Which Books Do You Read Over and Over Again?

I recently returned to a book that felt like watching reruns of my favorite 90s sitcom in 2015. However, I would always return to "Sophie's World" by Jostein Gaarder.

Marguerite Yourcenour's Memoirs of Hadrian, The Histories of Herodotus,
and Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient. No rhyme or reason for these choices out of the hundreds I've read, except that each in its way provides an especially seductive mind journey that remains with me still - possibly heralding a need for a third reading down the line. The prose itself, its lyricism, allusions... delights. "Oh the places you'll go!"
And more recently there's Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog - for its charming characters! and Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist for its revelatory thrill!

Eliot's "Four Quartets" particularly at times of stress and grief.

"Modes of Thought" by Alfred North Whitehead, half dozen times to help my focus of something; and "Contingencies of Value" by Barbara Hernstein Smith, for the same reason.

I don't read many novels a second time, those I have done that with:
This Side of Paradise,Catcher in the Rye,The Brothers Karamazov,
Ulysses.

1. Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White; 2. Fifteen, by Beverly Cleary; 3. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald; 4. Danny, The Champion of the World, by Roald Dahl. 5. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. 6. to Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.

To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway. I am not the same person I was when I first read these books, and each re-reading deepens my response to them. I began identifying with Lily Briscoe, and now am in sympathy with Mrs. Ramsey. In addition, I re-read the novels of Barbara Pym almost every year, starting with the minor works: Civil to Strangers and An Academic Question, and working my way back, saving my favorites, Some Tame Gazelle and Excellent Women, for last. Small gems, laced with compassion and humor, these novels continue to delight. I read new works for intellectual stimulation, insight, information, or appreciation of another point of view, but at times a familiar book is like a long visit with an old friend. Recently while recovering from injuries sustained in a fall, I called to my husband "Could you please bring me Some Tame Gazelle?" It never fails me.

It's the cheese that adds insult to injury. Oy vey.

Jane Austen. She only published the 6 novels and there are some fragments, so in order to get enough of her I have to re-read them. Fortunately I "get" more out of them each time.

I recently reread A Covenant with Death by Stephen Becker after 35 years. It was even more wonderful and beautifully written than I remembered. What a great pleasure when a book really holds up!

World creation begins with the unknown. 'Write what you know' we are admonished. A bit of a problem for SF. Who knows aliens? the shape of the future? SF demands you suspend disbelief. Yet given the size of the market this isn't a big ask.
You cross the border from our social construct of reality, to the author's world. As you read, you collaborate, filling in missing details. Not every morsel is consumed at first reading so at a later point you examine that crossing anew.
We believe that closing the pages removes us from the power of the author. A comforting fiction. The power comes when you, as reader, join the dots to see the scheme behind the work. Some writers are cunning, they let you do the work and give you the opportunity to come up with different answers. Others methodically nail down every bit of plot, leaving little room for alternate reading. The pattern stays in memory.

Some books I come back to, e.g. Galactic Pot Healer. Philip K. Dick's dark wit examines philosophical and mystical issues when Joe Fernwright, a (mostly) unemployed pot healer, accepts a commission from an almost godlike alien. In Dick's universe, even super-powerful aliens have existential problems. On first reading I wanted the conclusion to have more 'happy-ever-after' in it.
Dick's fiction helped steer me away from the formulaic.
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Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. i will probably be rereading that periodically for the rest of my life.

Dana Stevens wrote a few years ago about 'Primal Time, the slow moments that make us human.' My 'Primal Time' return to book is, The Best Short Stories of the Modern Age by Douglas Angus printed in 1965. I have been reading it since 1989-90. A used paperback that has brought pleasure and rests on my nightstand.

Most interesting about these lists is how particular they are to the person. For many of these recommendations, I can only shrug and say 'to each his own'. Moby-Dick? I'll die without having finished it, and I am not apologetic about it. For others (such as Huckleberry Finn or the Odyssey), though I may return to favourite sequences, re-reading the entire book from end to end would be grueling.
Particularly Huckleberry Finn (which I'm now re-reading for the first time in years) - the phonetic dialect, particularly Jim's, is flinch-inducing. For the same reason, although Eugene O'Neill's plays are great to watch, reading them is a slog. After the first few lines, Shaw stopped writing Eliza Doolittle's Cockney phonetically - a good decision.
Of books from my K-12 days, Lord of the Flies holds up well. Picture of Dorian Gray and Sherlock Holmes stories ... much as they entranced me as a teenager, revisiting them is like meeting your first sweetheart at a high school reunion ... or digging up the grave of your childhood pet.

In a world awash in books, the only ones worth re-reading are those that seem more true by the year. For me: Don DeLillo's "White Noise," Faulkner's "Light in August," "Heart of Darkness," and "The Book of Job."

I have read Gone with the Wind at least 3 times and have seen the movie more times than I can count. It is difficult to read the same book again when there are so many unread ones out there.

Without doubt, I return to Colleen McCollough's Rome series and James Clavell's Asian series, particularly 'Whirlwind.' There is something so rich in how these authors create stories that reveal nuances of worlds we cannot enter. It is immersive reading. McCollough's series actually triggered my long-held dream of traveling to Italy--not for the encrustations of churches, etc., but to walk and breathe the air that Marius, Sulla, Caesar, and Augustus breathed.

I'll never get tired of reading George Eliot's Middlemarch. I read it senior year of high school and promised myself I would re-read it every year. As a non-religious person, the book provides so much wisdom and reveals so much about ordinary life that we try to cover up--it forces us to confront our position (or lack thereof) in society and ourselves as individuals. It forces us to look into ourselves and ask if our aspirations are genuine and how we could be better people, both for our own sake and for the sake of others. Plus, there's a touch of romance and humor à la Victorian literature, which is always welcome in my book (pun intended)!

John Steinbeck's "The Pearl" - re-read for the past three years and will do so again this year. The story lives on in the midst of our techno-centric world, revealing that the human heart has not changed regardless of the complexity of post modern life.
"The Brothers Karamazov": I've also returned to during the past five years ... because I can never complete the story for whatever reason. Perhaps this year.

I rarely read books more than once ("So many books, so little time," as the saying goes), but I've returned to "The Sparrow" by Mary Doria Russell many times since its publication.

I have three books I re-read on a regular basis. The first is The Martian by Andrew Weir. It's one of the most clever sci-fi books I've ever read. The second book would have to be 97 Orchard Street by Jane Ziegelman. This book is chock full of information about immigrants living in New York City, their cultural food diversity, and the institution and function of Ellis Island. Lastly, Far From The Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon remains for me one of the most informative books I've ever read about the challenges of raising "different" children.

I keep a copy of Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T E Lawrence by the kitchen table. I open it at random and read it, at any time. It is always beautiful, getting better. "The best written book of the english language" according to W Churchill

Rivka Galchen's story of Homer, the Old Testament, prosciutto, goat cheese, and a grocery store checkout perfectly encapsulates the way in which imperfect knowledge makes perfectly fine art.

I have read John Banville's "The Untouchable" at least six times and still come back again. The novel seems to me nearly perfect in its combination of psychological study, narrative momentum, sentence-by-sentence elegance and impeccable scene construction. Unlike Banville's other novels - which, while also beautifully written, most often take the form of long, "undramatic" monologues - this novel based on the life of British spy Anthony Blunt encompasses both the era in which he lived and the terrible loneliness of the spy/homosexual. Why it's not more celebrated I can't explain.

Even though the article focuses on classics of the past, I would like to suggest that a current New York Times best seller, Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon, be added to the list. So far there are eight completed books in the series and a ninth is in the process of being written by Dr. Gabaldon. These are books which fit into no single classification; they are historical fiction (extremely well researched), fantasy (time travel), romance, and so much more. There is a current TV series derived from the books. They have sold in the millions, and are being read over and over by Dr. Gabaldon's fans; it is a fandom that stretches globally. The quality of writing is such that each reading brings recognition of things missed in previous readings, thanks to the narrative being so tightly woven.

I just read Ron Rosenbaum's "Explaining Hitler" for the fourth time. I get new insights every time I read it. It's the most complete source of information I can find on a mystery that continues to trouble me but that I know will never really be solved.

I would draw a distinction between choosing to re-read a book, and having to.
I repeatedly revisit Daddy Long Legs, an American classic, which is like a shelter in the storm. And, being Jewish, some texts are thrust upon me on a yearly basis. The Megilah, for one, which we just read for Purim this week.
In both cases, the reading goes beyond the immediate plot, which you are all too familiar with at this point, into a deeper exploration of what insights have I developed which shed a new light on the text.
Like a long-lost high school friend at your 25-year reunion, you sometimes find you have nothing to talk about. The same can happen with a text once the rush of 'what's going to happen next?' evaporates. A page turner might, upon second or third reading, reveal its crude seams.
The gap between first impression and a more profound one, also solves the mystery posed by Galchen, why pork is so non-Kosher. From Chabad.org:
"There are two signs that identify a kosher species of animal. 1) It has split hooves, and 2) it chews its cud (i.e. it regurgitates its food and chews it over a second time.) … There is only one animal in existence that seems kosher because it has split hooves, but is really not kosher because it doesn't chew its cud -- the pig.
And that's why we denigrate the pig. Every other non-kosher animal is up front about it. ... the pig presents a kosher facade. ... For Judaism, nothing could be worse than making a holy facade when your inside is rotten."

I have spent some time preparing myself for yet another reading of Moby Dick, which seems more an epic poem, a successor to The Iliad or The Odyssey, than a mere work of fiction. This time, I have nibbled around the edges of the work, read D.H. Lawrence's essay and the book by Charles Olson, a poet answering a poem, or even Sam Ita's inventive and beautiful pop-up book. On a previous occasion, I directed Orson Welles' theatrical adaptation, which floated over the stage of the Hilberry Repertory in Detroit, and always, sea-surge over sea-surge, one sounding of the abyss upon another, the encounters clung to me, drowned me, hurled me free of the waves for a moment. Reading the book again seems this dangerous to me, and this arousing. Comparable works are few, liberating and terrifying, and they are epic poems like The Iliad and the Odyssey.

My three constant companions tell me nothing about me. I have no idea why I live again and again with Dickinson, "Huckleberry Finn'' and Thomas Berger's "Crazy In Berlin." I just love excellence, I guess.

When I note a fave author who has obviously ''Lost it!'' I go back to the last thing he or she did that really succeeded all my expectations and console myself that at least once, they could seriously entertain me.

Sadly, most post-WWII writers have exhibited this fall-off, probably due to success and fame. Arthur Conan Doyle avoided such a decline but perhaps the still photograph and pithy review didn't doom one to the loss of perspective.

Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather. Great Expectations, Dickens. Beowulf,. Jane Eyre. Martian Chronicles, Bradbury. Player Piano, Vonnegut. Annals of the Former World, John McPhee. And more, if I could only remember the titles.

Disappointing dialogue from writers I don't know (my fault not theirs). Cormac McCarthy: "Blood Meridian". I've read it twice and will soon read it again!

It changes over time. Currently Robert Fagle's translation of both of Homers epic poems. Shakespeare's King Lear, and from the last century anything from Nabokov for great precision and respect for the use of English language.

The Great Gatsby, The Scarlet Letter, To Kill a Mockingbird, Fahrenheit 451, - I'm a high school English teacher, and I read these with my students every year.. Every year I relish each book as if I am reading it for the first time. I am also a big Agatha Christie fan; I've no idea how many times I've read some of her Hercules Poirot books. Mary Stewart is another author I read over and over, especially her Merlin series.

I received the boxed set of Laura Ingalls Wilder books when I was nine...they lived on my nightstand for the next ten years, until I left for college, and I read all of them many times.
The next repeat (late teens early 20s)was the Thornbirds...another book where, once through, I could open it anywhere, read several pages, and drift off to sleep.
Then came Barbara Kingsilver's The Poisonwood Bibles...
Female characters, challenging physical landscapes...pioneer stories.
I rarely reread books during the day. It's almost always at night, in bed, where I fall asleep book in hand. With old favorites it really never matters if I miss something. It's more reading as a comfort activity, not start to finish. I try to save more challenging reads for when I'm awake.

I read ALL of Deborah Eisenberg's short story collections over and over again, not just Transactions in a Foreign Currency. The woman is a genius, the greatest fiction writer America has today.

I re-read *lots* of books. However, these titles come first to mind, and when I roam the house for something to read (and I have *lots*of books) these are the ones I'm most likely to pick up. I don't offer reasons or justifications, save that I always find something new in them, and especially something that speaks to my mood or circumstances to impel me back to them. Lit-snobs may look down their noses at some of the choices, but I like what I like.
Michael Ayrton's The Maze Maker
Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara and The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God
Hardy's Jude the Obscure
Nabokov's Lolita and Pale Fire
Hardy's Jude the Obscure and the Mayor of Casterbridge
The Iliad (Usu. Lattimore translation)
Robertson Davies' Deptford Trilogy
Stephen King's The Breathing Method (novella), Carrie, Pet Sematary, and short stories The Reach and Ballad of the Flexible Bullet
Paul Gallico's The Abandoned, The Silent Miaow, and Three Lives of Thomasina
The sci-fi stories of James Tiptree Jr (nom de plume of a woman)
George Orwell's essays
Rudyard Kipling's stories
Quite a bit of nonfiction, too. I could go on, but won't.

To give the title some meaning, I nominate the series of historical novels about New York City by Beverly Swerling--they trace NYC history from founding to present--they have cost me many hours of sleep not being able to put them down--

The Red Tent by Anita Diamante. The language is so beautiful it sings in my heart and in my head. The last line of the book leaves me in a swirl of joy.

Although both these pieces are as interesting and relevant as the previous commenters say, I admit that I was hoping to be led to a great read I had somehow missed. A little disappointed...may I suggest "The History of Love" by Allison Krauss, which I have read several times. Each time the layers and depths expand from something I originally thought was a simple, enjoyable book into something of great intelligence and heart. Also, many of the stories of Alice Munro hide deep secrets and revelations upon repeated readings. Anyone else care to recommend?

Over many years and houses, I have kept only those books which I have "lived in." Sure there are more on my shelves than I will ever reread, but pursuing their titles is like reading the diary I never kept.
Is there an American female reader alive who did not live in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series, the" Anne of Green Gables" series or perhaps "The Five Little Peppers?" Series were always best - hours and hours of living in an alternate world, returning dazed and changed.
Reading these to my daughter was one of my greatest pleasures.
As an adult, I find few series but oh the quantity and variety of excellent novels. For a long trip to another world, I reread "War and Peace" and find myself newly astonished. As a young adult, I skimmed through the war scenes, now I marvel at their cinematic realism. I will see other wonders the next time I read it.
For the past several years, I have returned several times to Denis Johnson's "Train Dreams." Its beauty and power leave me physically overwhelmed.
I will stop at those two.
Thank you NYT for this piece that has dispelled the gloom of this Boston winter morning.

Both are great pieces, thank you; Galchen's piece has the added bonus of being hilarious on top of being thoughtful.

I don't know why an adult who is a reader would not have read the Odyssey. I read it later than I should have, but since have not encountered many adult readers who haven't read it. If you haven't, you should. it is not the erudite, inaccessible text many assume it to be. It is brilliant, yes, but very readable. I do, however, happen to think that the Iliad is better.

I love "The Edible Woman" by Margaret Atwood. Read it first when I was 14 and 20 years later I'm still rereading it on occasion. The funniest thing is I have no idea why I like it so much. Just a story about a (semi) modern woman, strange but delicious at the same time...