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Novels worth reading more than twice.

90 replies

AudiobookListener · 13/07/2024 16:55

I'm currently rereading a book from my childhood "Little Katia" by E M Almedingen which I've read perhaps 20 times. I love the feeling of rereading but I've only read a very few novels more than twice. I've properly read Jane Eyre 9 times and Day of the Trifids about 5. Some Jane Austen I've read 3 times, as well as all the Sherlock Holmes stories and Robinson Crusoe. These are all books I first read as a child. Now I'm looking to expand my repertoire.

Which novels are worthy of multiple rereads?

OP posts:
Blackcats7 · 13/07/2024 19:49

I like to re read for comfort so lots of books but The Cazalet Chonicles are a particularly great read however many times later.

Prometheus · 13/07/2024 19:49

Vanity Fair
Forstye Saga
Historical biographies (Antonia Fraser etc)

WolfFoxHare · 13/07/2024 19:47

Oh yes, Heyer and Wodehouse. An excellent Heyer/Austen/Eyre-esque writer I have enjoyed re-reading is Jude Morgan (some of his are lighter, Heyer-types, some weightier).

Bollockybollocky · 13/07/2024 19:45

Lots of those already mentioned but also lots of Wodehouse.

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 13/07/2024 19:43

A Thousand Splendid Suns.

llamajohn · 13/07/2024 19:39

Animal Farm
Of Mice and Men

user1471453601 · 13/07/2024 19:37

A Prayer for Owen Meany.

And

the Stand - the long version.

ViscountessMelbourne · 13/07/2024 19:35

There's a distinction between books you reread for comfort, like Georgette Heyer, Terry Pratchett or Harry Potter, and books you reread because there's more to get out of them like Jane Austen or Moby Dick.

I'd put Les Liaisons Dangereuses, A Song Of Ice and Fire, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Left Hand of Darkness into the latter category.

Ballet Shoes is somewhere in between, because it's a total comfort read but my perspective on it changes every time. Ditto Dracula I think.

WolfFoxHare · 13/07/2024 19:30

Watership Down
Anything by Edith Pargeter
Anything by Mary Renault
The Aubrey-Maturin series
Antonia Forest
The Crystal Cave trilogy
Some of Margaret Atwood
Austen

All brilliant and worth re-reading for the quality of the writing.

Then comfort re-reads like Stephen King, Terry Pratchett, JK Rowling, CS Lewis, Tolkien, Robin Hobb.

Bigoldmachine · 13/07/2024 19:25

We have always lived in the castle (my favourite book ever)
i am legend
the grapes of wrath
to kill a mockingbird

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 13/07/2024 19:20

Middlemarch

OlgaBracley · 13/07/2024 19:19

All the Mapp and Lucia novels by E.F. Benson
Diary of a Nobody by Grossmith
All the Jane Austen novels
All the Bronte novels
Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
All the Miss Marple and Poirot novels by Agatha Christie

BiggerBoat1 · 13/07/2024 17:47

I agree with I Capture The Castle. I could read Skellig over and over.
I’ve read the entire Tales of the City series twice and would read it again.
I’ve only read The Mariage Portrait once, but already want to read it again.

FizzingAda · 13/07/2024 17:42

House on the Strand by du Maurier
Lord of the Rings
The Unlikely Ones by Mary Brown
Wutherineg a heights and Jane Eyre
Norah Lofts House trilogy, plus lots of her other books
Dracula
Manda Scott's four Boudicca books
all of Maeve Binchy (like putting on comfy slippers)

Thesnoozingsighthound · 13/07/2024 17:18

I don’t reread multiple times with many books, but these three I reread every couple of years:
Little Women
Pride and Prejudice
I Capture the Castle
As with you, these are all classic comforting books from childhood. I may reread a book from recent years again, but I’m much less likely to do so multiple times.

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