Is there ONE book....

[tobee]

that you wish you could read for the first time again? Off the top of your head. Or is that too hard? For me, tonight, it would be Diary of a Provincial Lady and subsequent volumes.

I love A Kind of Loving, I still remember reading it for the first time and saying "yes" - Barstow's characterisation is spot on.

Another book I would like to read as if it were for the first time is The Book Thief, it is incredibly moving and had me in tears.

Mists of Avalon. Marion Zimmer Bradley.

I've read it so many times that the cover has fallen off. An epic book.

Katherine by Anya Seton.

And another vote for Gone With the Wind.

oooh I love love love Bring up the Bodies and The Goldfinch, possibly my top two books of the century...

But but but DD has just started reading The Great Gatsby for the first time and I am so jealous of her, so that, I guess.

I used to re-read Gone with the Wind every year until I had children. I had to stop because reading it is too all-consuming. I'll start again when they have all left home.

My first ever Wooster book - not even sure which one it was but it was so delightful and there was a whole row of them in the library (can still remember the binding)

I would love to read Gilead again for the first time.

I re read Anne of Green Gables again as an adult and she danced off the page exactly as she had when I was 10.

Loved the Count of Monte Cristo too.

My uncle read Jane Eyre for the first time aged 60. he called me afterwards and said that he had sat up all night to finish it and he had no idea "literature" could be so good.

A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry, harrowing but brilliant.

I have The Great Roxhythe by Heyer sitting on my shelf. Found it in an opshop after looking for it for years. I know it's supposed to be terrible and she suppressed it for a reason. But once I read it, that's it. No more.

I'd like to be reading Dunnett for the first time. All of them.

Anne Of Green Gables - that book lit up my rather lonely childhood.

Wuthering heights is excellent (once you get used to how it's written in parts).

GWTW as previous posters have said is great - though the first few chapters are a hard slog imho.

Am sure there's others but my mind is a blank!

The His Dark Materials trilogy. Such a part of my life now but I would love to have the first tome magic agai.

Great Expectations. When I didnt know the plot twist and all that to come.

Love your uncle Pallisers

All of my books.

Another vote for The Goldfinch. And also never let me go/ remains of the day

American Gods by Neil Gaiman. It's my 'returner' book, but it's never like the first time.

The world according to Garp.

And also, A Prayer For Owen Meany

Came on here to say the woman in white!

Jealous of myself back then starting to read it one dark winters night holding a cup of hot chocolate and nesting under the duvet (mind you it was probably that odd tasting Options hot choc as it was back in the late 90's)

Wilkie Collins?

Testament of youth
And if I can have another: the Unicorn, Iris Murdoch.

The Shell Seekers by Rosumde Pilcher my favourite book ever, I reread it once per year.

Shameless place marking

Ps mine would be Shantaram ... don't want to read the follow up in case it's an anti climax!