What books can you just re-read forever?

[MNHubbie]

What are your old faithfuls that you can turn to when you can't be bothered with anything else?

A few of mine are:

Watchmen: Moore and Gibbons
American Psycho: Easton Ellis
Slaughter House V: Vonnegut
Good Omens: Gaiman and Pratchett
1984: Orwell
The Dark Knight Returns: Miller
Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers and Better than Life (combined edition): Grant and Naylor
Batman: Year One: Miller et al
The Selfish Gene: Dawkins

There are quite a few more but I do find myself drifting back to these a lot.

Anyone else like anything on the selection?

What are your favourites?

Also To Kill a Mockingbird, which I read once a year

But I am slightly scared to read it again - if you read things too many times they can lose their magic.

Dune.

donnie - I think you would really enjoy "Miracles Of Life", JG Ballard's autobiography.

I Capture the Castle
Pursuit of Love/Love in a Cold Climate
Any Monica Dickens/Agatha Christie
Jilly Cooper 'name' books (Imogen, Prudence, Harriet, Octavia etc.)
84 Charing Cross Road
any Asterix book
Soho in the 50s - Daniel Farson
At the Chelsea - Florence Turner
The Sun King - Nancy Mitford
How to be Topp/Whizz for Atoms/Back in the Jug Agane

Nothing cerebral, all comfort reading

Oh and of course, Rebecca

And I loved American Psycho. Haven't read it again but would.

Many of these (dd and I have worn out I Capture the Castle)
plus
Cider with Rosie- Laurie Lee
Anybody Can do Anthing, The Plague and I, Onions in the Stew- Betty McDonald
The Worst Journey in the World- Apsley Cherry Garrard
Invitation to the Waltz- Rosamund Lehmann
The Matriach- G B Stern
Jane Eyre
Some Ursula le Guin

The two books I have re-read the most are

The Master and Margarita- Bulgakov
Treasure Island -RLS.

I have enjoyed re-reading the Earthsea books recently too; I think I probably read the first three several times when I was younger though.

I'd forgotten Dune! And at least the next 3 sequels.

It looks like I'm going to have to give Pride and Prejudice a go... I managed to even avoid the films and TV series! How does it compare with American Psycho? LOL

Sorry OT but Thumbwitch why is E V Thompson a sick man?! I did read Chase The Wind when I was about 14, I remember it as harmless Catherine Cookson type stuff?! Did I miss something?

I read two of his and then gave up - both involved brutal rapes of girls. Apparently he used to be a Vice squad policeman - I think it must have done something to him. The stories themselves were good, but I couldn't read them again because of the rapes - one of them still stays with me even now.

I'm pretty sure it was in Harvest of the Sun, the really disturbing one. I also read Chase the Wind. Oddly, I was less disturbed by the frequent rapine that used to go on in Catherine Cookson's books, although I stopped reading them when I was about 18.

Anything by Jilly Cooper

Thanks Thumbwitch. I wonder what kind of hardened teenager I was that the rape scene completely passed me by. Bet it was Moses Trago though, a bad lot those Tragos....

Catherine Cookson, Barbara Taylor Bradford - where would they be without the raping of a servant girl?

And a more on thread comment -
I Capture The Castle
The Camomile Lawn
The Prince of Tides (despite the rape scene)
The Constant Nymph
Duncton Wood
Gone With The Wind
Tales of the City
Weaveworld (completely randon, not my thing at all really)
Skallagrig
The Far Pavillions
And in under extreme stress - Ballet Shoes, The Kingdom of Carbonel and Misty of Chincoteague

Terry Pratchett (any really)
Georgette Heyer (esp The Grand Sophy, Venetia, and Frederica)
P&P
Little House series
His Dark Materials
Dorothy L Sayers

Fortunatly I read very, very fast, so rereading does not stop me reading new books

The English Patient
I love how I know it well enough to dip in and read different bits without having to read the whole thing.

Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love: Nancy Mitford
Brideshead Revisited: Evelyn Waugh
The Secret Garden (read over and over again as child now read it to the dcs)
All pure comfort reading - ie can open at any page and pick up the thread.

Wuthering Heights
All Laura Ingalls Wilder
Peter Pan
The Diddakoi
Earthly Powers
A Christmas Carol
Tennessee Williams plays
Under Milk Wood
Pride and Prejudice
Cider with Rosie
To Kill a Mockingbird
A Month in the Country (JL Carr)
All Shakespeare
Tove Jansson's Winter and Summer books
A Little Princess and The Secret Garden
Any Human Heart

Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility
Emma
Jane Eyre
Rebecca
I Capture the Castle
The earlier Bill Bryson books
Remains of The Day
The Unconsoled
Crow Road

Gone With The Wind, and yeah, anything Jilly Copper [cultured]

My comfort re-reads are anything by Gerald Durrell or Bill Bryson, Jane Eyre, the Anne of Green Gables' series, Just William and Karen Blixen's Out of Africa. Oh, and, the Chalet School books.

Have also reread many times (although not, strictly speaking, for comfort) Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native and Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar.

Am currently rereading the Swallows and Amazons' series, although have post-baby brain so am pleased I'm managing to read anything! Am also enjoying planning which books I'm going to introduce DS and DD to - and refusing to acknowledge the fact that they may end up being keenest on the Beano (does that still exist?) and whatever today's equivalent of Sweet Valley High is......

CornishKK - no, it was in South Africa. I can't remember the name but it was a South African who was the perpetrator, so not a Trago (that time! )

The Cornish & Salterton Trilogies - Robertson Davies,
Pride and Prejudice.
almost any Terry Pratchett
Lord of the Rings
Master and Margerita
Riders/Rivals/Polo by Jilly Cooper, not so keen on the others
The Long Winter - Laura Ingalls Wilder
Cold Comfort Farm

I also love I capture the castle, the Far Pavilions and Anne of Green Gables but have to be in the right mood. I can read very quickly too (usually a book a week or less) so don't miss out reading new ones really.

Am impressed that you turn to the Unconsoled Mrs John Deere. I read it and remember feeling as though I was trapped in a nightmare. I can't bear to read that one again at all.

CMOT Dibbler - I loved Frederica too. My copy disintegrated and I haven't got round to trying to replace it. I think I'll have to now!