it;'s best the twelfth time - re-reads!

I've just ordered Frost in May, the Country child and the L shaped room from amazon as I think i'm gonna love these after your recommendations.

Thanks folks!

There's nothing better than sitting down with a book that is great.

has anyone ever read "The Orchard on Fire" by shena Mackay? I love her descriptive writing. i read it a lot, it's a real favourite with me because the village and characters are so much like the village i grew up in (luckily without the child abuse).

Must re read 'The Chrysalids" Loved it and I'm sure I'd see a lot more in it now.

Also read "The handmaid's Tale" recently after hearing about it on 'woman's hour". A very original read.

Don't think i've read any of books already mentioned! I love The Secret History by Donna Tartt, Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (both given to me by ex boyf, lots of nice memories) and To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. (Read it at school, taught by amazing teacher who also loved the book, think her enthusiasm for it rubbed off on me)

His Dark Materials
The Collector
Harry Potter
Great Gatsby
Assassins Books (Robin Hobb)
The Chrysalids

i think Decca Dear is quite lovely but do see your point - what about Jasmine (as in Jassy) or Constance (can't quite see Constancia??)

A Prayer For Owen Meany-fab! was just thinking today how I must reread it. Don't normally reread things cos I think I should move on to something new, but can't get rid of them either.

XH once asked if I could just "get rid of the ones I had read"( to make space for something). DOH!

[writes down Leo Rosten]

choosyfloosy - Molesworth -chizz chizz !uterley grate !

Have other people discovered the joys of the Hyman Kaplan books (by Leo Rosten) ? I'd love to re read these !

Am amazed at all these re-readings! I hardly ever revisit books.

But ... I do read P G Wodehouse, especially "Code of the Woosters" every couple of years, and laugh like a loon. Marvellous invalid reading.

And I did read the Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood) twice.

Oh and Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth - two readings, and for one of those I wasn't even pregnant, just very broody !!

Howq could I forget Brat Farrar and Miss Pym Disposes choosy (but yes the politics are hard to stomach these days)

ooh ths is interesting - do people who like to reread also like the same stuff, as lots of this is very familiar?

All the Mitfords - although tBH i have finally reached the point with Pursuit of Love where I know it almost by heart - might have to go back to it again in 30 years.
Tyaca, have you read A Fine Old Conflict yet - vol II of Jessica Mitford's life (according to her anyway!)
Molesworth. Can't wait to introduce it to ds and tuough him up continually.
All the Jane Austens except Northanger Abbey and Emma only intermittently.
Clive James' 3 TV criticism collections.
Cold Comfort Farm.
Josephine Tey and Dorothy L Sayers, although I find it harder and harder to overlook the politics.
Georgette Heyer en masse. Dick Francis on masse. Noel Stretfeild en masse, esp White Boots (oh for a doctor who would prescribe ice-skating for me).
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr.

Message withdrawn

Some of my favourites here...
I regularly re-read all of these

Tales of the City
Robertson Davies' Salterton Trilogy
Mary McCarthy The Group
Strong Poison/Have His Carcase/Gaudy Night
I Claudius/Claudius the God
Persuasion
War and Peace (honestly - I only discovered it in my 30s I'm ashamed to say)
Gillian Bradshaw - The Beacon at Alexandria

tyaca - hope you like it !!

Madame Bovary
Far From the Madding Crowd

But on the whole I am such a slow reader I don't re-read books because there are so many I want to read.

Love in a Cold Climate is perfect. So is The Blessing and Pursuit of Love.

Right, have just been and got second-hand copy of Love in a Cold Climate off Amazon. All the other choices on this thread seem pretty kindred (as Anne Shirley might say) so I reckon I'll like that too. Hurrah - I love discovering authors I haven't read before!

Ah,Love in a Cold Climate - 'abroad is unutterably bloody and all foreigners are fiends' (so said Fa)

when I feel very sorry for myself Chalet School hardbacks!

And The Worst Journey in the World

and Nesbit and the Hobbit

and bits of Pepys

I read Austin over and over like everyone else. I used to read Children of the Star by Sylvia Engdahl when I was younger and I bought another copy a few years ago and have read it several times (so in total it's well in excess of 12).

When I need something calming I read A place of my own, it isn't a novel, it's an account of a man building a home office in his garden and is beautifully written and soothing. When I need cheering up I read Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie, it makes me laugh.

ha, snap lillian...

also going through this thread has reminded me of Tales of the City and the Great Gatsby, I've read those more times than I can remember.

Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love - I read them whenever I'm feeling a bit miserable.

And Fortunes of War by Olivia Manning. In fact I haven't had that one out for a while... maybe it's time.

Top comfort reads are Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love, Brideshead Revisited (revisted countless times!) and for children's books it has to be The Secret Garden (luckily have managed to get dd hooked so can read it any number of times). Otherwise anything by Jane Austen and definitely Cold Comfort Farm.

ANd the next sequel to L-shaped room and The Backward Shadow is Two is Lonely. I've read all three many times! But I didn't like the film at all.

I am now very tempted to biy copies of Anne of Green Gables (and all fifty of the sequels) and The Railway Children, thanks everyone