What books have you read the most times?

[KilgoreT]

What books have you read the most times in your life? What does it take to get you to reread a book?

When I was a kid I used to read books over and over again. I read the first Harry Potter book literally more times than I could remember. I read the others many times as well. Other books I remember rereading numerous times are The Jungle Book, the Redwall books, White Fang, and Jurassic Park. I guess it was similar to kids watching a movie over and over.

Since I've gotten a little older I reread much less frequently. Mostly it has been books I read in school then revisited or vice-versa. There are a few books I didn't finish for one reason or another then later revisited and read completely. Player Piano, Crime and Punishment, and Catch-22 are examples of these. I have read many books that I intend to read again someday, but I'm not sure when, with all the books I haven't gotten to for the first time yet. So what about you? What books have you read most frequently?

[iamnobody]

Letters From A Stoic by Seneca
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

[Three Sparrows]

I think its time for me to confess. I--I read The Lord of the Rings so many times, I lost count at fourteen...

[Calidore]

Like KilgoreT, I reread more when younger. I remember going through the Encyclopedia Brown books multiple times, and my numerous Peanuts collections. Harry Harrison's Deathworld trilogy off my father's shelf was a favorite, as were his James Bond books, several of which I read several times.

Then you get older, and your tastes expand as your time contracts. I've read Tolkien's Silmarillion three times now and am feeling due for a fourth. I'll probably read LOTR for a third time also. (I'm the only person I know who liked Silmarillion more.) I've read Robert Holdstock's remarkable Mythago Wood books twice, and also the first few of Carol O'Connell's Mallory series.

Unfortunately, most of my books are packed away now, but I'm sure I'd come up with more if I could see them.

Best,

Calidore

[mayneverhave]

Admittedly, I only reread entire works of fiction from front to back on rare occasions, instead electing to dip in and out of various sections that I've marked down specially. The same goes for books of poetry, which I tend to wear down fastest. Particularly beat up are my paperbacks of Yeats, Shakespeare, Montale, and Pessoa.

[stlukesguild]

Dante- Comedia
Baudelaire- Fleurs du mal
William Blake- Songs of Innocence and Experience, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, etc..
Robert Herrick- Hesperides
Paul Verlaine- Poèmes saturniens, Fêtes galantes
J.L. Borges- Labyrinths, Other Inquisitions, Dreamtigers
Franz Kafka- Collected Stories
Italo Calvino- Invisible Cities
Shakespeare- Hamlet
R.W. Emerson- Essays
Lewis Carroll- Alice in Wonderland, Through the Lookingglass
Homer-The Odyssey
Sophocles- Oedipus Rex

And then there are endless fragments of works (Paradise Lost, the Bible, etc...) as well as individual poems and stories that I have read again and again.

[Seasider]

I tend not to re-read. Mainly because I read Point Counterpoint by Aldous Huxley when I was about 24 and thought it was wonderful and then when I read it at 40 it seemed shallow and meretricious. Fairly similar experience with Brideshead Revisited though I still admired it, just not as much. I read To the Lighthouse every 3 or 4 years and get more out of it each time. I re-read Thurber whenever I want a good laugh. Anthony Powell repays re-reading I think.

[Ecurb]

You are remembering incorrectly, I suspect. Nobody can possibly have read those books as many times as you read some shorter children's book (when you were a young child, or when you were a parent). Of course you may not remember being a two-year-old, but as a parent I can assure you that I read an illustrated volume of "Winken, Blinken and Nod" at least a hundred times, and "The Selfish Giant" (another illustrated volume) almost as often.

[Veho]

I used to reread more when I was younger too. I read the first few Harry Potter books dozens of times.

Now, I like to reread Jane Eyre. I enjoy the story and the characters very much so I like to visit them, like old friends, every couple of years or so.

[marcolfo]

100 years of solitud. it inmediately takes me back to when i fisrt read it, which were simpler times i might add. i read it at least once a year.

[Delta40]

I'm a sucker for Children of the New Forest. I don't know why since it never figured anywhere in my childhood. I have read it so many times now that I am convinced it was part of my childhood....! Oh yes and Teddy Robinson (far better than Paddington)

[Armel P]

Unfortunately, I haven't done enough reading in general to take the time to reread something. I feel I have so much catching up to do that I don't want to waste time going back even if I know I'd enjoy it. I know I've read The Little Prince maybe three times but that's such a tiny book. I can't really think of anything else at the moment.

[Emil Miller]

The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald and The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham a half-dozen times, Bel Ami by Maupassant, The Moon and Sixpence by Maugham and Les Célébataires by Henry de Montherlant three times. I have read nearly all of Maugham's work and much of Graham Greene's more than once. Paradoxically, being a member of this literary forum has seriously curtailed my reading time

[Alexander III]

I have re-read Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and The Corsair, many many times. Byron never manages to be dull.

[tonywalt]

Catcher in the Rye

[ChicagoReader]

I've only reread books that were initially for school, like The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye, also I have read Ragtime by Doctorow twice, both for school as well.

[prendrelemick]

Jane Austin ALWAYS delights me, no matter how often I reread her.


Since the Grandchildren came along, Peppa Pig.

[Stellar]

Watership Down. I must have read it six or seven times since I was a little kid. What's funny to me is that until a few years ago I could not pick up a book twice, but somehow this great book about a bunch of whacked out rabbits heading cross-country...I just can't resist reading it again every so often.

[blazeofglory]

The book I am tirelessly reading over and over is the Prophet by Khalil Gibran. He was a mystic and hardly have I come upon a better book that could demystify spirituality or truth. I have read this book ten times and each reading was a different revelation and I suggest to all to read this wonderful spiritually moving book. It has no parallel. I became different, a little more transformed after reading the book

[mal4mac]

I tend not to re-read. Mainly because I read Point Counterpoint by Aldous Huxley when I was about 24 and thought it was wonderful and then when I read it at 40 it seemed shallow and meretricious. Fairly similar experience with Brideshead Revisited though I still admired it, just not as much.

I recently re-read both these books after a similar gap in time, and you have a point, although I found both still to be worthwhile reads.

I find the description of the bumbling Lord/amateur scientist and his vile Marxist assistant in PCP irresistibly amusing, and Huxley always goes quite deep in pursuit of ideas.

I still admire the first few chapters of Brideshead - the descriptions there are not 'falsely attractive', I feel, but 'very attractive'. Vague memories of the 'bumbling Lord' and 'gleaming spires' were what drove me to re-read these books. But for long stretches both novels did seem much shallower, and more boring, than I remembered! Too many characters in PCP were two-dimensional at best, just ciphers Huxley could use to explore his ideas (and the black shirt stuff was rather dated...) Waugh just seemed to run out of inspiration as Brideshead dragged on. So I doubt I'll re-read them again.

On the other hand, I just re-read War & Peace after a ten year gap and that was *wonderful*. I re-read Hardy's Jude and I'll be re-reading that again, and his other main works. I re-read Shakespeare plays quite often, with undiminished joy. Dickens also bears re-reading (who wouldn't want to reacquaint him/herself with his wonderful, zany characters...) Jane Austen too, you could never get tired of her wit and well-drawn characters.

[The Comedian]

It's not too much of a stretch to say that I've read Henry Thoreau's Walden 20 times. I've made it a point to read it every year since I first read it back in 1995. And in some years, I've probably read it twice. Other books such as Watchmen, the Republic, My Antonia, Emerson's Essays, Leaves of Grass, and Lonesome Dove, I've read in the 3-7 times (range) each.

[missmeadowsweet]

[QUOTE=prendrelemick;1020554]Jane Austin ALWAYS delights me, no matter how often I reread her.

ditto. And I feel the same way about Tolkien. And the Bible - there's definitely enough in there to merit many re-reads.

[Gregory Samsa]

I tend not to re-read. But this the books I have read the most times.
"The Stranger" - Albert Camus
"Crime and Punishment" - Fyodor Dostoevsky
"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" - Haruki Murakami
"Doctor Glas" - Hjalmar Söderberg

And when I was young I also read "The Catcher in the Rye" many times.

[Theunderground]

Notes from the underground and Ecce Homo.

[fb0252]

Middlemarch did very well on a second reading for me. have reread Shakespeare several times. never gets old. just reordered Brothers Karamazov from Norton. i tend to reread to test an initial high opinion. wondering of late if rereading great books is more productive than spending time with the lesser ones.

[Jozanny]

If one comes to admire Henry James, he becomes a lifelong project, and in this sense, I literally never abandon his work, akin to Shakespeare, who cannot be abandoned by any serious writer of ambition.

Rereads are tricky, especially as one grows older, but for me this includes AS Byatt, who is richer on a second journey, Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, though I have abandoned her after Beloved, as I am in a distinct minority who believes this novel pitches toward sensationalist guilt, and is an offense on otherwise sensible admirers, Zola, Balzac, sometimes Flaubert, perhaps Grass, if I can unlock some of his allusions to German fairytales, Musil, a little Dickens (I actually like Bleak House!), Wilkie Collins, and maybe John Irving, definitely Umberto Eco.

Poetry goes without saying, as no poet ever abandons their genre.

[Ecurb]

I think I read "The Poky Little Pony" at least 100 times, 98 of which were pure hell.

[JuniperWoolf]

I'm big on re-reading stuff. I've read The Grapes of Wrath a good ten times, all of the Swamp Things that Alan Moore wrote about fifteen times, Watership Down maybe five times, and I've gone over some chunks of my non-fiction books dozens of times, especially the ones on psychology and classic mythology because they seem to come in handy.

[Trollzane]

probably one of Eric carle's books. From when i was a wee-wee child

[millwallbill]

PG Wodehouse claimed to re-read the entire works of Shakespeare every two years

[iswarya]

the stranger by albert camus, is a novel that makes me go back to it again and again , for the novel is rather short and simple but has a lot of layers which gradually unfolds effortlessly, ever time you read it. the Mersault( the protagonist) of the first reading has nothing to do with the Mersault of my latest reading and our perception keeps changing over and over.....

another novel that invites me to read everytime i see it is, sidhartha by hermann hesse, this also is a very short novel with abundance of meaning that refuses to come to the surface on the first few attempts.

please do read them and enjoy!!!!

[Pensive]

another novel that invites me to read everytime i see it is, sidhartha by hermann hesse, this also is a very short novel with abundance of meaning that refuses to come to the surface on the first few attempts.

please do read them and enjoy!!!!

I have read Siddhartha thrice as well! And despite being so short, it had something new to teach me every time I tried it! :)

[varnish7]

I've lost count of how many times I've read Stephen King. Just last week, I reread "It" for the first time in a long time, and I was surprised that I had the thing practically memorized. Not word for word of course, but the whole book was completely familiar even after not being read for so long.

[Scheherazade]

To Kill A Mockingbird, probably... And Great Expectations and David Copperfield.

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Victor Hugo's "Toilers of the Sea"
Dr. Seuss - "Cat in the Hat", "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish"
Oliver Goldsmith "The Deserted Village and other Poems"
Dicken's "Tale of Two Cities"

.

[Richard_]

I've probably read the Harry Potter books a few times too many... I haven't read one in years though. I'm saving my next Harry Potter re-read for a long time.

[oshima]

Hamlet, Kafka on the Shore, certain poems by Keats and Shelly, Tao Te Ching (Steven Mitchell), The Elements of Style (Okay, I know this is kind of cheating), and Youth Without Youth. When I was a lad, I read the hell out of Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, probably once every two months.

[Brock]

Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure can be read entirely through memory now! Well, not really. I'd still read them again and again.

[hampusforev]

I don't reread that often, just because there's so many new ones I'd like to get through first. But oddly enough I've read Moby Dick three times, I'm saying oddly enough because some people seem to struggle with it, I'm not saying it to brag (well a little bit), but I don't see what's the struggle, it's funny and incredibly rich. It's my all time favorite. I've read the four great Shakespeare tragedies several times, be it to refresh myself for my amateur drama excursions or just for fun. There are several I'd like to revisit, Lolita, Blood Meridian, Naked Lunch, Brave New World, On The Road, Heart of Darkness and some more. Either because I read them when I was too young (On The Road and Heart of darkness) or because like Blood Meridian and Naked Lunch they require more time to comprehend fully.

[Venerable Bede]

I generally do not reread books, but I have read Treasure Island three or four times and The Three Musketeers twice. Maybe as I age I will want to return to my favourite old books.

[RRC770]

I love to re-read so I have a few. My top picks are: Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue, Persuasion by Jane Austen, Brave New World by Melvin Burgess and On Beauty by Zadie Smith (great post-modern writer). Some recent reads that I'm planning on re-reading is Milton's Paradise Lost and Jeanette Winterson's The Passion. I'm looking for something new (but classic) to read now.

[hampusforev]

I guess you could say I have reread Paradise lost a few times, but just episodical rereading because I didn't quite understand everything or just to feel the power of Milton's language.

[eyemaker]

Those with themes like social alienation and the like.. but I love reading deeply head cracking mysteries as well.

[RRC770]

I said that Melvin Burgess wrote brave new world. Burgess wrote clockwork orange which is still an amazing read. Aldous Huxley wrote Bnw. Reading 1984 for the first time right now. Wow.

[hampusforev]

I think BNW is much superior to 1984 though, but I did read 1984 when I was 14 and maybe my senses weren't as refined as when I read BNW just last year.

[Janine]

Frankenstein, Women in Love, Son's and Lovers, Rebecca, Lady Chatterly's Lover, Hamlet, Brave New World....and probably a lot more. If I like a book very much I usually will revisit it.

[Tournesol]

'Charley' by Joan G. Robinson.

The novel is also known as 'The Girl Who Ran Away'

[mtpspur]

Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood---read at least five times over almost 50 years. I believe I have read the Bible completely six times but not sure.

[Joe and Karen]

In a perfect world, I would re-read all the great works. I would think that a second (or third, or fourth...) reading of Moby-Dick, or The Sound and the Fury, or Blood Meridian, etc., would be impertinent for me to truly understanding the work on level greater than sensory reactions.

That is often the struggle--should I try to read Gravity's Rainbow again, considering it didn't make much sense the first time-- or move on to Crime and Punishment. I think that, unfortunately, I probably choose quantity of experience over the quality.

That's why I have been pushing off reading In Search of Lost time--think how many books by Hemmingway I could read in that time!

As far as books I have actually re-read in recent years, the only two I can think of are Gilead (Marilynne Robinson) and Blood Meridian.

I do flip through many books regularly though to re-read certain passages--particularly Cormac McCarthy and Nathaniel Hawthorne novels.

[Otokonoko]

I'm an English teacher, so I reread a lot. Annually, in fact. I don't know how many times I've read Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Taming of the Shrew. How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff has been another repeat offender. The Importance of Being Earnest, 1984, Deadly Unna, Huckleberry Finn ... I would say it's work rather than pleasure, but I pick 'em because I like 'em, and the kids seem to as well.

Otherwise, I've read The Little Prince several times over. I love it. And as a kid, the Famous Five books were regulars. In fact, all the Enid Blyton mystery books, as well as the Narnia books, barely found their way back into the bookcase before I whipped them out again.

[tonywalt]

Catcher in the Rye