Books you wish you could read for the 1st time again

[BusyTraybake]

I am currently in bed recovering from surgery. I can expect to be immobile for 6 weeks and I am already bored out of my mind. I actually had a little cry earlier as I am so claustrophobic already.

I have found reading helps. Please recommend any books you wish you could read again for the first time.

Thanks in advance. In desperate in need of mental stimulation as I have turned to food which is not something I usually obsess over. Probably would be best for my overall recovery if I don’t pile on a pad of weight.

My answer to the question: never let me go, love in a time of cholera and persuasion

Lessons is pretty good.

So many already listed, and a few others:
Rebecca
Lord of the Rings
Chalet School series
Georgette Heyer - any
Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities - vividly remember finishing this on a train with tears in my eyes, and I never cry
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series & Good Omens
Pride and Prejudice
Agatha Christie books - remember finding these at the age of 10 and being hooked
Alan Bennett’s diaries
Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond and Niccolo series
Dorothy L Sayers Wimsey books
Life After Life
and so many more…

Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice
Douglas Adams: Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
P. G. Wodehouse: Right Ho Jeeves
Patrick Fermor: A Time of Gifts
Aldous Huxley: Chrome Yellow and his essays
George Orwell: Essays
Evelyn Waugh: Brideshead Revisited
Oscar Wilde: Dorian Gray
Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Bookworm by Lucy Mangan
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Any of Barbara Trapido’s books
Possession by AS Byatt

Song of Achilles
The 1000 Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
The Kiterunner
The Marriage Portrait
Jane Austen - the big 4
Fatherland
Wolf Hall
The Pursuit of Love
And then there were none

To name a few!

I loved all of these!

I find threads like this so interesting because opinions vary so widely! I loathed The God of Small Things because of exactly the reason you loved it! I found the language ungrammatical and infuriating and hard to follow!

The Magus - John Fowles
The Dumb House - John Burnside
The secret history - Donna Tartt
The Lost continent - bill bryson (first book I laughed out loud at)

Amazing book but I could not read it again!

The man in the iron mask - Alexandre Dumas for the classics

Daughter of the Empire - Raymond E Feist and Jenny Hurts for fantasy

Suzanne: of Love and Art - Elaine Todd Koren for biography (set in Paris 1800s), she was a muse for Toulouse Lautrec but an artist in her own right.

Snowbound - Blake Crouch for thriller, they should make this into a movie and as fantastical as it seems, it is also all based in logic.

Others: The midnight library - Matt Haig about what could be if we lived in parallel universe and Graham Norton does some easy reading books which are decent.

Jenny hurts should read Janny wurts; bloody autocorrect.

1984
The only book that's ever made me gasp out loud

Station 11 - strangely uplifting post apocalypse story

The Summer book by Tove Jansen - lovely focus on a relationship between a grandma & granddaughter and the Finnish lakes

Agree that the girl with all the gifts is a great book and a gripping narrative if you like that we are all completely beside ourselves is similar in tone.

The Thorn birds.
Memoirs of a Geshia.
Atonement.
Love lies Bleeding.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. Best wishes for your recovery

Riders, Rivals and Polo by Jilly Cooper.
They're my ultimate, immersive comfort reads and I won't hear a bad word said about them 😁.

The hand that first held mine-Maggie o’farrell
a discovery of witches-Deborah Harkness

Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian - the first book I remember falling in love with as a child and read regularly ever since.

Love all the books you mention OP

Off the top of my head:
100 Years of Solitude - GGM
Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell (anything by MOF, really)
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry (the audible of this is INCREDIBLE)
A God in Ruins - Much preferred to Life after Death
Year of Wonder - Geraldine Brooks (God I love this book. It's the one I recommend more than any other book)
Burial Rites - One of the most moving novels I've ever read
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt (I preferred this to The Secret History)
11/22/63 - Stephen King. Just brilliant
Beloved - Toni Morrison (for when you want to SOB)
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver (and also Demon Copperhead)

I'll third Fingersmith.

I loved the House of Sleep. I’ve never met anyone else who has read it!

yes, but so depressing when u are I hospital!

If you’re not familiar with it, Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a great book to discover the first time.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

The Shell Seekers - Rosamunde Pilcher