Books you wish you could read for the 1st time again

Life after Life by Kate Atkinson
The thirteenth tale by Diane Setterfield
Toms midnight garden by Philippa Pearce
The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M Boston

And these!!! I don’t know anyone who has read Strike and hasn’t fallen in love with him the books.
and the Jackson Brodie books too-both series gripping from the start!

Currently reading This is Happiness and absolutely loving it. I also second or third or fourth the hearts invisible furies by John Boyne.
Also, East of Eden, the master & margarita, the bad girl and the secret history.

I'm afraid Life of Pi is another book I definitely cannot read again - maybe I'm just a bit too sensitive!

Light a Penny Candle by Maeve Binchy
Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick
Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe
Fatal Vision by Joe McGuinness
Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly

Life of Pi. I watched the film with DD10 last weekend and it was so exciting seeing her experience the story for the first time.

Oh gosh I'd forgotten the Casual Vacancy - I nearly gave up in the first half because it seemed a bit slow but the later bits properly had me gripped and made me cry, I can't remember any other book doing that. I really don't think I could read it again knowing the ending though.

All 20 books of Patrick O Brien’s Aubrey/Maturin nautical series. Two wonderful characters, you can sail around the World with them, fight in the battles with them, they fall in love, they have the kind of adventures most folks can only dream about. I have the whole lot as books, but enjoy listening to the unabridged audio books as well. (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World was filmed with Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany.)

Wishing you a good recovery.

Where the crawdads sing.

most, if not all of John Marr’s books. Same with Riley Sager.

The Hobbit.

Three men in a boat (Jerome k Jerome)

Outlander - Diana Gabaldon

Wish you better!

Henry — rude, pale, wears tiny glasses, is brilliant at Greek
Bunny — rude, honking boor, leeches off everyone,
Francis — hypochondriac rich boy with a country house
Charles — blonde boy twin, slightly less rude
Camilla — blonde girl twin, compellingly beautiful
Richard — suburban Californian pretending not to be, in love with the rest of them, cosplaying as old money via a few purchases in the thrift shop.

Even if it didn’t think it’s was an ethically dubious piece of misery porn, I’d hesitate to recommend it to someone who is feeling bored and sad because they’re immobilised and recovering from surgery!

OP, I think I’d be very careful about what I immersed myself in if my mood was (understandably) low, and pay attention to what I liked.

What I wish I could read for the first time but think are fairly ‘safe’, while brilliant, are (as everyone else said) all of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte’s Villette, Elizabeth Bowen’s short stories, Somerville and Ross’s The Real Charlotte, Kate O”Brien’s Mary Lavelle and As Music and Splendour, Stendhal’s Le rouge et le noir, Chekhov’s short stories, all of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Rebecca West’s The Fountain Overflows trilogy, Flann O’Brien’s At Swim Two Birds, Miriam Toews’ All My Puny Sorrows, Marguerite Duras’ The Lover.

If you like magic realism, have you read Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits?

Best wishes for your recovery.

Stoner by John Edward Williams

If you need something which doesn’t require huge levels of concentration but is absorbing, I’d recommend the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling), or any of Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie novels.

I would also second the recommendation for Maggie O’Farrell, my favourites so far are Hamnet, The Marriage Portrait and Instructions for a Heatwave, but I’ve never found one I didn’t enjoy.

The lady vanishes by Ethel Lina White , you can't read it twice !

My favourite for this sort of circumstance is Olivia Manning's The Balkan Trilogy, followed by the Levant Trilogy if time allows. The story of Harriet and Guy has seen me through many illnesses and crises and I can't really imagine life without them - I'm on my second copy of the book, my first copy just fell apart.
Six weeks might not be long enough, but I would love to to sit down and read the whole of Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time again. I read it a long time ago while I was working and had young children, and it took me a year to get through it. I'd like to start again with more time and a greater ability to lose myself in the story and the characters.

The Poisonwood Bible
I Capture the Castle
Jane Eyre
The Historian

Guy Gavriel Kay - the Lions of Al Rassan, A song for Arbonne, and the 2 books of The Sarantine Mosaic

Another vote for Discworld, the Slow Horses series, LOTR, Captain Corelli’s mandolin, Thursday Murder Club books, Georgette Heyer. In addition I don’t think anyone has mentioned the Millennium Trilogy(girl with the dragon tattoo etc) I also like a vicar/detective series by Rev Richard Coles. My late DP was a big fan of the Charlie Parker books by John Connolly. Not my thing (combination of PI and supernatural) but I used to pre-order them for him whenever there was a new one and he devoured them. (He always complained that they didn’t come fast enough and he would die before the story ended which proved to be the case sadly)

I loved her Pern when I was a teenager. Are the ones by her son rubbish?

Gods in Alabama. I don’t know why but it always sticks with me.

Following with interest ! Happy to see many of mine here….and many to follow up on.
I would add Sophie’s Choice as there is no way to replicate the shock of the denouement of the title a second time…and I read it before the film came out. Many à time I overshot my tube stop with my nose buried in it !
(This is not Sophie World btw which I have read too but bit vague about it)
Hope you have much inspiration OP ! 💐

I strongly recommend checking out The End of the World Reading Club! They send you a box with a dystopian novel in it and loads of gifts. You open each gift when you get to the page number on the gift and it's something that brings the story to life. So it might be that the people in the story are eating lemon sherberts and you get a pack of those, or they're listening to a song and you get a link to a Spotify sound track. Honestly they're fantastic. You can get a one off box where you know what the book is, or you can trust them to choose it for you.

The Lord of the Rings
Tigana, A Song for Arbonne really anything by Guy Gavriel Kay
Thomas Covenant Chronicles - Stephen Donaldson
Pern Series by Anne McCaffrey - but not the books her son wrote

My Sisters Keeper - Jodi Picoult