What books have you read twice?

Lilygran, forgot those! How could I! 'Tiger in the Smoke' my favourite.

I've been meaning to re-read 'Catherine' by Anya Seton which I adored in my teens. I bought a second hand copy on Amazon but the print is very small and I'm so accustomed to reading from a large-ish font on my Kindle that I'm not sure i can cope with small print - a newspaper is bad enough. Eye test time, I think!

I'm on a bit of a re-reading splurge at the moment. I love rereading Jane Austen as comfort reading. Just read Hardy's 'Jude the Obscure' and found it as painful, maybe more so, as last time. NOW to impress! Just started 'War and Peace'! Haven't read it since I was about 20 when it had a massive impression on me. I want to see if time and age have made a difference in my understanding. And if I still leave out the war bits! It all fits on my I-pad nicely. And of course all those children's books!!!!

Gone with the Wind and Anne Karenina and most of Margaret Drabble's earlier novels.

This re -reading is a bit of a mine field.Read The Rings when I was about 30 and cried when I had finished it as i realised there was NO MORE! When I read it again years later I found it very self indulgent and faintly boring. How sad, should have left well alone.

Not only am I a keen re-reader, I am a re-listener. I love audio books - someone reading a good story to me while I tackle the mundane. Brilliant. Top of both charts is Middlemarch. There always seems to be something not read or heard before.

What a lovely thread.
Reading these posts has triggered lots of happy memories of books I've loved in the past.
However, I have to say I don't re-read books. I suppose my thoughts are that there are so many wonderful books I haven't read, that I can't spare the time to re-read ones I have !

BerylBee.
I know just how you feel. In my case it is because I am now so old. I only buy a book if I really cannot be without it. I have rather a lot of books already waiting to be read so I alternate one re-read with something new. My most recent buy was Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistle Stop Cafe afer seeing the film for the first time recently on TV. It is now waiting for me to finish The Lives of the Brontes Through Their Letters, a fascinating read if you are interested in the family but so sad, they all died so young. Charlotte's letters are very moving.

I am an avid reader and belong to 4 book groups as I usually read 2 books a week.

The first book I re-read was Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. Having read it first as a teeenager, I re-read it as a new mum in the 70's.

Then, because of study, work and family commitments didn't read more than half a dozen books a year for a long time.

Since 2000 - major life change - I have had more time to indulge and I have re-read 3 books.

Being Dead by Jim Crace

The Glass Room by Simon Mawer ( 3 times ! )

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.

All very different and I'll leave you to look them up to see why they are such incredible stories.

Buster's Diary has been mentioned. I have read 'A Yorkshire Boyhood' by Roy Hattersley many times. This boyhood was spent in Sheffield and he grew up a few miles away from where I lived. I actually met him once as I went out with a cricketing friend of his for a couple of months.

Buster is a lovely book if you love dogs and when my MIL was dying- the last three days and we spent hours at the bed side holding her hand - I read Buster's Diary again. It was the only book I could face and as MIL was in a coma and the hours were long, it got me through them.

Oh I'm sooo excited about your post grannyknot i'v never met anyone who loved this poet. My very very favourite of his is 'people' starts " No people are uninteresting" I sometimes read it once or twice a week. It is kept open on top of my printer. Even if I'm not printing I can see the book from my landing and will pop in just to read it again. Each time time I read it I understand it more. Thank you so much for sharing

Ziska
A friend has just recommended 'Cutting for Stone' by Abraham Verghese.
I'd never heard of it.

"The Passion" and "Sexing the Cherry"

Both by Jeanette Winterson. Such wonderful use of language. I also love the novels of Angela Carter, they would always introduce me to at least one new word!

I've read Great Expectations, Thirty-Nine Steps and Treasure Island more than twice.

So many to re-read, and so many to read for the first time - I need more than 24 hours in the day!

Have re-read most of Daphne du Maurier, Jane Austen, John Buchan, 'The Unconquerable' by Helen MacInnes, 'We didn't mean to go to sea' by Arthur
Ransome, in fact, anything by him, Catherine Gaskin, and the absolutely wonderful ' The Guernsey Literary and potato peel pie' by Mary Shaffer. I really do recommend this one.

Never leave the house without a book, feel 'undressed' without one!

Missed out a word in the Shaffer book, should be 'The Guernsey Literary and potato peel pie Society!'

The Dove Keeper - Alice Hoffman.
The Moon in the Mango Tree - Pamela Binnings Ewen.
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
The Stand - Stephen King.

Little Women, Lark Rise to Candleford and The Diary of a Country Parson.
The novels and short stories by Elizabeth Taylor.
And the complete works of Topsy and Tim, read many times to daughter and now grandchildren.

Only poetry and a couple of novels, most popular Lit bores me!

Wild Swans, am transported to China.

have read The Secret Garden [I know, it's for children, but it's lovely!]lots of times.Also The Queen and I by Sue Townsend and Queen Camilla by same author. Funny, touching and a wonderful read.Anything by Alan Coren [read them literally hundreds of times.]
Almost all Dickens novels.Jean Plaidy, Victoria Holt.

Oh rosesarered that sent me hurtling back - a lovely book. I agreed to the purchase of our previous home because it had a gate which reminded me of the Secret Garden. Heidi was another one I read more than once.

This is a great thread and I've just sat and read every entry. I'm new at this and I now have a list of books I should read. Thank you all for that.

My all time favorite with at least three readings is Shogun, by James Clavell. I'm always in awe of the amount of reasearch that went into that story.

I've also read almost everything by Winston Churchill twice and a couple more than that.

Travelingman; If you've read Winston Churchills books, you might be interested in a programme on BBC4 tonight at 23.25 about Great Speeches. It's made by Simon Armitage who is one of my favourite tv presenters. It'll probably be on iplayer later.

I'd love to see it and will try to pick it up on my computer. Unfortunately I live in Canada (near Toronto) and found gransnet.com while house sitting two cats in Lochcarron last month. My wife and I do that occasionally as a cheap way of seeing the world.

Thanks for the information though and enjoy the show, even if I can't