How Often Do You Re-Read A Book?

I didn't become an avid reader until a few years ago (in my mid-twenties). Since then I've been interested in reading as much fiction as I can and haven't bothered to read a novel a second time. Even with one I really enjoyed. I just didn't want to take time out from reading things I hadn't read before to go over a novel a second time.

Oddly, I don't currently have anything on my reading list that is jumping out at me so I decided to start reading Don DeLillo's The Names again this morning. So far I'm really enjoying the second round and now I'm thinking I should re-read good novels more often.

How often do you re-read a novel compared to reading work you've never touched before?

There are certain favourite novels that I can come back to again and again.

Its no literary masterpiece, but I've read Good Omens at least a dozen times and it always has me howling with laughter. Same with most of the Discworld stories.

Good books can become like old friends, to be visited often for the pleasure of their company.

I've read a lot of those Discworld books a few times as well, they never seem to get old for me. I struggle to fit in rereads when there are so many new books to read but I always enjoy it when I make the time. It's amazing what new things you can discover and enjoy when you aren't worried about silly things like keeping track of the plot. :p

For me, reading a book the second time is my favorite part. You have already been acquainted with it, but now you really get to enjoy it. And, I know Lord of the Rings is not 'great' literature, but I really cannot tell you how many times I have read it.:blush:

I am thinking about the Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment. I have read each three times, and they got better as I matured. Others, there has been up to ten years in between readings. I just reread Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. I read it when it first was published in 1984. Twenty-five years later it means more to me since I have read many of the people he writes about in the book: Ezra Pound, Scott Fitzgerald, Ford Madox Ford etc.

I have tried to read some post moderns, but they haven't been able to keep my interest. Don Delilo Philp Roth, et al, can't hold a candle to Scott Fitzgerald or Hemingway. But Nabokov and Thomas Pynchon hold my interest very well. I will probably read them again in a few years.

Classic novels require multiple readings. In college I tried to read novels a second time before I wrote essays on them, but that wasn't always possible. If a novel is really finely crafted, I defintely will read it more than once - maybe more than twice. ;)

There are a lot of novels I have read several times. Particularly Dostoyevsky & Tolstoy as I try to read different translations. The same goes for long narrative poems &/or those written in Middle English.

Oddly, one novel I actually read at least five times was Patrick Tilley's Mission.

I first read it only a few years after it was published. I think it is one of the cleverest contemporary novels I have ever read.

I've read Walden probably 20 times now. And several others, My Antonia, Watchmen, Lonesome Dove, Republic, the AD & D Dungeon Master's guide (2nd edition), and several others anywhere from 5-10 times.

In short, I love to re-read the best of literature.

As to books Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini gets reread about 3-5 years. Recently reread the Fu Manchu series by Sax Rohmer (in order this time) and likewise Adam Hall's Quiller series. As to my other likes: comics--Jonah Hex stories get reread periodically along wiht old Adam Strange stories from Mystery in Space and early Batmans. Tomb of Dracula gets pulled out along with Dr.Strange from Marvel and of course The Avengers.

I have no limit, I never get (permanently) tired of a book they way I do a movie. I've read The Autobiography of Malcolm X 8 times since I was 13 although it's been years since I last did so. I will usually wait at least 6-12 months before I reread a book.

Without posting a list, there are ten or so novels that I reread every three or four years. I also have a tradition of reading a (different) Dickens novel every christmas season. To me, big heavy Victorian novels like Dickens suit long nights and wool blankets on the bed during the holidays.

It depends upon the book. I've read The Divine Comedy in its entirety about 4 times... in different translations. I've read Don Quixote perhaps 3 times. Favorite poets and poems I read again and again: Blake, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Holderlin, Rilke, Herrick, etc... Being a sworn Borgesian I've read his poems and stories repeatedly... along with those of Kafka and Calvino.

The play Hamlet, it puts my problems into perspective everytime. Will put the cathart into catharticism effortlessly. Hubris is childsplay ' a mere toy ' Now I am going to my bed, ' for this relief much thanks ' :) Oh ****, that was MacBeth. ' Goodnight ladies ' I have lost the plot altogether.

I generally find it difficult to reread most books, and if i do it's only a skim because knowing what happens bores me. The only book i can remember rereading and genuinely enjoying and finding more and more with each read was On the Road.

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Originally Posted by Bastable

I generally find it difficult to reread most books, and if i do it's only a skim because knowing what happens bores me. The only book i can remember rereading and genuinely enjoying and finding more and more with each read was On the Road.

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The beat goes on Bastable :)