It’s a really interesting question, because not all books are suitable for re-reading. What is mean is, there are lots of books I’ve loved, yet have no intention of ever picking up again. So, for example, I loved Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, and also To the Lighthouse, yet doubt I’ll ever re-read them. I also enjoyed H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, Anthony Burgess’ Earthly Powers, Defoe’s Moll Flanders, etc, but know I’ll never re-read them either. Nor will I re-read Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Jude the Obscure, Women in Love, or Middlemarch. Why? I don’t know.
Yet Agatha Christie, the Sherlock Holmes books, P. G. Wodehouse, C J Sansom’s Shardlake books, Pride and Prejudice, A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, David Copperfield, Edward St Aubyn’s Melrose series, etc, I will re-read throughout my life. It’s strange. I loved Wilde’s Dorian Gray and Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited equally, yet I only want to re-read Wilde. I loved Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim and Wodehouse’s Right Ho Jeeves, yet I only want to re-read Wodehouse. I can’t explain it.