.J. Smith and the Night World series. I read most of those a couple times. Since then I've lost most of that series (lending to people and not getting them back...I hate that!!) but I would still re-read them for pure nostalgic purposes. They have lost their former Glory space in my mind because I'm not a teenager anymore but I still read for escapism. Now I'm a historical romance junkie and my two authors are Julie Garwood and Johanna Lindsey. Both have individual books and mini-series revolving around a family or group of friends. Those I still read over and over. For me it's like putting in a movie that you just love. You know the ending, you're familiar with the characters but you love their journey so much you just can't help but go with them one more time. For those books I don't find they gain or lose anything on the second read. It's just a comfort mechanism at that point. When I'm sick I like to have chicken noodle soup, a Disney movie and my cat. When I read, I'm not always in the mood for something new. Sometimes I just want something that will scratch that particular itch.
A very drab novel, I agree. But (if you haven't read more Vonnegut), I hope it hasn't put you off. Much of the rest of his stuff is so much livelier. Things - aside from non-fiction - I've read more than once: The 39 Steps. A Christmas Carol. Both can be read in a short afternoon. That probably explains it.
Mannen som Elsket Yngve (the Man who Loved Yngve) a Norwegian novel, I have read three or four times. One of those books that manages to make you cry and smile at the same time (the movie kind of sucked though). I have read the Confessions of a Shopaholic series a couple of times as well. Not great literature maybe, but they are a guilty pleasure, like the movies Bring it On and Legally Blonde (both of which I have lost count on how many times I have watched). I don't always like to reread books I found really amazing, in fear that a second read could ruin it for me, as I have experienced before. Books that are faulty, but enjoyable, I can read several times, but books that really affected me somehow I don't want to touch again so that I will never lose that initial feeling.
That's a good question. Various children's books, I suppose. Some I've re-read as an adult: Coming up for air and Keep the aspidistra flying by Orwell. Some P.G. Wodehouse. Some Agatha Christie. Actually, her book Third Girl is probably, for some reason, the book I've re-read the most, out of any.
