What books do you re-read regularly?

[Snorerephron]

I've got some book vouchers that have been lurking in my wallet since Christmas, and I would like to use them to purchase a few books.

I mainly buy books second hand and pass them on, or get library books, as I have far too many books already. So if I am buying books I want to know they will be ones I am likely to read over and over again

So my question is what are your favourite books to re-read regularly?

(I like classics, literary novels, funny novels, good contemporary fiction)

I'd ideally like to get a few books but really beautiful editions of them -decent hardbacks

Mapp and Lucia series by E.F. Benson

I regularly reread The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford- it's my all time favourite book. Btw one of the main characters is a soldier in a fashionable regiment but that's a minor detail - it's not a book about wars or fighting.

Jane Austen
Nancy Mitford
DH rereads the Lord of the Rings

Katherine by Anya Seton. I've read it at least once a year for nearly 40 years.
The Secret History
Little Women
Circe
Ballet Shoes

Behind The Scenes At The Museum

The Kitchen Gods Wife

Life After Life

my comfort books 📕

Cara's Land by Elvi Rhodes is one of my all time favourites.

Lord of the Rings
Manda Scott's Boudicca series
All of Maeve Binchy
the Brontes
Daphne du Maurier
That's just for starters! I have so many books, they hold up the walls of the house, they are my constant friends, and are often revisited.

Dorothy L Sayers and Agatha Christie roll around every ten years or so; Jane Austen every now and then; Cold Comfort Farm; Jane Eyre; The Enchanted April and Elizabeth and her German Garden; Howard’s End; Rebecca.

Currently re-reading my way through Georgette Heyer, being consistently re-impressed by how well researched and well plotted they are, but not remembering a single word of them from the last time I read them.

The only one I re-read is To Kill A Mockingbird.

A couple of Jane Smiley ones - Duplicate Keys and The All True Travels And Adventures of Lidie Newton

Some Terry Pratchett ones, eg Mort, The Truth, the ones with Moist von Lipwig

Jane Austen - Emma, Persuasion

A few children's books - The Children Of Green Knowe, The Little White Horse, The Warden's Niece, the later ones from Little House On The Prairie

Read multiple times but not read for ages American Psycho, The Secret History

Terry Pratchett’s Discworld
John Le Carré
Evelyn Waugh

Anna Karenina

The Outlander Series by Diana Gabledon.

The sea, the sea by Iris Murdoch

Thank you this thread is so helpful! It's confirmed a couple of my ideas and given me some new ones

I've realised as well that my regular re -read is Grapes of Wrath (I tend to read it every 5 years or so) but I can't find a beautiful hardback in Waterstones so may have to save that for another time

I am tempted by a beautiful edition of An Enchanted April and I also agree with everyone suggesting children's books - but I've collected lovely copies of most of my old favourites as my dad tends to buy these for me! A little princess /Ballet Shoes /Anne of Green Gables/Secret Garden etc are all books I go back to when I want a relaxing comforting book. I love the idea of The Little White Horse, I loved that as a child

The Grapes of Wrath, all the Arthur Ransome series (inherited from my Mum), Dorothy L Sayers' Peter Wimsey stories and Rosamund Pilcher for true comfort reading.

I find the idea of rereading books strange unless decades have passed and you’ve forgotten most of it. Surely knowing the ending ruins it?

Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalet Chronicles, the four big Nancy Mitfords, I Capture the Castle, Cold Comfort Farm, Antonia Forest's Marlow series, Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies (but not the Mirror and the Light, oddly), the Slow Horses series.

I can’t really think of any fiction that I’m would want in hardback. I’d rather have an interiors book or perhaps something travel or design related with beautiful pictures that I’d never treat myself to normally.

Dorothy Dunnett Lymond series.

I read a Christmas Carol every December but other than that I don't re-read.

The Poldark novels by Winston Graham are old friends. I used to re-read a lot but not so much now that I have a lot more books to choose from.
I'm currently having a Dick Francis season. I'd forgotten how great they are.

I’m an audiobook listener so I’m slightly different.

every Christmas I re listen to Harry Potter.

I have re listened to every book Blake crouch has done.

relistened to everything Jodi Taylor has written far too many times it is embarrassing especially the st Mary’s books.

I have read listened to Michael woods books. Both the Matilda dark series and his standalone.

I go through periods where my medical problems are a lot harder so I put stuff on I don’t have to think about much. But I listen to audiobooks all day at work so I can get through three sometimes four a week. I don’t like to watch tv either. So I will sit on my iPad in the evening and do some jigsaws and listen as well.

Stephen king is my all time favourite. Been reading him for 40 years. Jo jo moyes is another favourite

I'm envious, @ElizabethVonArnim - I've re-read my Heyers so often every paragraph is familiar! Ditto P&P and Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day.

Did world and Wodehouse are endlessly re-readable as well - the joy of the language matters more than the plot.

@DustyMaiden - can't you listen to the same albums on repeat? Why does knowing where it goes spoil it? The journey is still worth making when you know the destination.