Books that I read multiple times over the years:
The Boxcar Children
Are you there God, it’s me Margaret
The Outsiders
Up a Road Slowly
Little Men
The Diary of Anne Frank
Exodus
The Chosen
The Rich are Different
Marathon Man
Then She Found Me
Adventures in the Screen Trade
Mary Matalin and James Carvilles’ All’s Fair
Heartburn
A Supposedly Fun Thing Ill Never Do Again
I think I need to head to the library and borrow A Tree Grows in Brooklyn!
Meg Cabot. When I have just plain had enough, I pull the copy of Princess Diaries a Royal Wedding (“borrowed” from Happykid but never returned 
) off the shelf and enjoy a few more limo rides and heated discussions with Grandmere.
Richard Peck. Nothing like revisitng the wilds of rural Illinois or Indiana on a bad barely outside the beltway day.
I would reread Terry Pratchet more often if I owned any of his books instead of needing to fetch them from the library.
Anyone who hasn't recently checked out their local libraries digital offerings should try it. I hadn't used this for a couple of years but it has really come of age. I didn't even need to leave my house to get full digital access with a drivers licence number (Tx). The interface with kindle is very smooth with auto download as an option. It was just something I hadn't considered until looking at my local library which doesn't have parking as a given.
I rarely reread anything because there are always more books I want to read. Like a few others, the exception that comes to mind is Harry Potter. I’m in a book club and, occasionally, we read a book I’ve already read. Normally I just flip through it a bit to refresh my memory but this last month the book was Educated which I read about a year ago. I borrowed a copy in advance of my book club meeting and went to flip through it and ended up rereading it in its entirety over the next 24 hours.
And I envy those who live in areas that have libraries with a good ebook selection. While the technology has (finally) improved, the book selection is sorely lacking in my town’s library. D2 used to live in DC which has an excellent selection. She would sometimes borrow books on my behalf and send me the link. Meanwhile, my library either wouldn’t have the book in ebook form or would have a huge waitlist.
I thought I was the only one! I have an old hard cover copy of My Side of the Mountain that I bought at a library sale in my hometown. I’m convinced it’s the copy I used to check out and read as a child.
That book enchanted me as I child and I enjoy re-reading it. On a recent hiking trip, I tossed it in my suitcase to bring along.
I will sometimes re-read other books from childhood. Recently, A Wrinkle in Time.
I have also re-read Harry Potter.
Some re-reads, like Wrinkle & HP were prompted by movie releases.
@silverlady I read Station Eleven for this book club, and knew my husband would love it as well. We still refer to it from time to time - at airports we discuss where we’d live - most times it’s the delta sky lounge as well as would we ever open the plane doors or cargo hold. That book along with One Second After has given the family hours of discussions and comments. Trip to Iceland - let’s say an EMP hits over the US and we have to relocate to Iceland - what job will you do? One hot dog stand worker, one clothes store manager, a horse farm worker, and of course - a President of the country. haha
I would re-read various things when I couldn’t sleep and the current book I was reading was just too interesting to put me to sleep. Or if I couldn’t find anything new on my shelf to read at the moment and would grab an old book, or more recently, a book in our ebook library.
I don’t do that as much now that I have joined my libraries ebook lending. It is an app called Libby and I can search for “books available now” and download for a couple of weeks. I find I am reading more since there is a bit of pressure to finish in the 14 days. The current and popular books are usually out and have holds that may mean you can’t get them for several months.
HP books were ones that I would re-read fairly often. I also would pick up the Follett Century trilogy books on my nook if I couldn’t sleep and just read some random chapters, primarily because it was in the elibrary.
I picked The Handmaid’s Tale for one of my book groups so re-read it after many years. I am also trying to find my old copy of Marge Piercy’s Gone to Soldiers which is one of my favorite WWII books from long ago. Apparently it was re-issued in 2015, but was not at the book store the other day.
@inparent
Your story of checking out books as a child gave me a big smile this morning! Thanks for posting!
Not always good to reread a book. For example, I reread a Confederacy of Dunces. Loved it on the first read as it was an unexpected find. Enjoyed it the second time years later. However, the third read several years later may me wonder what I had ever seen in this book. So much of the pleasure of reading & rereading books is associated with one’s frame of mind at that time in a person’s life. I guess many can identify with emotions felt when reading Catcher In The Rye.
Interesting to discover that folks reread Tony Hillerman books as the pace is relaxing, but maybe too relaxing.
Sometimes a favorite book is one you read at the right time the right place in your life. Frances Nolan in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn spoke to me as a teenager, new to this country and discovered a whole world of library, free to all, regardless of class or status. A great social equalizer. Rereading the book put me back in that happy time.
Thanks to all, I am now rereading Jane Eyre. Looking forward to that line “Reader, I married him”!
@Publisher I also have reread A Confederacy of Dunces. It is so entertaining to me and it seems I have the author’s same sense of humor.
Others I like to reread, and obviously such a male perspective:
Omerta and The Godfather by Mario Puzo
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
I tend to jump genres every few years and don’t mix. I went from fiction to science fiction to famous Russian authors to historical fiction to detective novels to history to biographies to magical realism to post-apocalypse. Right now I am reading pop-psychology.
I will add in gifts and recommended works.
@Magnetron: I’ll try The Dog Stars, thanks.
I read Tolstoy, Doestoevsky (not sure of spelling) & Chekov plays. Reread Crime & Punishment & another by the same author because during & after the first read I felt guilty (odd choice of word) for not memorizing the complex Russian names of all the characters. After finishing, I realized that memorization of all the names was not necessary. So, to purge myself of guilty feelings, I reread them & skipped over the names. Felt relieved, but a much lower sense of accomplishment.
I also reread Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, but I cannot recall my feelings about that experience.
I read upwards of a 100 books a year. I recently downsized my bookcase to only TBR and the many SF&F series /authors that I love. Including Huff, Feist, Hobb, Cherryh, Czernda, MJ Sullivan, P. Brett, Rothfuss, Lee & Miller, Bujold, Z. Bradley, Brin, Bear, Weber. According to my Goodreads there are approx. 70 authors that I have read all/most of their books more than once. Many of the older series I read every couple of years. I’ll get on, say, a Hobbs kick and read all of her series.
If there were more great SF&F series I would happily read them instead. For awhile I read a lot of the Kindle free ones, some were pretty good. Also some historical fiction (P. Gregory, A. Weir) and bookclub books.
Harry Potter, Gone with the Wind
I love to re-read my favorite series - mostly the ones I find worth owning. I love the Mitford series and find it nice when the world is kind of dismal. Love to reread the Aunt Dimity series, my collection of Christmas novels, Deborah Crombie and several other “cozy” mystery series. Love HP and have reread many times, plus classic youth sci fi from Robert Heinlein.
I love to read but don’t like heavy topics as you can tell by the books I own.
Nothing too cerebral…Jamaica Inn. :ar!
I seem to be drawn to fantasy and historical fiction. Therefore I have read LOTR series along with the Hobbit and Silmarillion several times, the Harry Potter series and the Outlander series. I’ve reread the Wrinkle in Time Quintet a couple of times and Sarum by Edward Rutherford. I also have reread “Roma” by Steve Saylor and the Roma sub Rosa series about Gordianus the Finder (kind of a Roman detective novel but very much historical fiction). I try and mix in classics, books I know I’ll enjoy and non fiction. I’ve been in kind of a rut lately with books I start not stirring my interest. I’ve been considering rereading The Frontiersman by Allen Eckert.
Rereading novels you love kind of feels like reuniting with an old friend. I’ll skim through a lot of the book and find chapters that just engage me the second time that I may have skimmed through the first.
My rereading mostly consists of rereading favorite passages or chapters rather than whole books. The big exceptions were The Lord of Rings which I reread several times back in the day, and the Master and Commander 20-book series by Patrick O’Brian which I reread once.
Does anyone else remember the readers digest books that would have like three or four stories in them? They were hardback with the pages edged in gold. My grandmother had these books and as a kid I’d read them. One had a true story in it called Arnie the Darling Starling. I must have read that story 20 times. This thread made me think of it for some reason. A good memory. Now I’m off to find it!