What books do you re-read regularly?

I re-read Rebecca most years and A Christmas Carol at Christmas.

I re-read These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer recently (thanks for the recommendation, MN) and was surprised at how witty it is.

now you've inspired me to read her autobiography before the re -reads begin!

Make sure also to read her memoir Come Tell Me How You Live.

I was going to say more, but not sure how much you know about her life, so won't pre-empt your reading.

Those are certainly two favourite rereads of mine! I'm not that interested in the identity of the 'poltergeist' in Gaudy Night, it's more the brilliant evocation of a women's college of that period, Oxford, all of the preoccupations and worries about women, work and marriage, and the love story with ghastly Peter Wimsey.

See, that's a deeply weird attitude to me, unless you only ever read the kind of stripped-down thriller whose sole point is a twisty plot and a surprise ending.

Aren't you ever reading to be plunged into a world, or a particular writer's sensibility, for characters who are familiar enough to feel like old friends? Or for the different charge that the same novel (or poem, or play) can have over time?

I did recently read Andrea Mara's All Her Fault, not my usual kind of book, and I can absolutely see with that, without individuated characters as such and with no particular evocation of a fictional world, and written in basic, efficient prose, you are only reading for the plot. Once you find out who kidnapped the child and why and what happens afterwards, there would be no reason to ever reread it. It's a one-time only book.

But most novels aren't like that.

Something like Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, which is at one level also a tense psychological thriller where you read to find out what happens, also plunges you into a particular setting, a lush English country house haunted by a dead woman, and it's also designed to be reread. The first time you read it you share the initial innocence of the second Mrs de Winter. The second time you've lost your innocence and read it entirely differently.

Surely knowing the ending ruins it?

No.

In a good book, there's always something new to notice. The way the author develops the plot and characters or the descriptive writing for scene setting. In a crime novel, noticing the way the author drops in the clues.

Persuasion and Gaudy Night are two books I've read many times but I always find something new.

With Agatha Christie, having read her autobiography, seeing how she uses bits of her own experiences in her novels.

With Georgette Heyer, it's the wit and sparkle of the writing.

Sure it’s the same as watching the same film or listening to the same songs.

The Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Reilly. Have read through all 8 books at least four times since I bought them. Love them.

The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher every summer and The Winter Solstice by the same author every winter. Both are the equivalent of wrapping yourself up in the softest duvet.

Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice often.

a new one I’ve read a few times now is Weyward by Emilia Hart - love the female power in this.

I'm envious, @ElizabethVonArnim - I've re-read my Heyers so often every paragraph is familiar! Ditto P&P and Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day.

Did world and Wodehouse are endlessly re-readable as well - the joy of the language matters more than the plot.

@DustyMaiden - can't you listen to the same albums on repeat? Why does knowing where it goes spoil it? The journey is still worth making when you know the destination.

Stephen king is my all time favourite. Been reading him for 40 years. Jo jo moyes is another favourite

I’m an audiobook listener so I’m slightly different.

every Christmas I re listen to Harry Potter.

I have re listened to every book Blake crouch has done.

relistened to everything Jodi Taylor has written far too many times it is embarrassing especially the st Mary’s books.

I have read listened to Michael woods books. Both the Matilda dark series and his standalone.

I go through periods where my medical problems are a lot harder so I put stuff on I don’t have to think about much. But I listen to audiobooks all day at work so I can get through three sometimes four a week. I don’t like to watch tv either. So I will sit on my iPad in the evening and do some jigsaws and listen as well.

The Poldark novels by Winston Graham are old friends. I used to re-read a lot but not so much now that I have a lot more books to choose from.
I'm currently having a Dick Francis season. I'd forgotten how great they are.

I read a Christmas Carol every December but other than that I don't re-read.

Dorothy Dunnett Lymond series.

I can’t really think of any fiction that I’m would want in hardback. I’d rather have an interiors book or perhaps something travel or design related with beautiful pictures that I’d never treat myself to normally.

Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalet Chronicles, the four big Nancy Mitfords, I Capture the Castle, Cold Comfort Farm, Antonia Forest's Marlow series, Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies (but not the Mirror and the Light, oddly), the Slow Horses series.

I find the idea of rereading books strange unless decades have passed and you’ve forgotten most of it. Surely knowing the ending ruins it?

The Grapes of Wrath, all the Arthur Ransome series (inherited from my Mum), Dorothy L Sayers' Peter Wimsey stories and Rosamund Pilcher for true comfort reading.

The sea, the sea by Iris Murdoch

The Outlander Series by Diana Gabledon.

Anna Karenina