Repeat readers- what's the book you have been reading for longest, and do you still have the original?

[SwedeDreams]

Prompted by opening up again my copy of 'A wizard of earthsea', in hardback which I stole from the school library in 1985, aged 13. Sorry school. I loved (and still do love) this book.

It's battered and torn but the cover is splendid. Anyone else have a book they have had for ages?

EATmum reminds me I still have my copy of Lord of the Rings from 1969 too (& I did buy that!)

I was given a copy of "the ordinary princess" by M M Kaye for my 6th birthday, 34 years ago, and have read it at least every year ever since. I have 2 copies now - the original which is a bit falling-apart and a newer one for reading.

I had all the dark is risking sequences by Susan cooper and read them until they were binned by my mum. Late 90s I found a first edition of all the books together, which I still have - inside the book were two love letters, it had obviously belonged to a teenage boy and I kept those as well.

I recently found out as a first edition its very rare but I'd never part with it (cost me 50p in a charity shop at the time). I bought a hard back one of them altogether a few years ago that were published when the totally shit film came out which I read quite frequently.

I am glad to hear of other library book thieves. I can't offer any defence apart from I loved the book so much I couldn't give it back.

I have some old moomin books too which I dearly love and are probably about the same age. Think they were actually bought :)

Also managed to hang on to little house on the prairie and the borrowers. But the wizard of earthsea is the first book I remember actually coveting.

A wizard of earthsea & the dark is rising are two of my favourite books.

But my oldest, most read book is The Forsyte Saga, in three books that belonged to my father. He died nearly 30 years ago & I think the books must be about 40+ years old.

I am always amazed that The Dark is Rising series never made a film. Who would have played Will? Or Bran??

They did make a dark is rising film.

Don't even think of watching it. It was sooo bad Susan cooper had her name removed from credits. Worst film adaptation. Ever.

The film was based on the second book. Ish. the title was right and some of the characters. Sort of

So happy to see the 'Jill' books, 'The Secret Island' and the 'Dark is Rising' books mentioned on here as they are some of my constant rereads too! I have all my original books, except the secret island which dissapeared mysteriously years ago when dd borrowed it.
If i lost my original copies i'd be gutted, because its the covers of them and the smell and my maiden name in the front (and occasional scribbling) which makes the experience whole.
I also love 'The Collector' by John Fowles, 'Down and Out in Paris and London' by Orwell and 'Silas Marner' by Goerge Eliot, and 'in the springtime of the year' by Susan Hill...i could go on and on and on! :)

Oh what a lovely thread!

All the original Laura Ingalls Wilder bks.

This edition of Jane Eyre, first read when I was 12.

Just remembered I've still got my original Puffin of The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe - it was published in 1959 & I will have had it then or soon after

www.goodreads.com/book/show/1045149.The_Lion_the_Witch_and_the_Wardrobe

I have a collection of Jill books but they're not the ones I had as a child. Her first pony was called Black Boy in my Jill's Gymkhana, not Danny Boy

I have been reading The Magician by Raymond Feist forever and yes, the copy is torn and worn but I still have it.

Jane Eyre here too. It made me cry at 12 - and I was a tomboy into punk! I re-read it at 22 and cried again.

I still remember certain lines from Jill's Pony Club though it's maybe two decades since I last read it. Because of many re-readings they're still ingrained on the mind so many years later!

A book I probably read even more was Rosina Copper.

Ian Serrailler, The Silver Sword.

My DDad nicked it from school when he was 11-12. He has just turned 60.

Mamamary (autocorrect wants you to be called mammary ) do you remember the "actually" quote? (Though it's probably from Jill's Gymkhana)
"Actually" (which at my school you weren't allowed to say until you were 16)'
Something like that anyway
I can remember thinking a 10-yr-old's version of WTF the first time I read it!

FishWithABicycle Mine is also The Ordinary Princess! My sister and I read it to death as children and I'm fairly certain she nabbed it from my parents' house when she moved away.

She sent me a new copy for Christmas 2013 after seeing it languishing on my Amazon wishlist. It still reads as well as it did when I was nine.

DS has the Silver Sword from his primary school library. Must take it back.

I had completely forgotten about the Jill books.

I've still got lots of books from when I was a child, in various stages of deterioration. Some still have the numbers on them from when my sister and I used to play libraries.

My Puffin copy of The Secret Garden has the price on the back - 12 and a half pence

My copy of Cider with Rosie fell apart completely last year so I treated myself to the new hardback anniversary edition. I cut off the front cover of the old one to use as a bookmark in the new one before I threw it away.

I have a book my DF was given as a school prize in 1934 but don't really read it.

This is a nice thread.
I haven't read any of my childhood favourites for a very long time - they all got given away. I'd hoped my daughter would love the same books as I did (Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, the Jill books etc) but she didn't, so I haven't read them again.

As an adult, the one book I have read over and over, oddly, is A Summer Bird Cage by Margaret Drabble. I bought it at 16, read it, lent it to a friend, who ended up damaging it by reading it on holiday, so she bought me another copy. I kept that copy at my dad's house (rather than in my own) and every time I went home I'd read it again for some reason. Quite odd, now I think about it. But it means I've read it dozens of times.

My dad died, and the awful thing is I'm not sure if I brought the book home with me or gave it away with the other books I had there. But if I still have it, it means it's about 35 years old.

Funny, as an adult, I don't really have any adult books that I re-read. I still read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books.

Two exceptions to this: I recently re-read In the Place of Fallen Leaves by Tim Pears (not as good second time) and I plan to re-read The God of Small Things (really hoping it's as good the third time!)

I have a young adult novel called "are you listening, Karen?" which I have owned since I was 8, 28 years ago - I was probably too young for it at the time as the subject matter is quite intense - a 17 year old boy who drinks, smokes, tries to get off with girls, talking to his sister who has recently died. The whole story is meant to be him sitting in the graveyard telling her everything from his point of view.
It is just the best book and I absolutely love it. The depiction of 17 year olds in the 80s, the way that the love story and the book itself are so unresolved - I have never met anyone else who has read it but I would love to - I think the author was quite young, and I haven't found anything else he has written, although every now and again I have a Google!

Flowers in the Attic

I need to hang my head in shame.

I loved flowers in the attic. And the Heaven series, sweet Audrina, etc. I read those in my very early teens!

There was a fantastic blog where someone was re-reading the whole lot, really interesting. I will post a link! I was gripped!