Reading Favorites Again

Instead of buying new books, lately i have been scanning my library and taking old favorites off the shelf to get back to. This week it is Miles Franklin's My Brilliant Career, which made a huge impression on me about 20 years ago.

I have one book that I read over and over. It's the only book I do this with. Each time I read it I find another gem of wisdom or something that makes me sit up and take notice. I call it my little treasure, my favorite book: The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Marlowe seems like just the most interesting person. He's seen a lot in his years in Africa and the East.

Although there are quite a few books I intend to read again someday (Infinite Jest (favorite novel), quite a few Dickens, probably the entire Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian) I have YET to re-read a book. Ever. And I'm 40 and have been reading forever.

I reread Fear And Loathing On the Campaign trail about once every six months, to remind myself why I want to be a journalist.

I reread three books each year: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I read The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury every couple of years.

I don't know how I would exist if I didn't have a few favorites to go back to time and time again.

The ones I find myself constantly rereading are: Metamorphoses by Ovid, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, and Little Women/Little Men by Louisa May Alcott (I have both in one volume so usually just continue straight through).

There are a few others I pick up once every couple of years, but these are the mainstays of my library when I am feeling low and need to visit with an old friend for a while.

I don't normally reread books because there are so many books out there I want to read that I just don't think I have enough time in my life to read them all. I have read The Cask of Amontillado a couple times tho because the schools I went to had it on their required reading list. I'm not complaining about that tho because I find Poe's work very intriguing.

Same as for raggedtig. I read at a very slow pace, and it perhaps explains why I never re-read books—except once or twice a crime story I read 30 years ago and I couldn't remember I had. My impression is that only readers who read an average of 1–2 book(s) per week can afford to re-read. Slow readers are really disadvantaged...

O. K., I'll admit that I reread old favs first as pure escapism. They're old friends you've known forever and they never dissapoint you.
Jane Austen - all
Rebecca
et al.
Peter Mayles -
Dick Frances To the Hilt
Guy Gavriel Kay Fionavar Tapestry Series
Harry Potter Books
etc., etc.,
I'll just stop there. >8 Pepys: Pepys, I hadn't ever thought about speed being an issue - hmmm. I guess I just enjoy a good story and like good music or movies, good stories hold up through multiple samplings.

My husband and I read to each other at night, so I collect my re-read favorites and read them to him. I also look forward to reading my childhood favorites to my own kids someday (soon, I hope)...

I just returned from a trip, and I wasn't in the middle of a book when I left. I looked quickly at my bookshelf and grabbed A Room with a View, which I hadn't read in many years. It turned out to be a wonderfully serendipitous choice. I have typically re-read a few specific favorites such as LotR, Gene Wolfe, etc., but now will try to find more things that I've only read once when I want somethig not quite new.

I also reread To Kill a Mockingbird, Little Women, and Grapes of Wrath. Even though my TBR pile is endless, it's nice to return to the old favorites.

I used to reread books a lot, back when I didn't have such a great pile of TBR books. Favorites from then that I'd like to read again one day include:

By Anne Rice:
Interview With The Vampire
The Vampire Lestat
The Queen of the Damned
The Tale of the Body Thief
Memnoch the Devil

From my more recent reading, I'd enjoy rereading the following:

By Neil Gaiman:
Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett)
Neverwhere
American Gods
Smoke and Mirrors (read a few times already)
Fragile Things
The Sandman series

Also:
The Hitchhiker and Dirk Gently books by Douglas Adams
Written on the Body, by Jeanette Winterson (reread)
Sputnik Sweetheart and Dance Dance Dance, by Haruki Murakami
Wormwood and Lost Souls, by Poppy Z. Brite (both reread)
Skin, by Kathe Koja

I'd also like to revisit the works of Margaret Atwood that I'd read earlier.

#10 scaifea- I love that tradition of yours! An old boyfriend of mine once picked up my copy of The Erotic Poems by Ovid I had on the table and randomly read poems to me.

It's a nice way to spend time together.

Demiguise: As a Classics Professor, it always warms my heart to hear someone speak fondly of Ovid (he's one of the main reasons I decided to become a Classicist)! And what a smooth move on the old boyfriend's part - I'm afraid the books my husband and I read to each other aren't nearly as romantic (right now we're reading A Good Dog by Jon Katz!

I reread quite a lot. When I was still quite young, I read a book in which the main character's grandmother reread her favourite book once a year, every year. I did that for a while, (initially with Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain, then with Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles), but a couple of years ago I decided I was coming to know the stories just a little too well. I wanted to give myself some time off so I'd forget a few plot points.

I'm currently on a rereading break, for the most part; I've reread a few things that I hadn't touched in about ten years, and I've gone back over some stuff I just discovered fairly recently, but for the most part I'm giving it a rest for now. I've got a gigantic TBR pile, and I want to get through some of those. I think next year might be a huge reread-a-thon, though...

I'm currently rereading The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice––one of my favorite books in the Vampire Chronicles, second only to Memnoch the Devil.

I'm not reading it now, but I've read A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving four or five times. I've read The Road by McCarthy twice. And I'm sure I'll read Finn by Jon Clinch multiple times.