Books I will always return to

[Paul]

Like all of you, I own a lot of books. Some are great books, others are not so great. Either way, mostly, they just sit there on shelves or in boxes doing nothing, perhaps never to be read again. There are, however, a select few that manage to recycle themselves back into my reading list. Year on year, I find myself returning to these favourites; the books that mean and say more to me than the others.

I thought it might be interesting to open a thread on books we find ourselves returning to; that we’ve read three, four or more times, and know we’ll read again, and then again. They may not even be the ‘best’ books we’ve ever read, or even great works; or they may be.

I know some people disagree in principle with re-reading books, or think it's just a waste of good reading time, so we could discuss that issue, too.

I’ll start things off with four books that I’ve read numerous times, and know I will again.

The Trial by Franz Kafka: The sheer sense of awe I feel at Kafka’s vision whenever I read this book brings me back to it time and time again. It demonstrates the unremitting madness of existence, and that never changes. He has his detractors, but I still think this book hasn’t been bettered by his many imitators. I first read this when I was about 18, and have probably read it 4-5 times.

The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas: This is probably the most beautiful book I’ve ever read. It’s so easy to read more than once because each time you see something new, or it means something entirely different. I read it first about four or five years ago, and have read it once a year since.

Silas Marner by George Eliot: I’m a sucker for a tale of redemption, really. And this book just makes me feel happy. Probably read it 4-5 times.

A Blackbird in Silver by Freda Warrington: I make no claim that this book is a great book, or even a good book. But this is the book that first showed me the true rewards of reading; rewards beyond gold stars and exam results. It’s a silly fantasy novel about a quest and good triumphing over evil, but it has a special place in my heart. I first read it when I was about 14, and have probably read it 7-8 times in total (!).

So, which books will you always return to?

[Stewart]

You know, I don't tend to reread all that much at the moment. I think I'm just sampling as much as possible, finding out what I like, what I don't, and so on. I've read a couple of books twice this year, but only because I was half asleep during the first reading. Perhaps with more titles by certain authors under my belt, I'll find myself returning, but for now it's a gung ho adventure.

[Bjorn]

A couple that spring to mind:

Kafka is probably on my list too - not just The Trial, but several of his short stories too; Metamorphosis and In the Penal Colony, for instance. I'll never understand people who think Kafka is depressing; well OK, he is, but he's side-splittingly funny as well. In his own way.

The Master and Margarita by Michail Bulgakov, most definitely. I must have read it three times at least by now. One of the best satires I've ever come across, plus it manages to not only complain but stand for something as well.

Crime and Punishment. Clichéd perhaps, but it was the first Dostoevsky I ever read, it's one I keep coming back to and keep comparing other novels to - and I don't even really agree with it! But it's such a masterful look at what makes a human being that I can't get away from it. Plus I love how Dostoevsky managed to write a book that works on several levels - the first time I read it I read it like a detective story, and it works perfectly like that. With every re-read I keep finding new levels in it.

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy. What can I say? I think I've read it 7 or 8 times at least, and now that I've finally gotten hold of Douglas Adams' own reading of it I'm going to listen to the audiobook this summer. It's just pure, undiluted fun.

[Irene Wilde]

I'm not a big re-reader, not enough time as it is, but there are books I like to keep close at hand and perhaps go back to a passage or chapter here and there when the mood strikes, these would include:

Ulysses -- the language is so fluid that it is comforting to crawl inside when I need a break from things. Not really reading for comprehension or to find out what happens, but reading as more like listening to the sound of the waves breaking on the shore.

Cosmicomics -- a great one for re-reading because it is broken down in small segments, easily picked up and put down. It's whimsical without over-reaching into a cloying sentimentality and makes me smile.

Tropic of Cancer -- Loud, brash, embracer-of-life Henry Miller being a big, brilliant failure all over Paris and loving every minute of it. Miller reminds me life is for the living (so does Noel Coward, but that's a different story).

And the newest one I find I pick up and skim through is The Portable Dorothy Parker. She seems to have a phrase for every occasion and she's never boring company. And again, between the verse and short stories, it's easy to pick up, read a few pages, and then get back to whatever needs doing next.

[Stewart]

Originally Posted by Irene Wilde

Ulysses

I suppose I can list that as one I return to...on my annual attempt to read it. Last year I made it 150 pages in, which was my best yet. But since I've always got an eye on all the others I want to read, it would have been a struggle - or a strong mind - that would get me to the end.

[Bjorn]

Originally Posted by Irene Wilde

Cosmicomics -- a great one for re-reading because it is broken down in small segments, easily picked up and put down. It's whimsical without over-reaching into a cloying sentimentality and makes me smile.

Calvino is one of those writers I'm really looking forward to re-reading - I just want to read everything of his I can get my hands on first, before I go back to the ones I've already read.

[Irene Wilde]

Originally Posted by Stewart

I suppose I can list that as one I return to...on my annual attempt to read it. Last year I made it 150 pages in, which was my best yet. But since I've always got an eye on all the others I want to read, it would have been a struggle - or a strong mind - that would get me to the end.

I don't know which I'm more curious about -- what makes you give up or what keeps you coming back, but that sounds like a different discussion.

[nnyhav]

I always try to reread the first time around. But of what I've rereread the most:
Nabokov: Pale Fire, Speak Memory, Pnin, Lolita
Borges
Pynchon: Gravity's Rainbow
Joyce: Ulysses
Pessoa: The Book of Disquiet
Poe
Melville shorts (keep meaning to cast off again in Moby-Dick, but ...)
But there are many others to which I'd return again if there wasn't so much else yet to read.

[Paul]

I do have sympathy with the view that there are just too many good books to waste time re-reading. Theoretically, I can't argue with that. But, personally, I find great rewards in revisiting certain books.

Although I'm not sure I really want to read all of Ulysses again - despite its greatness - I have definitely dipped into it now and again. The stream of consciousness/semi-dream ending is particularly re-readable.

And, The Hitchiker's Guide... utterly re-readable. I didn't know there was an audio-book with Douglas Adams reading. I leant my tapes of the original BBC radio series to someone years ago, and never got them back.

[Mirabell]

I'm only rereading books when I have to. With everything else I get the feeling I'm squandering my time when I could read a new book.

[saliotthomas]

Because suply was always there Mirabell.Sometime your stuck somewhere with very few books and you learn to go deeper where you can.

The book i read the most was Leo the African by Hamin Maalouf,and i am nearly sorry to have a vast choice now keeping me from reading it again.It might have been close to 10 times.

I read in dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux the story of this political prisonner in Ethiopia that read Gone with the wind for 8 years,to himself and other prisonners,every days.He end up doing a translation in the local linguo on cigarette paper that the one living the prison would smuggle out.And it toke him 7 year to find the guys again and complite the book.
Just the image of all these Ethipians in jail listening to scarlette story,wandering...

[Heteronym]

Books I've read more than once include:

The Black Dahlia, James Ellroy: once in Portuguese, another one in English. It's the best crime novel I've ever read.

Dada: Art and Anti-Art, Hans Richter: the history of Dada written by one of its original members, in a mixture of critical detachment, celebration and elegy. This book nearly always makes me cry.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll: it's the best book ever written, don't you know?

Fantomas Contra los Vampiros Multinacionales, Julio Cortázar: one of Cortázar's most interesting experiments. A mixture of novel with comic book; funny, serious, intelligent, a joy for comics fans like me.

[sarah1952]

I can't remember how many times I have read "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott. The story of the March family just gets me with the growing up of Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth. I cry each and every time that Beth dies, and find it a wonderful book to read aloud. What a satisfying book.

I love many Charles Dickens novels but my favorite, and the one I come back to over and over is "Great Expectations". It is a great book of characters, both demented and redemtive, and the unrequited love always gets me. I love that Pip's one act of kindness brings him rewards from the convict. All Dickens novels are fun to read aloud, "Great Expectations" is no exception.

Sarah

[Sybarite]

I'm sure there will come a time when I return to some of those that I have read for the first time in the last few years, and I do intend to re-read a number of books that I first read around 20 years ago and don't remember, but in terms of regular re-reads, then really just three:

• Death in Venice by Thomas Mann;

• The Tin Drum by Günter Grass;

• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

• the Philip Marlowe novels of Raymond Chandler and the Maigret novels of Georges Simenon.

Having said that, in recent years I have to books that I first read at school, only to appreciate them now where I once hated them. William Golding's Lord of the Flies and Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd are two such examples. And I've also re-read a couple of children's classics – Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, which are interesting to see from an adult perspective.

[nnyhav]

Blogspotting: Michelle Richmond (The Year of Fog) guestposting at Ecstatic Days, on books she will always return to. (gotta look around for a Lars Gustafsson thread now ...)

[fausto]

The last book I reread was Pynchon's V.:it was so good -- I felt a new dimension was added to my understanding of the book -- that I think, as I usually do, "damn! I must reread more!". I never do though -- or nor more than a couple a year. I should, especially for writers such as Pynchon and Gaddis but also for books I read when still a teen: some of them I'm sure would greatly benefit from the experience I acquired since then.

[Mirabell]

some of them I'm sure would greatly benefit from the experience I acquired since then.

I agree. I have read most of my German classics in that time and only slowly, these past two years, have been rereading them and it's been a revealing read each time.

[Sybarite]

Originally Posted by fausto

... some of them I'm sure would greatly benefit from the experience I acquired since then.

That's really struck me recently.

About 19 years ago, I had a phase of reading some literary novels. But the only thing that I remember about them was that I read them. In the last few weeks, I've re-read a couple – quite frankly, they were effectively new books. I'm sure that I read them differently last time.

[Liam]

The "Big 10," annually:

• The Bible
• The Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen
• To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
• King Lear by William Shakespeare
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• The Odyssey by Homer
• The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
• The Tempest by William Shakespeare
• Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

Also, lots and lots and lots of poetry.

[Daniel del Real]

Not a big re-reader also. But I can tell you some of them I read more than twice and will keep on reading

García Márquez- Cien años de soledad
García Márquez- El Amor en los Tiempos del cólera
José Saramago- Ensayo sobre la ceguera
Albert Camus- L'etranger
Borges- Ficciones