Great re-reads?

[titferbrains]

Am about to go to bed, am in the middle of re-reading the Shipping News and I'm really enjoying it.

Have you re-read anything recently and really enjoyed re-discovering it?

I'm thinking of going back to Bel Canto by Ann Patchett next. I never have the time to figure out which 3 for 2 I should get these day!

I have a few old favourites which I come back to every so often. Lucky Jim, Daphne Du Maurier, Anne of Green Gables, Little Women and a few other childhood things.

Also classics, Jane Austen (have read novels many times and they always throw up something new), Brontes, Thomas Hardy, To Kill a Mockingbird is a re-reading favourite too.

But I do love it when I see a book, (or hear about it on this forum) and think 'Ooh I haven't read that for years' - bit like meeting up with an old friend

I recently re-read Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha after, I think, about a 10 year gap and found it much more interesting. I think because your own perspective changes with time, you can read the same book at intervals and get different things out of it.

And am planning to re-read Life of Pi when I get a minute. Made the mistake of skimming it first time around and, even though I enjoyed it on a superficial level, think I missed the whole 'deep and meaningful' point of the book .

I re-read several things around once a year to once every 18 months because I am horribly fussy and so sometimes prefer to read something I know I'm going to like, especially when work is v busy and I need to use reading to switch off!

All the Jane Austens - love her.
The Harry Potters (she's not a great writer but she sure does know how to get to your heartstrings).
The Lord Of The Rings.
Of Mice And Men (for teaching - but I find something new every time I read it).
King's Dark Tower series.
Bill Bryson's Made In America and his one about the English language.

this time of year I always re-read Jamaica Inn - especially good on a night like tonight with the wind blowing and rain lashing down!

I am also very found of The Last Lighthouse Keeper by Alan Titchmarsh. Its very lighthearted and quite a straighforward story but its a nice easy read.

I always like a good Agatha Christie too and have a certain weakness for Jilly Cooper.

Ooh yes, Life of Pi was good, might put that one on my list.

I've always had a bit of a block with classic novels, jane austen etc. but really ought to give Pride and Prejudice a go again. I think I find it hard to "hear" the characters in my head, I love modern fiction so much, I like to lose myself in books and I guess you have work harder to get immersed in older books because the worlds are less familiar....

I've just re-read 100 years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and loved it even more. It's the third time I've read it. Have also read To Kill a Mockingbird quite a few times, and Anna Karenina.

The best though was re-reading Anne of Green Gables last year, and want to re-read Little Women. Such good books.

I re-read Raymond Chandler often. I know he writes whodunnits but they are so labyrinthine I've read most at least twenty times and still cannot remember the murderer / why. I just love the language and the similes.

I read all the anne books, sad now that I gave them away! I will have to go to library and re-read, they really were lovely weren't they!

The Museum Guard by Howard Norman

and

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

love them both.

I re-read Ann of Green Gables every time I go home to my mum and dad's for Christmas. I also re-read the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie regularly. And Bill Bryson's Notes from a Big Country is a great one to dip into.

for a comforting read - if i can't sleep for example, i love all of the tales of the city series and have re read them several times.

generally i read everything too quickly, so two months after the fact i could re read most books and it would be a new experience.

oh, and have re read the great gatsby several times and have a different opinion about it every time!

The Poisonwood bible - I've read it three times and enjoyed it every time.

I re-read a lot. I probably read all of Jane Austen at least twice a year. Lots of childrens books that have already been mentioned as well as Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising, the Green Knowe books, the Little House on the Prarie series. The Harry Potter books and the Lord of the Rings I read once a year.

East of Eden by Steinbeck and Love in the Time of Cholera are also favourites. And anything by Robertson Davies, he is my desert island author.

One other rather odd book I have found myself re-reading is Agatha Christie's autobiography.

oooh, green knowe books - do they stand the test of time? i loved them to pieces when i was a child, and seem to remember one of them being very, very scary.

Oh they are BRILLIANT, especially The Children of Green Knowe. That book IS christmas for me.

The only one I don't like is the one about the river, that one is really odd.