Which book have you read over and over again and why?

[waltzingparrot]

What makes us read the same book over and over when we know what happens and there's nothing new to learn about the characters?

Mine's 'The Painted Veil' by W Somerset Maugham. I've read it 4 or 5 times now and feel I need to dust it off in time for summer. I can't even explain why it resonates so.

I like the historical period (1920s cholera ridden china) but I've learnt about that now.
The main character is not particularly likeable (don't want to be her or live her life).
It doesn't have the ending I hoped for/expected.
Every emotion under the sun in one character - she's irritating and fickle and annoys me.

Why do I need to keep reading this book?

What's your book and can you explain why you want/need to re-read it every so often?

I have only ever re-read one book - and that is To Kill a Mockingbird. I read it as a teenager at school, and wanted to revisit as an adult.

I have every intention of re-reading ( hundreds of books - I keep them all!) but in reality my pile of "to-read" books is so long I doubt if it will ever happen.

I've even added some titles to my "want-to-read" list off the back of this thread

In fact, this realisation has made me think I should spring clean my bookcases and donate my books for someone else to enjoy.

It used to be LOTR and Jane Eyre. I agree that Rochester is an arse but within the times it works as it’s clear he is a damaged individual and Jane “saves” him - by sticking up for her own worth and integrity and not marrying him. Had to say this. ;)

The past 15 years or so it’s been The Left Hand of Darkness and Miss Smilla’s Sense of Snow. There’s a snow theme but I don’t think that’s why I love them.

A Country Child by Alison Uttley. It reminds me of my childhood, and starting to read ‘proper’ books rather than Enid Blyton. (I still pick up my copies of The Wishing Chair, and The Faraway Tree stories though.)

Gosh, lots (and lots already mentioned).

Pride & Prejudice & other Jane Austens
Any Georgette Heyer and Dorothy L Sayers
Quite a few Daphne du Maurier
Terry Pratchett
Good Omens
The Outlander books
The Robin Hobb Apprentice series
Map & Lucia series
Chalet school series
PG Wodehouse
Trollope

All of the above are go to comfort reads

Pride and prejudice, I have read it countless times because I love it so much and never tire of it. I re-read other favourites too, all the other Austen novels, Wuthering heights, and some of my favorite Dickens novels, but the one I read the most is pride and prejudice.

My family and other animals, Gerald Durrell. And everytime I read it it still makes me laugh even all these years later, it's wonderfully written

Me too! This is my summertime book.

I also read the Magic Faraway Tree books from time-to-time :)

And all of Pratchett.

Bella Mafia - Lynda la plante
All Jilly Coopers
All Harry Potters
Virginia Andrews flowers in the attic and the following books in that saga
All Michael connelly
All martina coles

Comfort Food books I reread: Bridget Jones (only the first two, not the risible shite that followed) the first couple of Marian Keyes-, Harry Potter, very early Danielle Steel Bill Bryson, Stuart Maconie.

Every election I reread Things Can Only Get Better.

I also reread Testament of Youth, Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Blood of Others, The Great Gatsby, Tess.

I return to Pratchetts a lot. And James Clavell books, like Shogun and Tai Pan. So absorbing and fast paced.

I have lost count of the times I have read 'pillars of the Earth' by Ken Follett.

Every time I have read it I seem to take more notice of a different character and because they are so intricately linked it seems to give a different angle even though I am reading the same words as last time.

The Time Traveller’s Wife

happytoseeyou I love that book too

@kiki275 I’ve also read Mist over Pendle many times! I love the descriptions of her clothes and the countryside. My family is from Pendle and family legend is that we’re descended from Alice Nutter on my dad’s side, which isn’t much to boast about!

I also find the books I reread are those I read as a preteen or a teenager, when I didn’t have much money for books and had all the time in the worlds to read them. Favourites that I revisit include much of Stephen King’s list esp IT and Christine for some reason, Watership Down, the Alexander trilogy and Last of the Wine by Mary Renault, the HEAven Tree trilogy by Edith Pargeter, the Cadfael novels, The Handmaid’s Tale (though I haven’t been able to reread that since I had DS), the earlier Discworld novels, some Dick Francis novels and the Regency romances of Georgette Heyer, Dune by Frank Herbert... these days though if I really like a book and revisit it, I tend just to read the bits I found especially resonated - so I read the last few pages of The Time Traveller’s Wife when I need a cry, or ditto the last few pages of The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan, rather than the whole book again. But I will still reread the whole of a book I loved from my teens.

Argh agreeing with more of the above too!. The early Robin Hobbs (later ones are too depressing), Austen, Wodehouse, Bill Bryson and Gerald Durrell.... a lot of those are comfort reads really.

Another one for the Charlie Parker books!

Oh and the Jinny books by Patricia Leitch. Still as beautiful and magical as the first time I read them 30 years ago.

Watership Down and The Hitch hikers Guide to the Galaxy - both utterly brilliant

The Poldark books by Winston Graham. Been reading them for 40 years.

The only books I've read more than once are:

The Catcher in the Rye - Salinger
Prep - Curtis Sittenfeld

Both hugely resonated with me - narrators who feel like fish out of water.

All the Arthur Ransome books about the Walkers, Blacketts and Callums. There is so much more to the series than just Swallows and Amazons. I read them as a child and my Mum left her full set of 1930s/40s editions to me in her will, which I re-read every year or so. They would be my Mastermind subject!

Now I have read the full thread - snap @64snewname! Pigeon Post is my favourite, hence my username

The Long Walk by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

No idea why, I just love them.

All the Discworld books
Lots of early Stephen King
Austen
Evelyn Waugh's comedies
Cold Comfort Farm. That's my favourite ever.

Beloved - Toni Morrison

The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova

I could just read these two forever I think.

Cold Comfort Farm always bucks me up (as Flora Poste would say). I have a close relative who lives in a similarly grim tumbledown farm which adds to the pleasure for me and I just find Flora such a refreshing delight when I'm feeling dumpsy.