To re-read books?

[Clary]

Not a terrifically serious AIBU but still...

Just from a throwaway comment on another thread, do other peopel re-read books or not then?

I mentioned sthg about it at my book group and was met with horror at the idea.

I could give you a list of at least 30 books I have read many times (Austen, Sayers, Fitzgerald, Mrs Miniver), and others I have casually re-read. Eg I read Time Traveller's Wife 3 times (2nd time for book club; third time before I saw film); or Agatha Christies; or Anne Tyler books etc etc.

Not sure why I do it - is it a comfort thing maybe?

Am I a bit weird?

[stubbornstains]

Middle aged. (How's that for a Freudian slip?). Breastfeeding.

[NicknameTaken]

I tore through the whole Aubrey/Maturin series one summer, but somehow can't reread them.

Can't do PG Wodehouse any more.

I see books I once loved in the library and pat them fondly and moved on.

[LadyGlencoraPalliser]

SauerKraut, I love Elizabeth Goudge. I've read Green Dolphin Country a few times - and City of Bells and my favourite The Dean's Watch.

[LadyGlencoraPalliser]

Clary - Barbara Trapido? I haven't read her for years but I loved that book.

[Clary]

Thank you LGp, Barbara Trapido, she did lots of fabbo books.

Sadly a lot of mine are beign stored at my mums.

[theyoungvisiter]

Stubbornstains - no I'm not a muddle/middle aged man! I'm an early 30s woman .

I read Elizabeth Gouge as Elizabeth George, who I HATE with a passion, I find her utterly unreadable and it bugs me beyond belief that so many people compare her to DL Sayers who is an INFINITELY finer writer and would scorn to produce the clunking monstrosities of pretension that George regularly churns out instead of coherent sentences.

Elizabeth Gouge however, I think I read her as a child. Did she write Smoky House? If so I loved it

[theyoungvisiter]

dittany - perhaps, like coffee table books, to show off the books they have read? Ie "I have both Proust and Adrian Mole on my shelves so I am clearly a cosmopolitan, cultivated person with, nevertheless, a sharp sense of the absurd and a wicked sense of humour"?

I am slightly guilty of this as all my bookshelves are double-parked due to lack of space and I do occasionally find myself looking at a particularly unedifying volume and deciding that will be one for the invisible back row

[theyoungvisiter]

what, double parking books or showing off?!

The delight of double-shelving is that when you change them round you find all sorts of treasures you had quite forgotten about, and get to read them as if almost new. The downside is of course being quite unable to find anything specific if it's on the back row. But that's better than [horrors] throwing them out!!!

[scaryteacher]

I reread all the time, for comfort (flu books); if I didn't understand it first time round; because I didn't read it first time round (Middlemarch for degree); because I forgot I had it; because they are ones I reread once a year (Dorothy Dunnett, Lymond Chronicles); because I like and enjoy the author (esp PD James, DL Sayers and Margery Allingham); because I only got half way through a series (Aubrey/Maturin and forgot where I was).

Books are old friends and very comforting like old friends as well.

[theyoungvisiter]

scaryteacher, did you know the Lymond chronicles are out of print!?!

I read number 1 and was totally unable to get any of the others. Tragedy!

[Jux]

I put my unedifying volumes on the top top top shelf where the titles are too far away for any but the most sharp sighted to be able to read!

[TheArmadillo]

I re read all my books. Even if they weren't that great the first time round. I own a ridiculous number of books. Dp is the same adn ds is turning out to be the same.

I don't with films or tv programmes though - even my favourite I would watch maybe once every 5-10 years.

I think people who re watch films alot are weird.

[Winibaghoul]

I reread all the time. especially books that I loved growing up. Goodnight mr tom, anne of green gables, diana wynne jones books, jane eyre, pride and prejudice, discworld books, the hobbit, the outsiders, Feist's magician, janny wurts cycle of fire, the railway children, a little princess.
Funnily enough, I can't reread LOTR. Love it, but just can't reread it.

[chocolaterabbit]

YANBU. I have a lot of books and if I have only read them once in a few years I tend to clear them out and give to a charity shop. Most are re-read, many several times. As weblette said, it is like meeting an old friend again. It also saves me a fortune - I dread to think how much I would spend on books and library fines if I didn't re-read!

[CountessVonKnackerstein]

Well at the expense of looking like a right plonker, I re-read all my Virginia Andrews series when I was pregnant with DS, and I would never part with them, they were an intrinsic part of growing up.

ATM I am reading Charlie and The Chocolate Factory in bed!

[GrendelsMum]

My thinking is that the test of a good book is that you can read it over and over again, and find something different each time, or simply enjoy the skill of the write again. I don't keep books I won't re-read.

And I'd agree with lots of other people here - Austen, Trollope, Heyer, Sayers, all bear rereading.

[fridascruffs]

Am currently re-reading Goergette Heyer's entire oeuvre.

[Clary]

Amazed and delighted about all the DL sayers fans out there

We should start a quote-swap club. I didn't know anyoen else apart from my sister and my dad shared this passion!

[Flamebat]

I re-read a lot - I was comfort reading during pregnancy and did mostly re-reads then. My mum never re-reads though.

[alysonpeaches]

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The second and third time I found something I hadnt picked up on before.

[pranma]

I read and re-read all my favourite books. I've just bought a couple of Monica Edwards books from Amazon-I loved them as a child.I re-read my fave sci-fi esp Marion Zimmer Bradley and Anne Mccaffrey.Austen,Dickens,Tolkien..........so many,such treats.