it;'s best the twelfth time - re-reads!

[tyaca]

ok --- what have you read sooooo many times??

Cold Comfort Farm poss tops my list

Though i've been reading antonia forest non-stop for twenty years

my sister swears that kids author, cynthia voight, peaks on a twelfth read ;-)

Tales of the City for me too. Complete comfort reading. (Still haven't read the new one though - in fact I might hop over to Amazon and order it right now!).

And PG Wodehouse.

And childhood books too - Anne of Green Gables, Little House on the Prairie etc.

I loved Anne of Green Gables and was obsessed by the chapter vwhere Matthew had died...

Oh yes, me too

When I had a miscarriage a few years ago, I found the bit in Anne's House of Dreams when her baby dies really comforting.

Sorry for introducing a sad note to this happy thread!

I always seek out the sad bits. I read The Front Runner as a teenager (found it in my gay cousin's box of books) and loved it - have re read it many times ! (and the death bit in that is very moving)

Frost in May by Antonia White. I don't really know why but I love it.

The Railway Children if I'm ill.

Diary of a Provincial Lady - E M Delafield at any time.

Has to be Alain Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes

Brightness Falls by Jay McInerney

Ooh - did Le Grand Meaulnes for French A-level. Still have my English-language copy, but haven't read it since. Will add it to the to-read pile when I get home.

Up the Junction - by Nell Dunn - first read as young girl,not really suitable I suppose, but it's stuck with me and inspired me to write lots of sub standard drivel about working class life

this was stuff written as a young girl - don't do it any more !

Maryannsingleton's post has reminded me of another. The L Shaped Room.

You have to overlook some outdated racial stereotypes, if you can, but it is a very comforting read otherwise.

Pride & Prejudice

Persuasion

Tess of the D'Urbervilles (rereading now for the nth time, I just love that book)

margoandjerry - yes, absolutely love The L Shaped Room !
there was a sequel too. Lynn Reid Banks used to live up the road from us when I was a girl.

Oooh yes, the sequel. What was that called? She went to live in the country and can't remember anything else.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Solitude

The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - Marion Halcombe is the finest heroine ever in literature!

Watership Down if I'm feelign in need of a good sob. I love the bit at the end when Bigwig calls Hazel his chief rabbit.

Just seen that someone has mentioned R F DElderfield - I must reread some of his.

I loved To Serve Them All My Days.

margoandjerry - it was The Backward Shadow !

Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera AND 110 years of Solitude (though Love in the Time of Solitude sounds good!)

ANd the next sequel to L-shaped room and The Backward Shadow is Two is Lonely. I've read all three many times! But I didn't like the film at all.

I am now very tempted to biy copies of Anne of Green Gables (and all fifty of the sequels) and The Railway Children, thanks everyone

Top comfort reads are Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love, Brideshead Revisited (revisted countless times!) and for children's books it has to be The Secret Garden (luckily have managed to get dd hooked so can read it any number of times). Otherwise anything by Jane Austen and definitely Cold Comfort Farm.

Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love - I read them whenever I'm feeling a bit miserable.

And Fortunes of War by Olivia Manning. In fact I haven't had that one out for a while... maybe it's time.

ha, snap lillian...

also going through this thread has reminded me of Tales of the City and the Great Gatsby, I've read those more times than I can remember.

I read Austin over and over like everyone else. I used to read Children of the Star by Sylvia Engdahl when I was younger and I bought another copy a few years ago and have read it several times (so in total it's well in excess of 12).

When I need something calming I read A place of my own, it isn't a novel, it's an account of a man building a home office in his garden and is beautifully written and soothing. When I need cheering up I read Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie, it makes me laugh.