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 ;-)

I regularly re-read

To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

My family and other animals (Gerald Durrell)

Penmarric by Susan Howatch

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler (in fact, anything by Anne Tyler is great to re-read)

I usually read detective novels and have read so many that often I can't remember whodunnit, so I can read them with pleasure again

Donk - you're my book-twin! I love all those books. Well, I haven't read the Father Christmas Letters, but judging from the rest of my Tolkien-love I imagine I'd like it. And Bujold - I adore her books. Apparently she's starting work on a new Vorkosigan novel once she finishes the Sharing Knife series.

I'd add Dorothy L Sayers to my regular re-read list, and Jane Austen. When I'm ill, the Cadfael books make fantastic comfort reading, as do PG Wodehouse and Georgette Heyer. Oh, and Harry Potter, naturally.

I reread everything, though; I don't feel I've really read a book unless I've read it more than once, but these are books I reread a lot.

Can't believe no-one has mentioned Vanity Fair - it's BRILLIANT and I have read it three times (it's quite large). And Wilkie Collins always good for a re-read - or Dickens, especially Nicholas Nickleby. As is obvious I like BIG books with lots of chapters so it's not all over too quickly...

I'm so glad Georgette Heyer got at least one mention on here - she is my ultimate comfort read. Can't count how many times I've read The Grand Sophy!

Up The Junction-Nell Dun
Holidays In Hell-P J O'Rourke
I Claudius & Claudius the God-R Graves.

Arghh,dd1 needs her bottom wiping-back later.

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more votes for Cold Comfort Farm
Tales of the city

but also - the books I can never get rid of as I read themover and over...

Atonement - Mcewan
Birdsong - Faulks
Jude the Obscure - Thos Hardy
Precious Bane - Mary Webb (one day I'll meet someone else who loves this, I will!)
Lords and Ladies - Pratchett
His dark Materials trilogy - Pullman
Chocolat Joanne Harris
Lark Rise to Candleford -
(and James Herrot books for my ultimate copmfort reading)
I Capture the Castle - Dodi Smith
The Doves of Venus - Olivia Manning
Our Spoons came from Woolworths - Barbara Comyns

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A little princess

The Little White Horse

anyone remember the Sue barton nursing books! loved them as a child..

also Dickens - Our Mutual Friend, Bleak House and David Copperfield I think are my top three. Dombey and Son very good too, sad...

Austen - yes.. Pride and Prejudice is perfect

will now go and seek out Tales of the City and revisit Anne of Green Gables

used to love the Little Women/ Good wives stuff but wonder if it is incredibly nauseating now..

what a nostalgic thread.

so what do you think of it, Dior?
( I tend to like books which make me weep at some point...)

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I'm dying to see the film, as I think it will be a visual experience, wven if it isn't faifthful t the book.

Currently reading Cold Mountain and actually want to see the film now, having not fancied it at all in the past.

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God yes, love it! (only read it twice though.,..)

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BTW, I capture the castle is lovely comfort food reading

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potato factory - have read vanity fair a couple of times - thnaks for reminding me! I might dig it out for next to re-read

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The Dean's Watch- Elizabeth Goudge
Life of Pi
Dream Days and the Golden Age (Kenneth Graham)\

I agree that Box of Delights and Midnight Folk are perfect Christmas reading, would add Winter Holiday and The Once and Future King.

Camomile Lawn and Enchanted April?

Sue Barton nursing books !! had completely forgotten about them !

Any Laura Ingalls Wilder books.I have started collecting them for the DD's [but really they are for me].
Sadly,I can't think of any more offhand.Most of my books have been in storage since we moved over 2 years ago.Sintead of reading old favourites,I go to the library twice a week to seek out new stuff.

There are some great recomendations here!

What a great reading list. Have to agree on the Austens and Anne Shirley. Still get goosebumps when I think of Gilbert picking up the flower that falls from her hair.

As for books that I would never read again - v disappointed with the apalling ending of Capt.Corelli's Mandolin. Implausible and annoying.

Been told the film 'Atonement' is excellent. Have tried reading McEwen before but found "Comfort of strangers" and "Cement Garden" v bleak. Might try Atonement but sounds similarly bleak. Has anyone read anything side splittingly funny. Love Cold Comfort Farm which really is - must go and kletter the dishes.

"These Happy Golden Years" by Laura Ingalls Wilder when I am in need of a good 'comfort' read. "The Go-Between" by L P Hartley is one book I've reread as an adult - such an evocative book and it transports me completely to a different era.

Remember reading "Mill on the Floss" as an unsentimental teenager, read it again for my degree as a mature student and wept floods of tears ...

Some of the books I would NEVER re-read as far too harrowing: "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote, "A Child In Time"/"Saturday" Ian McEwan, "The Bluest Eye", Toni Morrison.