Repeat readers- what's the book you have been reading for longest, and do you still have the original?

Little Woman.

Its my comfort read.

The Belgariad by David Eddings is my longest running, continuously owned series (just over 30 years). I'm on a second set of books as I wore the first set out.

I've been finding books I remember from my childhood to read to the DDs, last week I bought '99 Dragons' and have read it to DD1 (6).

Confining myself to the old ones it would have to be 'Shadow the Sheepdog' by Enid Blyton which is surprisingly obscure and the Dr Syn books by Russell Thorndike which I discovered whilst on a school trip to St Mary's Bay. My own children have loved them too - we now live on a farm and have a sheep dog and we took them to Dymchurch when they were younger for a Dr Syn Weekend complete with costumes!

I still remember certain lines from Jill's Pony Club though it's maybe two decades since I last read it.

As a child the only two I remember owning were "Jill and the Perfect Pony" and "Rosettes For Jill", others I borrowed from friends.

When DD was old enough I introduced her to Jill and we tracked down the whole lot second hand on Amazon and bot enjoyed them thoroughly.

As for remembering certain lines - if we are out for a walk on a cold day and considering cutting it short I am still apt to say "Yes, let's cut for the crumpets" (Jill and the PP) which DD understands, DH now recognises but probably bewilders anyone else.

Two Pence to cross the Mersey! Ive been reading it (and other two of the trilogy Liverpool Miss and By the waters of Liverpool) since I was a young teenager. I LOVE the copies I have, they belonged to my Grandmother and they have her name in the front

Pawprints, Lens Dunham (Girls ) has tattoos of Ferdinand the bull book illustrations

Just read BFG to my DD aged 6, had to re-Sellotape all the pages into the book as the last Sellotape had lost its stick and gone yellow from when I read it 25 years ago. Lets hope this copy last another 25 years though! I holding Anne of GG for next year and a book called Eva about a girl who wakes up in a chimps body (probably for reading in a couple if years).

Maeve Binchy's light a penny candle . I've read it countless times . Could be time for another go

My very first book was Ferdinand the Bull back in 1952, and I still have that book. It had the most brilliant illustrations, and intriguing words like matador!

My favourite book of all time is 'Shadow of the Moon' by MM Kaye. First published in 1957, I dicovered a hardback copy on my school library shelves. It was dark blue with the title in gold lettering and looked like a dusty old classic from an English literature class. I was spellbound. I read it three times. I managed to get hold of a 1984 edition in a second hand bookshop and since then it has held pride of place on my bookshelf. Quoting from the blurb on the back cover: India, that vast glittering cruel mysterious. And su baked continent burst into flaming hate reds and bitter bloodshed during the dark days of the mutiny ....... Read it!

Diary of a provincial lady. ..my school library sold it off as old stock so I've had it about 40 years. And a Just William book

Pride and Prejudice an edition from the BBC version in 1979 when I was 17. Fell in love with it. Read over and over, it's now falling to pieces but hardly matters as I can quote pretty well all of it......Other than that 'Rebecca' read for the first time about 2 years earlier, not so re-readable.
I still have Paddington abroad (from about 1968) read to me by my father and older sister when I was six and they kept laughing before they could get the words out. I read to both my sons and same thing happened.

Flowers in the Attic

I need to hang my head in shame.

I have a young adult novel called "are you listening, Karen?" which I have owned since I was 8, 28 years ago - I was probably too young for it at the time as the subject matter is quite intense - a 17 year old boy who drinks, smokes, tries to get off with girls, talking to his sister who has recently died. The whole story is meant to be him sitting in the graveyard telling her everything from his point of view.
It is just the best book and I absolutely love it. The depiction of 17 year olds in the 80s, the way that the love story and the book itself are so unresolved - I have never met anyone else who has read it but I would love to - I think the author was quite young, and I haven't found anything else he has written, although every now and again I have a Google!

Funny, as an adult, I don't really have any adult books that I re-read. I still read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books.

Two exceptions to this: I recently re-read In the Place of Fallen Leaves by Tim Pears (not as good second time) and I plan to re-read The God of Small Things (really hoping it's as good the third time!)

This is a nice thread.
I haven't read any of my childhood favourites for a very long time - they all got given away. I'd hoped my daughter would love the same books as I did (Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, the Jill books etc) but she didn't, so I haven't read them again.

As an adult, the one book I have read over and over, oddly, is A Summer Bird Cage by Margaret Drabble. I bought it at 16, read it, lent it to a friend, who ended up damaging it by reading it on holiday, so she bought me another copy. I kept that copy at my dad's house (rather than in my own) and every time I went home I'd read it again for some reason. Quite odd, now I think about it. But it means I've read it dozens of times.

My dad died, and the awful thing is I'm not sure if I brought the book home with me or gave it away with the other books I had there. But if I still have it, it means it's about 35 years old.

I've still got lots of books from when I was a child, in various stages of deterioration. Some still have the numbers on them from when my sister and I used to play libraries.

My Puffin copy of The Secret Garden has the price on the back - 12 and a half pence

My copy of Cider with Rosie fell apart completely last year so I treated myself to the new hardback anniversary edition. I cut off the front cover of the old one to use as a bookmark in the new one before I threw it away.

I have a book my DF was given as a school prize in 1934 but don't really read it.

I had completely forgotten about the Jill books.

DS has the Silver Sword from his primary school library. Must take it back.

FishWithABicycle Mine is also The Ordinary Princess! My sister and I read it to death as children and I'm fairly certain she nabbed it from my parents' house when she moved away.

She sent me a new copy for Christmas 2013 after seeing it languishing on my Amazon wishlist. It still reads as well as it did when I was nine.

Mamamary (autocorrect wants you to be called mammary ) do you remember the "actually" quote? (Though it's probably from Jill's Gymkhana)
"Actually" (which at my school you weren't allowed to say until you were 16)'
Something like that anyway
I can remember thinking a 10-yr-old's version of WTF the first time I read it!

Ian Serrailler, The Silver Sword.

My DDad nicked it from school when he was 11-12. He has just turned 60.

I still remember certain lines from Jill's Pony Club though it's maybe two decades since I last read it. Because of many re-readings they're still ingrained on the mind so many years later!

A book I probably read even more was Rosina Copper.