Are there novels that you have read more than once?
I don’t mean the new paperback that turns out to be a rerelease of something you read ten or twelve years ago. I mean books that you go back to and read again on purpose – books that you enjoy reading over and over.
I actually have a pretty good list:
Catcher in the Rye.
Huckleberry Finn.
Animal Farm and 1984.
The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.
I reread Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and found that I liked it better when it wasn’t required reading. Same thing for Hemmingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.
I’ve gone back for seconds on several of Stephen King’s novels – back for thirds on It and The Stand.
An accidental find at Half Price Books, an outstanding historical novel about the Apache called Ghost Warrior by Lucia St. Clair Robson.
Anything from John R. Maxim’s Bannerman series, and one that isn’t. I’ve probably read his Whistler’s Angel four or five times.
The novels of Dean Koontz, especially early books like Watchers, Strangers and Twilight Eyes.
I can happily reread Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove about once every year or two.
The first book I ever read for the second time was a science fiction novel about a trip to Mars called Lodestar, a book that I found when I was in third grade. Amazon lists ten books with that title, but I don’t think any of them are the story I enjoyed so much back then.
Speaking of Mars, I have to include Ray Bradbury – the Martian Chronicles, October Country and Fahrenheit 451.
The most recent addition to my read-again list is Neal Stephenson. Not all that recent, now that I think about it – I first found his books about ten years ago. I have read all three volumes in the Baroque Cycle – all books of over a thousand pages – several times, and am actually about halfway through Quicksilver, the first of the trilogy, right now.
Stephenson currently holds the title as my most reread author. I have read his Cryptonomicon at least a half a dozen times! It is my go-to book when there isn’t anything new to read in the house. I can’t really explain how it holds its appeal; you might not even like it the first time, but I find it delightful every time I pick it up.
Do you have books that you return to again and again? If you do, what are their titles? What brings you back?
Every few years I reread Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Then I give the copy to someone else to read.
ReplyDeleteI'm all about rereading Austen & Dickens. All those years getting literature degrees rearing up, you know. I also reread Shakespeare, but no play in particular - just every year or so I get a hankering to read them and pick out something I haven't reread or seen in a while.
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