What books do your reread?

Parent Cafe
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Lots of the books I reread were books I wound up reading to my children or reading with my children. I’m not so sure I would re-read them now. It has been a while since I re-read something.

Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. I probably read these 4-5 times as a kid/teen. Then I read them to my kids and discovered how turgid they were. Still . . . some great parts.

Various books from The Wizard of Oz series, especially The Patchwork Girl of Oz, my clear favorite, and The Road to Oz, one of my least favorites but my daughter’s favorite when she was five. The Wizard of Oz was the first “chapter book” I tried reading to her, and it turned out she had a practically unlimited ability to sit and listen to Oz books from age 2-1/2 until she could read them to herself.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Salman Rushdie’s first YA book, and probably my kids’ favorite book.

All the James Bond books. What I read when I stopped reading The Hardy Boys. It’s been decades since I read one, but it turns out my son just read them all last year.

All the Raymond Chandler novels. When I stopped reading James Bond. And I, too, have re-read the Hillerman books I especially liked a few times (mostly the series Skinwalkers - Coyote Waits - Sacred Clowns . . . the first combined Leaphorn/Chee books). And Gaudy Night.

One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. I didn’t love One Hundred Years the last time I re-read it, though, which was maybe 20 years ago. Also Song of Solomon, sort of the American version of One Hundred Years.

Mario Vargas Llosa’s Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter and The War of the End of the World.

William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow. Maybe my single favorite book ever. And super-short!

Phillip Roth, The Ghost Writer. Also short.

Nancy Willard, Things Invisible to See. Every time we see it remaindered, we buy it to give to friends.

Du cote de chez Swann. Once for myself, three other times because it was assigned (including in adult ed). I keep trying (and failing) to re-read other volumes of Proust.

Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow. Not in awhile, though.

Mishima, Sea of Fertility tetralogy. I read it for the first time in college, and most recently a couple of years ago.

I don’t regularly re-read Shakespeare, but I’ve read Midsummer’s Night Dream, The Tempest, and Much Ado About Nothing lots of times. I love Balzac and would re-read his stuff if there weren’t a huge list of his books I haven’t read yet that are just as good as the ones I have read, and for the same reasons. Same with Dumas (the elder).

Looking at this list, I’m not certain there is any adult book I have re-read that I read for the first time in the past 25 years.

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I also liked the Mrs Pollifax series—an older woman who becomes a CIA operative and gets in and out of all sorts of adventures and locales. The author, Dorothy Gilman also wrote some other interesting books, including the Clairvoyant Countess. I’ve reread her books several times.

I read Harry Potter back when the books were released. We own them (some volumes we have several copies). Mostly no one here rereads them much. Same with LOTR. The Narnia series I and D have reread.

@ChaosParent23 — thanks for the suggestion. I will try that series.

I and my H and kids strongly disliked Casual Vacancy by Rowling—depressing and very dark.

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I’m rereading now The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. It’s one of my favorites. But, this time, I’m reading it in Portuguese, because I’m trying to improve my comprehension.

I first read a few passages in the Portuguese translation, then read the same passages in English to see how well I have understood the Portuguese. This gives me a chance to practice Portuguese, but also to reread the book in English. It’s win-win.

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If you have books that you are not interested in re-reading or have more than one copy of of a title consider donating them to a used book store, library, school or other needed literacy entity and lighten your bookshelves in the process. :slight_smile:

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@JHS Maxwell’s They Came Like Swallows is on of my all time favorite books. Such exquisite writing. Some how I missed So Long See You Tomorrow which will be next on my list. Apparently, they are somewhat connected.

My kids were too old for the Bunny Planet book, but I will look into that for future baby gifts.

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As a rule I don’t hang on to books after I read them. I do have a few where I met the author and the book is signed (so I keep those). I was out with some friends yesterday and asked if anybody wanted my copy of Educated. The person who took it said don’t you want it to which I replied “I’ve already read it”.

I donate my books to the library all the time. Sometimes they just put it on their friends book sale shelf and sometimes (if it is something odd they don’t have) they add it to the collection. Just be mindful of what the library’s donation policy is - some only accept recent titles. Don’t be the jerk who anonymously dumps a huge box of old moldy boxes on the front steps of your local library (I recently witnessed this - we had to call somebody to cart them away to the town’s recycling center.)

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@whatisyourquest What English translation of The Brothers Karamazov are you using? There has been a lot of controversy about translations of that book over the years. My college frenemy Andrei Navrozov could get apoplectic about the flaws of Constance Garnett’s standard English translation.

@mom2and All of Maxwell’s writing is “somewhat connected” because it is so based in his childhood traumas. So Long is somewhat unique in his (very sparse) oeuvre because much of it recounts events to which Maxwell himself was almost entirely peripheral, although there are framing narratives that are completely about Maxwell, as a boy, as a teen, and as an old man. (In the book, Maxwell, in his 70s, tries to understand the guilt he still feels about something he did in high school in Chicago, when he snubbed a boy who had been his only friend for a few months back in their rural home town, during a difficult period in both their lives. As a child, Maxwell had only vaguely understood the boy’s circumstances, and in any event had been completely overwhelmed by his own misfortunes. As an old man, he reconstructs from research what the boy’s experiences might have been, as well as those of his family (including their dog), and how the two wounded boys had briefly and imperfectly bonded.)

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Perhaps I have already posted to this thread but I among many re-read lots of books including classics like Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice and I ah thinking that I might need a bit of Jane Austen when hunkered down this weekend. I’ve also re-read To Kill a Mockingbird and might do so again having just re-read it having just seen the production on Broadway. I have re-read the Harry Potter books too many times to recall just how many. It has been a long time since I have re-read Lord of the Rings though. I have All the Light We Cannot See on my Kindle and happy that I had bought it as I have read it several times.Some books like The Nightingale, The Girls, Everything I’ve Never Told You, Handmaids Tale, i have re-read almost immediately and will do with Gentleman in Moscow fairly soon. I agree with above poster about Casual Vacancy but the books JK Rowling writes as Robert Gailbraith are much better written and I have re-read the first two. Now I am just almost finished with all the Maisie Dobbs titles by Jacqueline Winspear although a new one is being published this spring.

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@JHS Re the English translation of The Brothers Karamazov, I am reading the Everyman’s Library edition, translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

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A newish author came to our last bookclub. K J Howe, The Freedom Broker. Kim won awards for this book, and is now writing #3. She is a lovely person and enthralled all with how she learned about kidnapping and negotiations. People didn’t want the meeting to end. She didn’t win the prize for best Thriller, as she is Canadian.

I have stopped buying fiction several years ago, so I didn’t have a copy for her to sign. But I gain an appreciation of how much effort, research, and dreams are the fiber of writers.

Two other authors are presenting later this month. One is a friend, deb Shlian.

My comment is not exactly on topic. I hope I encourage others to meet authors.

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Well… Alice in Wonderland… Through the looking Glass… I actually have a collection. I have them in about a dozen languages, along with some very very old ones (not quite a first edition – that would be a dream come true!.. and I have the big annotated version from the 1970s too. About 40 versions in all. Don’t ask me why! It’s an obsession that began back in elementary school…

To Kill a Mockingbird. I’ve read it so many times… it never gets old. We need more Atticus Finches these days.

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^^ my avatar would agree!!

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I re-read Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility and Jane Eyre almost every year. I’ve re-read 1984, A Tale of Two Cities and a few other typical “high school English” books when they were assigned to my kids.

I also tend to re-read David Sedaris. Oh and all the Harry Potter books at least twice.

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I periodically re-read Anna Karenina. It’s so deep and so wide that I find new things to enjoy about it each time.

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The only book I recall rereading is “The World According to Garp”, many, many years ago.

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I keep Bridget Jones’s Diary. Whenever I need a quick pick-me-up, I can open it to any random page and get a laugh. It’s not highbrow, but v funny.