What books have you read twice?

As others have said, loads - usually only realising three-quarters of the way through that they're vaguely familiar. The worst is, I read lots of gory thrillers, and rarely remember who the murderer is, let alone the motive.

KatyK commiserations on your childhood. I remember Angela's Ashes as unrelentingly grim, and what I took most from the film was that it never stopped raining.

Maggiemaybe me too. But since I got a Kindle it now informs me that I've already downloaded a certain book. My reaction is always 'have I?'

Ah yes, Aka. But I downloaded lots of the really cheap novellas and novels when I first got my Kindle. I tried to be organised and put the ones I'd read straight into an archive folder. Then when I had to replace my Kindle, everything from it downloaded onto the new one in one big folder, and I found myself re-reading most of them....

Agree with may of the above- To Kill a Mockingbird, Rebecca,

RF Delderfields Avenue Story, and Spring Madness of Mr Sermon
Neveille Shute- A Town Like Alice & On the Beach
Poldark Series - many times !
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a day - Winifred Watkins - dont judge it by the hideous film

If you like a laugh - Busters Diaries by Roy Hattersley = very funny and always worth a read. or Liz Jensen, My Dirty Little Book of Time

Most of Daphne du Maurier books, as well as classics read in school such as Jane Eyre and Great Expectations. Three Men in a boat is much loved as also D H Lawrence's Women in Love. HE Bates Love for Lydia and Fair Stood the Wind for France.
Classics will always stand the test of time.
I enjoyed Trains and Boats and Planes by Killen McNeill so much that I read it again after a very short space of time & recommend it highly.

I agree that books can seem very different when read at various stages in life. I couldn't bear Henry James when I was a young woman and considered all his novels boring beyond belief. Many years after leaving university I grabbed a novel off my bookshelves on my way out of the door to catch a train and only once I was on my way to wherever I was going did I realise that I had picked up Portrait of a Lady. As it was a long journey, to my extreme annoyance I had no choice but to reread a Henry James novel. I was completely mesmerised and transported with pleasure. As soon as I got home again I read my way through his entire works.

So right Absent and it can work bith ways. As a teenager I read 'Catcher in the Rye' and thought it wonderful. I tried to re-read it again a few years ago and just couldn't get past the first two chapters.

I read the Song of Ice and Fire series, George R R Martin, it is the Game of Thrones series on sky Atlantic. Since series 3 started I find I can't remember all the characters and plots so have started again.....6 very large books!

I love the Song of Ice and Fire. I'm not I could read them again though, Oldgirl. It's all a bit grim. I hope he manages to finish it. Can't wait to find out what happens.

I have read all Mary Stewart's novels (not the historical ones), including This Rough Magic, The Moonspinners, Wildfire at Midnight and Thunder on the Right, countless times - my paperback editions are now ripped and faded but to me they are matchless, even if written mostly in the late 50s and early 60s. Just the right blend of adventure, feisty girls, romance, and her descriptions of places and geographical details are brilliant. I blame the film (1966) The Moonspinners, starring Hayley Mills for getting me started on this author! (and I too love Greece, just like her)

I'm about to start on Book 3 of Game of Thrones, A Clash of Swords.

Absolutely love them. Books you can "live" in.

The ladybird well loved tales little Gingerbread man C 1979 edition. Times beyond count when DD was a bit over a year old it was her very favourite. I must try it on her son when he is a bit older.

I have re-read some Barbara Pym recently. I don't do a lot of re-reading though. Unless I get it from the library and about halfway through the book and come to realise I know it.

All of Jane Austen, many times.

Me too, anno! And most of Dickens and Hardy too. They are always there on the bookshelves, and on my Kindle, and such a pleasure to revisit. You can sort of sink into them.

Have just retread for the umpteenth time 'in this house of Brede'
I find it very uplifting when I'm down.
Think I'd like to join an Abbey!

Reread even!

Me too, Galen.

Austen and Dickens many times, the best known Brontes a few times, Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu twice, Arthur Ransome too often to count, Mary Stewart's and Rosemary Sutcliff's Arthurian novels, Dorothy L. Sayers' Peter Wimsey novels, Sherlock Holmes.....

ALL the books by Ngaio Marsh and Philip Pullman.

When people said how much they enjoy Jane Austen and would have liked to have lived then, I always said I would have been the one cleaning the grates. Someone has now written a novel about Pride and Prejudice as seen from the point of view of the servants.
I used to take Wuthering Heights on holiday with me every year. Yorkshire born and bred.
The first book we read in high school was Jane Eyre. I used to live in a big house with my bedroom in the attic, and a walk-in cupboard on the landing outside my bedroom door. Definitely Grace Poole territory. I slept with the light on for years. Still can't watch the film on my own.

All Thomas Hardy's books, especially The Mayor of Casterbridge.
And almost all of Daphne du Maurier's novels.
And Little Women; endlessly re-read when I was young, and still love it.

I have just finished re-reading Pillars of the earth for the third time,I feel myself actually being there in that time and got so engrossed with the tale no one dared speak to me when I picked up the book.
To Kill a Mockingbird is my next re-read I saw the film on late night TV a couple of weeks ago and searched for my copy and will start reading it again.

I love to re-read my favourite books, Dickens, Austen, the Brontes. I also have one or two 'comfort books' that I know so well I can dip into and enjoy a few pages at any time. The Diary of Thomas Turner, an 18th century shop keeper in the village of East Hoathly in Sussex is probably the one I return to time and time again. I brings the lives of the people around him so close and makes me feel I really understand how they lived then.
I also have a few funny books I treasure, the Map and Lucia stories of E. F> Benson, The Diary fo a Nobody by G. and W. Grossmith and even the occasional William by Richmal Crompton which were written for adults rather than children. In fact I have to discipline myself to alternate new books with a re-read otherwise I would just not get round to reading anything new.

loads, really, but some only when I have nothing else available.

However, in a Desert Island Discs type scenario, I would go for two Jeanette Winterson books, namely "Sexing The Cherry" and "The Passion" .

Margery Allingham