Could you name the books that you've read at least twice and the reason/s why you re-read them.
Could you name the books that you've read at least twice and the reason/s why you re-read them.
I don't read books twice mostly; the only books which I have read more than once are from Harry Potter series. I have read each of them about more than five times at least.
I read them so often because they are enjoyable and make me think about the clues for the next Harry Potter book which is about to arrive.![]()
I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew.
*The Picture of Dorian Gray: 3 times, because I like it
*The Catcher in the Rye: twice, I liked it and I forgot what it said, so I re-read it...
*Herzog (Saul Bellow): twice, because I had to give a presentation on it. the first time I read it, I didn't understand it but the second time round I liked it a lot.
* Julius Caesar (Shakey): 3 or 4 times, because I like it
I reread books a lot because I've got this great talent for forgetting what a book was about right after I finish reading it....
it's very annoying
First book I read more than twice that's coming to my mind is The Catcher In The Rye, too. I'm more than sure there's more though. I re-read books I liked. Oh, I also read Mrs Dalloway a couple of times, mostly for school purposes but I also liked it![]()
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I read Gone with the Wind and The Return of the Native twice. The same goes to Harry Potter and the Globet of Fire and Wuthering Heights but the latter in different languages each time![]()
Dream as though you'll live forever, live as though you'll die today (James Dean)
I think that any good book would be worth re-reading, just as a piece of good music is worth listening to again and again, or a good painting worth seeing more than once.
That said, answering this question has made me realise that my brain must have shut down when I was about twelve, because the authors whose books I re-read most write a great deal for older children as well as adults - Peter Dickinson, Ursula le Guin, Joan Aiken, Kipling, Anthony Hope, Masefield...
Of course, I won't admit that secret vice in public, so I'll say:
books by John Barth, Arthur Koestler, Anthony Burgess - because, apart from being enjoyable first time round, they are sufficiently complex and intellectually demanding to warrant repeated readings.
Voices mysterious far and near,
Sound of the wind and sound of the sea,
Are calling and whispering in my ear,
Whifflingpin! Why stayest thou here?
I've read lots twice and some more. Like Whiff says any good book is worth re-reading. I would take it even further. Any good book requires re-reading if you really want to understand its structure and craft.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
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I've read many many books more than once, again like others say, if they're *good enough* they bear repeatingbut also because I'm a pretty slow reader I still actually miss stuff, or, take much time savoring the best parts.. off the top of my head.. as a kid I read C.S. Lewis's the Narnia series many times (and as an adult too.) The Anne of Green Gables books and Black Beauty.
Bronte's Wuthering Heights,
Henri Charrière's Papillon and Banco, fabulous history/memoirs.
The Catcher in the Rye because it's so wry and funny and 'cool',
Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers (because it's so complex, like poetry, every reading you see/feel something different), and
Maugham's Of Human Bondage because it's autobiographical and a classic bildungsroman coming-of-age, orphan turns success story and I love the time period, early 20th century western Europe and England.
.
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The Iliad
The Odyssey
The Bible
The Aeneid
The Divine Comedy
Hamlet
King Lear
A Midsummer Night's Dream
MacBeth
Othello
Don Quixote
Tristram Shandy
The Sorrows of Young Werther
Paradise Lost
Songs of Innocense and Experience
Flowers of Evil
Invisible Cities
almost everything by Kafka and J.L. Borges
A Tale of Two Cities
many more...
Why? Because they were all great. Because I loved them all. Because these works changed as I changed and were worth a second (3rd, 4th) perusal. I might also add... in many cases it was because there was a new acclaimed translation that would give me other insights into a work I was unable to read in the original.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
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Redeeming Love By Francine Rivers-because it changed my life
i've read all the books i've ever loved more then twice, but i've read Mary Stewarts Merlin Trilogy once or twice a year for about ten years now because i love them so much.
Also mush have read Persuasion about eight or nine times.
"Come away O human child!To the waters of the wild, With a faery hand in hand, For the worlds more full of weeping than you can understand."
W.B.Yeats
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tolstoy, hemingway, Garcia-Marquez, Dostoevsky, dumas... I re-read books because maybe it was vague, or I liked the story so much. Sometimes a movie adaptation will come out and I will read it again. Actually if its a good story I will almost always read it again within 3 years.
"I am glad to learn my friend that you had not yet submitted yourself to any of the mouldy laws of Literature."
-John Muir
"My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends - It gives a lovely light"
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Anna Karenina (the story touched me)
100 years of solitude (i didn't get it the first time)
Frenchman's creek (amazing novel!!)
those r theones i could think of right now![]()
All the Harry Potter books- at least 5 times each
Twilight and New Moon by Stephenie Meyer- three times each
Romeo and Juliet- three so I could understand it for a test
Night by Elie Wiesel- four
1984- twice
Fahrenheit 451- twice
Sense and Sensibility & Pride and Prejudice- three each
The Odyssey- twice
A lot of Edgar Allen Poe- at least 3 times each for the ones I read, which is just a lot to list.
I read them over and over because they just change my mood. And it's cool to see things I missed in the first or even second reading and what now makes sense. All that I listed above are also really good books and plus, for a few of them I re-read them for tests at school.
There are a few more books that I've read more then twice but those are my favorite.![]()