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?

@ScreamingValenta - - it's quite obscure so you must be a fan to spot it.
I 'own' a few AF names on mumsnet but this is my favourite

I don't have enough time to reread all the books I want to - the fact that Susanna Clarke is bringing out a book next year (16 years!) makes me want to go reread Strange and Norrell again before it comes out but I doubt if I shall make it.

The book I have reread most often would be The Moonbeast by A E Van Vogt which is the most bewilderingly godawful book I have ever got to the end of (not counting Wagner the Werewolf which was beyond hilariously awful) - Van Vogt 'wrote' The Moonbeast by combining several of his old short stories (none of which had nothing to do with each other) and rewriting bits of them, and overlapping them with new interlinking sections to produce something that looks like a novel.

It's the weirdest book and nearest thing to feverdreamstate put onto paper. There is, at one point, a prehistoric sabre-toothed tiger on the moon that lives on a diet of cowboys who fall through a small rift in the space time continuum on a hillside trail somewhere in Wyoming (?)

The amazing thing about the book though is that it was meant to be deadly serious.

Three Men in a Boat
Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson
All of the Thomas Hardy books.

I've also reread Notes from a small island a few times.... until I lent it to someone not to get it back.
High Fidelity as well. Both remind me of being at Uni. Young free and unencumbered by adult stuff. (And they are fun books.)

TarquinGyrfalcon I pictured you hanging from a beam in the Old Shippen . I've got a Forest name on MN too.

I know what you mean about sometimes having to force yourself to read new things. Re-reading is like going out for a meal at your favourite restaurant, where you know you'll have a good time, everyone knows you, the food will be wonderful and there'll be no nasty surprises. Whenever I read something new it's in the hope it will become a new favourite, but it's so disappointing if the book is a let-down.

Pigeon Post is absolutely my favourite book ever!

Most reread for me would be Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson. I love her writing. Also Murakami, Peter Hoeg, Julian Barnes, Doug Coupland, Jeff Noon.

I only discovered Nancy Mitford's writing in my 40s, but I loved her novels. As soon as I finished Highland Fling I went back to the beginning and read it all over again. I don't do that very often.

And Notes from a Small Island is so fabulous isn't it?

Most of my books (I have about 500 altogether) I have read more than once.

The ones I keep going back to over and over again are
The Stonewylde series by Kit Berry
Harry Potter
Anne of Green Gables
Sue Barton Student nurse series
Jane Eyre
Notes from a small island and Return to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson
Earth's Children by Jean M Auel (reading Plains of passage at the minute)
The Devil wears Prada
Anything by Barbara Erskine

There are a few I reread! Currently reading His Dark Materials trilogy which is so different this time round - feels darker.

Also Space below my feet by Gwen Moffat - climber and mountaineer. Paddling North by Audrey Sutherland. Both great outdoor books and beautifully written

The Jinny and Shantih books by Patricia Leitch I moved abroad in my early 20s and left them behind in the UK so about 10 years later I bought a set I found on Ebay. I love how Jinny takes no shit and everything goes right in the end.

Have just looked through the thread and other people like the Jinny books too. 😊

Paul Theroux's Dark Star Safari is my comfort book. I'm never without it either on my kindle or a copy at home. If I feel down I read a chapter. Also Brideshead Revisited, possibly my favourite ever. So many great suggestions here.

Cold Comfort Farm
Nice Work and all the other David Lodge books
Bill Bryson especially Notes From a Small Island
The Nancy Mitford novels especially The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate.
Dorothy L. Sayers (Only Lord Peter not the religious stuff)
The Shell Seekers
Swallows and Amazons series
Chalet School books
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
Ballet Shoes

The Diary of a Nobody
I Capture the Castle
(both very, very funny)
The Great Gatsby
All Thomas Hardy
All Jane Austen apart from Mansfield Park.
On the other hand have started Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations a million times but cannot get through them.

Cool I am finding lots of new potential comfort reads based on similar tastes.

Also North and South, though the TV version was so good I sometimes just watch that instead, and it has the added bonus of Richard Armitage's voice.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Of Jane Austen - P&P, Persuasion are my favourites, and I like Emma now (didn't when a teenager).

How funny - mine is The Painted Veil too. I first read it while travelling in China. There’s something about it, I just love it.

I’ve reread ‘The Hobbit’ so many times - it’s a childhood favourite that I never get bored of.

Also Austen, especially ‘Persuasion’ and ‘Small Gods’ by Terry Pratchett which always makes me laugh.

Also I Capture The Castle and a children’s book called The Midnight Fox to name but two more.

I forgot about
The Shell Seekers,Coming Home and September by Rosamunde Pilcher

Middlemarch. Persuasion. Pride and Prejudice. I really should keep re-reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, but I'm scared it won't live up to my memory of it.

Off to buy Remains of the Day and Howards End.

I've read all of the Jane Austens several times. Also Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford. For me it's mainly comfort reading, especially if I'm ill, it's lovely to read a book I know well and love. I also re-read favourite children's books like Tom's Midnight Garden and The Railway Children.

Any book by Sophie Kinsella, find them easy to pick up and put down and still know what’s going on. When my little one gets older I’ll be reading the Harry Potter series to him so we can enjoy it together

I read all of Austen's books over and over again. I never tire of them.

The Crow Road

I first read it as a teen, so I thought I identified strongly with main character.

Then I read it as an adult and identified the flaws in the main character.

Then I read it as a parent and some of it hit me quite hard - the father/son relationship, the complicated adult relationships, the nostalgia.

I think I'm going to read it again, it's such a fantastic book that gives me something new to chew on every time I read it.

Jane Austen and the Brontë books for me.

Although my most read books are my childhood favourites Little Women and a few of the Famous Five