BS: Books You've Read More Than Once

Subject: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 11:18 PM

Which books have you enjoyed so much that you've gone back to re-read them?

Here are a few of mine:

Lord Of The Rings trilogy (three times)
The Hobbit (three times)
Call It Sleep: Phillip Roth (Twice)
Giants In The Earth: A. O. Rolvaag (Three times)

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: bobad
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 11:33 PM

The Master and Margarita: Mikhail Bulgakov
Heart of a Dog: Mikhail Bulgakov
The Tin Drum: Gunther Grass
St. Urbain's Horseman: Mordechai Richler
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz: Mordechai Richler
Water Music: T.C.Boyle
The Ginger Man: J.P.Donleavy
Black Elk Speaks: edited by John Neihardt

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 12:19 AM

I'm with you on Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Great stuff. Also the William Morris medieval fantasy tales. I read that stuff a lot in my 20's. Not so much lately.

Also read Black Elk Speaks about 3 times. "Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions" was pretty neat too.

Read "Seven Arrows" several times. It's a book you can really meditate on.

Have read certain spiritual books over and over in more recent years. I recommend the writings of Marianne Williamson and Eckhard Tolle very highly.

When I was a good deal younger, I used to read A.A.Milne repeatedly, and also Arthur Conan Doyle, H.Ryder Haggard, and H.G. Wells. And the Hornblower books by C.S. Forester...fine adventure novels.

Read Watership Down 2 or 3 times.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: harpmolly
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 12:20 AM

Almost every book I read ends up being read at least three or four times. I'm one of those people who can't get to sleep unless I read for half an hour or so first, so everything in my apartment has been gone through lots of times. But the most dog-eared books on my shelf are:

Lord of the Rings trilogy
His Dark Materials trilogy (Philip Pullman)
Terry Pratchett's Discworld series (especially the Witches books--Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad and Lords & Ladies in particular)
Les Miserables (Hugo)
The Talisman (Peter Straub/Stephen King)
The Dark Tower series (Stephen King, really only the first four books...the last three were a huge letdown IMHO)
Watership Down (Adams)
A Natural History of Love (Diane Ackerman)
Careful What You Wish For (Myrlin Hermes)


OK, there are a lot more, I confess. In fact, I need a bigger bookshelf. *grin*

Molly

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 12:29 AM

Another vote for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, To Kill a Mockingbird, Their Eyes Were Watching God, House Made of Dawn, Ceremony, Go Down, Moses (rereading that right now). Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday. Lots of them.

A Sand County Almanac, Mama Makes Up Her Mind, and Boy (Dahl--also rereading now) are favorite re-read nonficiton.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: GUEST,Ingrid Frances Stark
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 02:01 AM

Nearly everything ever written by Dick Francis; Cyteen by C J Cherryh; The Hobbit by Tolkein.

IFS

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Paul Burke
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 03:43 AM

At Swim-Two_Birds by Flann O'Brien- you need to read it several times, just to get all the layers sorted out.

Including this:

'The Workmans Friend'

When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

When money's tight and hard to get
And your horse has also ran,
When all you have is a heap of debt -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

When health is bad and your heart feels strange,
And your face is pale and wan,
When doctors say you need a change,
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

When food is scarce and your larder bare
And no rashers grease your pan,
When hunger grows as your meals are rare -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

In time of trouble and lousey strife,
You have still got a darlint plan
You still can turn to a brighter life -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

Also another of his great books, The Third Policeman. How can something so funny be so disturbing?

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Gervase
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 04:07 AM

The Third Policeman! Wonderful book that I've read a couple of times. I love the idea of molecular interchange so that one becomes one's bicycle and has to lean against a wall to avoid falling over, while the bike gets to know the way home by itself.
Other repeat reads for me are Ulysses and Dubliners, along with most of Peter Ackroyd's canon. Now I'm just about to start going through Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey-Maturin series again. Can't wait.
Confession time, though - I've never read a single piece of Dickens all the way through.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 04:13 AM

I regularly re-read the works of the American SF writer/Fantasist Jack Vance. His Dying Earth book 'The Eyes of the Overworld' is a great favourite - as is 'The Last Castle', 'The Dragon Masters', 'Emphyrio', the 'Planet of Adventure' books and the 'Lyonesse' books.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Stu
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 05:10 AM

LOTR many times.

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster. My favourite book by a mile. Deeper than a very deep bit of the briny ocean deep.

On a musical note, Last Night's Fun by Ciaran Curran is an excellent book about Irish traditional music. Even though I was not born into the tradition I have played the music for years, and many people will recognise some of the observations and philosophy in this fine tome.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 05:21 AM

Oddly enough, I'm reading LOTR now, for the first time in years. Even though I've watched the movies several times, the pictures in my head when I read the books are still the ones that were there when I read it first in 1976. It took me 3 months to read then, the next time, it took a week. The copy I spent ages saving to get literally exploded with pages dropping out everywhere, so I got myself the 3 volume set in 1981. That too, is now showing distinct signs of wear. I may treat myself to a new edition one day.

Otherwise, there are very few books I don't read again - although Philip Pullman seems to be falling into that category. The first was great, the second got a bit boggy and I never even opened the third!

I'm on my fourth copy of 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe', and the Susan Cooper 'Dark is Rising sequence' gets read every year in autumn/winter... in fact, it's about time I started to read it again.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Gervase
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 06:39 AM

I'm always intrigued by how popular sci-fi and fantasy fiction are when reading preferences are aired on Mudcat. There must be scope for at least an MA thesis here - is it because folkies like that sort of thing more than most, or is it because computer-literate folkies like that sort of thing...etc?
One sees it mirrored in matters of faith on the Mudcat; Wiccan and other neo-pagan beliefs seem far more prevalent here than in the 'outside' world.
Similarly the crossover between living history enthusiasts, re-enactors and folkies: is it all tied to a desire to escape the chains of modernity by entering an alternative world?
I'm sure it can't be beyond the talents of a skilled but cynical marketing type to package an entire 'folk lifestyle' to be bought off-the-shelf in easy monthly instalments. Not that we're cliched sterotypes, of course!

Now where did I put my shaky egg? Ah yes, it's in the chalice on top of the H.P.Lovecraft...

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Dave Earl
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 06:46 AM

Gervase,

You were a journalist.

Go off and start compiling the part-work and you'll have any number of subscibers from round here!

Dave
p.s I here you move into the house soon. Hope all goes well

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Moses
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 07:05 AM

Another vote for LOTR and The Hobbit (read several times over the years )although I've only read them out loud once, years ago, to my two girls as books at bedtime.

Took several months.

Actually I probably did read them out loud twice as each night we would discuss the previous evenings chapter and find that one or the other had dropped off before the end so we had to re-cap from the last remembered part of the story.

Great books and the girls still remember those months fondly. They buy me the Tolkien calendar each year.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 07:19 AM

one of the unexpected pleasures of late age is re-reading the books you read when you were young, and picking up all sorts of subtleties and cadences that you missed when you were young and dim.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Cluin
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 07:20 AM

Rereading Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency right now since the old paperback turned up when I was looking for something else.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 08:00 AM

"Trout Fishing In America" - Richard Brautigan

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: bobad
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 08:26 AM

Yes LH "Lame Deer Seeker of Visions" is pretty neat.

I've owned two copies of "Black Elk Speaks", loaned them out to never see them again. I can only hope that they are out there being passed around and disseminating some of that Oglala Sioux wisdom.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: dwditty
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 08:29 AM

Bobad, I had forgotten all about Heart of A Dog...now I am going to have to go order it today for a re-read.

Anam Cara - John O'Donohue
Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer - Kenneth Patchen
The World Don't Owe Me Nothin' - David "Honeyboy" Edwards

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 08:41 AM

Ah...I'm a librarian. I honestly can't remember all of them.

But I'll put this into perspective: I don't purchase for myself anything I don't plan to re-read. There are about 5,900 books in the house at the moment. There are 30 shelves of books in my office, 36 in the other room. Each shelf holds about 30 books. That's about 1,980 books within 50 feet of me here in the basement, and that only counts those on the shelving units we bought, not the books on the "built in" shelves. Nor does it count the books upstairs.

Best way to tell you: the books run the gamut from Robert Heinlein to Dana Stabenow to Nicolai Gogol to Marie Webster to Shakespeare to Chaucer to Dee Brown to Twain to Bill Watterson to Hofstadter to Hawking to Ed McGivern -- and beyond.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: jacqui.c
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 08:42 AM

The Stand - Stephen King

Too many books, not enough time to reread too often!

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: kendall
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 09:33 AM

The Odyssey.
Silverlock (Myers)at least 4 times.
All of C.S. Forrester's books.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: ranger1
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 09:41 AM

The Lord of the Rings trilogy
The Dark is Rising series
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
the JP Beaumont series by J.A. Jance

And so many, many more...

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 09:49 AM

I reread Jim Harrison. Beautiful books. His poetry is beyond me though,way too intellectual for the likes of me.

Some of the goodies:
Wolf
Farmer
Legends of the Fall
Dalva
True North

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Peace
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 10:26 AM

Cities in Flight
Lucifer's Hammer
Tom Sawyer
Bible
Time Enough for Love
The Little Red Book
On War
The Face of Battle
Great Expectations
The Complete Works of Edmund Spenser
Much of Shakespeare
HMS Ulysses

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 11:00 AM

Wow! A lot fo great stuff here!

LH: Put me down for multiple re-reads of Watership Down A.A. Milne and Arthur Conan Doyle (Including the Professor Challenger books, which are a real hoot.)

Gervase: H.P. Lovecraft is a repeated read for me, too. Nothing could ever top the Dunwich Horror, for me. And add Shirley Jackson's books... especially The House On Haunted Hill which was first made into a pretty good movie and more recently into something worthy of Mystery Science Theater.

Moses: I read aloud the Hobbit and all three books of LOTR to my two sons, when my youngest was still in a playpen. When I finally finished, I asked them what they wanted me to read to them next, they both immediately chimed in "Read The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings again." And I did.

Last week, I picked up a copy of No Man Is An Island by Thomas Merton, which I haven't read since college days. I'm looking forward to re-reading it.

The Thurber Carnival holds a place of honor in our downstairs bathroom, along with Calvin and Hobbes, Pogo, The Far Side and more recently, Get Fuzzy.

I read sections of the bible fairly regularly but never have read the whole book. We're read the Purpose Filled Life (or whatever the title is, twice.) Maybe I need to read the title again.

And how could I forget The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter? That book is very special to my heart, and I go back to it repeatedly.

'Scuse me while I go read..

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Beer
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 11:03 AM

Aztec---Gary Jennings
Raptor----Gary Jennings
Genesis---W.A. Harbinson
Sacajawea--- Anne Lee Waldo
Follow the River---James Alexander Thorm
In Search of the Miraculous---P.D. Ouspensky

Ther are some great and wonderful readings out there but these are the ones that I can remember reading twice.
Beer

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 01:16 PM

Huckleberry Finn is one I started reading to the kids but I think they went ahead and read it on their own so they wouldn't have to wait to hear what happened next. I've read it a couple of other times myself.

A friend who teaches philosophy is convinced that LOTR is meant to be read outloud and has done so several times, any time he has a willing long-term audience.

When you read one out loud I think you can tell if the writer spoke the words or just wrote them. Thoreau, no. Faulkner, yes.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Peace
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 01:18 PM

Dylan Thomas seems to have done both, IMO.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 01:50 PM

When I was young and even stupider than I am now, I read Dylan's Child's Christmas in Wales aloud for an audience. Put on my best, undulating Welsh accent and boomed it out to great applause. Months later I heard a recording of Thomas from the BBC in 1929 (I think) reading the same piece. He had a plummy English accent! What's that about?

I read it every year, without fail.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Wesley S
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 01:51 PM

Ragtime
Alas,Babylon
The Travis McGee series
Watermelon Sugar
Will Henry westerns
Little Big Man
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Gervase
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 03:18 PM

Finnegans Wake is one of those books that just cries out to be read aloud. On the page it's complex, abstruse and downright impenetrable at times, but on the ear it's funny, mellifluous and full of punning surprises. If you haven't the heart to plunge into the deep end, take a look at the 'reduced' version edited by Anthony Burgess.
On reading aloud generally, I think that sometimes the authors themselves haven't the right voice. I've got a recording of Joyce reading from the Wake, and it's not a patch on some other, more 'actorly' renditions. And Richard Burton's voice, for me, is the voice for Dylan Thomas.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 03:26 PM

Found it ... you can hear Dylan Thomas here Child's Christmas in Wales.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 03:27 PM

I'll try that again: HERE!

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: number 6
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 03:50 PM

The Illuminatus Trilogy .. by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities .. by Charles Dickens

Red Earth, White Lies .. by Vine Deloria

Moby Dick .. by Herman Melville

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: kendall
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 04:17 PM

Oh yes, Moby Dick

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 04:21 PM

"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"...but not recently.

several by Heinlein, and other Sci-Fi...especially "The Mote in God's Eye" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Cluin
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 04:27 PM

The phone book.

But not the whole thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: bfdk
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 04:48 PM

Like Liz, Rapaire and others I often read books more than once. In fact, the books I've only read once were usually the ones I didn't like that much..

One that I've re-read several times is "Frozen in Time" by Owen Beattie and John Geiger. I remember buying the book while visiting Edinburg back in 1987, at a time when the book was brand new (even had to get it hardback, as no paperback was as yet available). I started reading the book on the train going down to Harwich on the way home, and I continued reading while on the ferry, finishing it at around 3 in the morning sitting all alone in the corridor outside the cabin so as not to disturb my 3 cabin companions. I simply couldn't put it down.

Others are Betty Tootell's "All four engines have failed" and Piers Paul Read's "Alive". I've re-read all Harry Potter books, but have only read LOTR once (in Danish). I intend to read in again in English sometime, though ;-) I've re-read lots of children's books, like all of the "Little House" series, Anne of Green Gables and books of that ilk. I've read and re-read most of what Simon Wiesenthal ever wrote.

For anybody interested in good historical novels I'll warmly recommend Swedish author Ian Guillou's Crusades Trilogy which has now been translated into English. A Must-Read!!

Quite a mixed bag, as a matter of fact..

Bente

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: robomatic
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 04:51 PM

"Little Big Man" by Berger
For sleepytime, the John D. MacDonald Travis McGee series
Rhodes "The Making Of The Atomic Bomb"

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Beer
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 05:17 PM

Forgot to include Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: jacqui.c
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 05:38 PM

Forgot the Dune series!

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 05:45 PM

If a book isn't worth reading again it wasn't really worth reading once.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Peace
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 06:01 PM

E R Burroughs' Mars series
The Moons of Jupiter (A Munro)
SAS Survival Handbook
Travels With Charley
Dance of the Happy Shades (A Munro)
Friend of my Youth (A Munro)
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Most of Twain's stuff, with an especial love for 'Life on the Mississippi' and 'Roughing It'
The Bean Trees
The Stone Angel

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 06:52 PM

I've read the entire Sherlock Holmes corpus about 3 times, I think. I find that after about a 10-year interval, I can't remember how most of the stories end, so it's like reading them for the first time.

I read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn several times as a kid. It was a long time before I realized that the editions I had then were dumbed-down abridgements for kids. I reread Huckleberry Finn recently, an unabridged edition, and was surprised how much was new to me. I enjoyed it immensely.

Likewise, I read Great Expectations long ago (or thought I had) because it was a school assignment. I reread it recently and had the same experience. So much was new to me that I figure that must have been an abridgement, too.

I'm pretty sure I read 1984 more than once. I probably should read it again. In fact, it probably would be a good idea to reread a lot of the books I enjoyed as a kid.

Tom Sawyer, though, was a disappointment when I tried rereading it as an adult. I don't think I ever finished it.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 09:02 PM

Too many to mention. Here are some I have read more than 3 times. Orwell: 1984, Animal Farm, Collected Essays.... Koestler: Darkness at Noon, autobiographical books, The Age of Longing. Warren: All the King's Men. Kornbluth: Syndic. Carroll: the Alice books. Agee: A Death in the Family. Heinlein: The Man Who Sold the Moon, The Green Hills of Earth. Burdick: The Ninth Wave. Huie: The Revolt of Mamie Stover. Hersey: The Wall. Kipling: Captains Courageous. Skinner: Walden Two. Stewart: Storm, Earth Abides. Twain: Huckleberry Finn. Wylie: Finnley Wrenn, Opus 21. Young: The Rise of the Meritocracy. Hoggart: The Uses of Literacy. Macdonald: Memoirs of a Revolutionist, Against the American Grain. Wiener, Cybernetics. Cooke: Six Men. Mencken: Vintage, Prejudices, Chrestomathy. Russell, History of Western Philosophy.

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: The right to hurt people's feelings is the only right worth having. :||

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 09:10 PM

Here is a list of the books on my desk, waiting to be returned to their little beds on the shelves. A few I haven't yet read, so I've marked them with a *. The rest are re-reads. Remember, this is only a sample that's immediately at hand.

Heinlein: Glory Road.
Bestul: The Last river rat.*
Bragg: More than petticoats.
Rast: The Whole dam story.
Lincoln: A Private disgrace: Lizzie Borden by daylight.
Clarke: Profiles of the future.
Stabenow, et al.: Wild crimes.
Taylore: Jumping fire.
Bratt: Trails of yesterday.
Beck: Shamans and kushtakas.
Kanuit: Tales from the edge.*
Brown: Alcan trail blazers.
Adney: The Klondike stampede.
Tremblay: On patrol.
Stabenow, et al.: Powers of detection. (Ahem -- autographed to me!)
Bryson: A Short history of nearly everything.
Marriott: Hell on horses & women.
Gray: Women of the west.
Woodman: Unraveling the Franklin mystery: Inuit testimony.
Twitty: Riches to rust.

The reason that two haven't yet been read is because I just got them.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 09:15 PM

Almost every book I ever enjoyed, from Scott, Chesterton and Dickens, through Conan Doyle, Wells and Verne, via Charteris, Asimov, Wheatley and Fleming, to King and Clancy, and dozens of others beside.

The only books I haven't read more than once were those that so bored me, I didn't finish them the first time.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Peace
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 09:18 PM

Dang. I have left off Asimov, Doyle, Wheatley (whose "The Devil Rides Out" scared the bejeebers outta me when I was young--I mean sleep with the lights ON)--thanks for the memory, Don.

Subject: RE: BS: Books You've Read More Than Once
From: Amos
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 09:22 PM

Dictionaries, R.P. Warren (The Cave and All the King's Men), East of Eden and anything else of Steinbeck's, several Hemingways, any Heinleins I can get, anything by Barbara Kingsolver, and certain perennials like The Reader Over Your Shoulder, Elements of Style and assorted reference books. I have re-read some of Hawthorne, some of Joyce, and numerous lesser lights I cannot recall.

A