Do you ever re-read a book?

Doesn't the fact you know what's coming spoil re-reading e.g. Stephen King, Patricia Cornwell?

Hi, very long time lurker here! Books have been a huge passion since childhood so have signed up and am risking my first ever post anywhere this morning!

I read and read again all the books I love, I also have to confess to reading the end of a book after the first chapter, odd I know but I hate to be let down by the ending not meeting my expectations and have to be prepared.

Hope nobody minds me joining in.

Hagridnan No need to apologise. Not on this thread anyway. But maybe stay away from the political topics.
I often read the end of a book, if it's whodunit type.
The last novel I read was based on a modern family where the mother had been unfaithful - I just had to go to the end to find out how her husband dealt with it.
Can't remember the title, my daughter lent me it.

the author of "The Source" is James Michener, not Leon Uris.

My feel good books are the ' miss read' books keep them and go back to them. Also Rosamund Pilcher winter solstice. Love it .

Every time I wash the floors I remember the Miss Read books where she had to show the cleaner how to clean backwards, not forwards over the floor she has just cleaned!

That's funny Jalima
Am I the only person who finds Dickens a bit tiresome. I find it tedious wading through all that descriptive stuff.

Welcome Hagridgran. I dont deliberately look at the end of a book but sometimes I cant resist looking ahead to see how it all turns out. Then Im cross with myself !
I often find I get more out of a book on re-reading, especially if there's been a twist in the plot. I'm thinking particularly of Gone girl and a book we read recently in Book Group called I let you go. Once you know the twist is coming you can look for clues and wonder why you didn't see them! I often reread favourites and don't find that knowing the ending spoils them at all.

I've reread several Charles Dickens novels and am amazed at what I've missed in the text before. Also reread Life of Pi.

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
I read it twice

I am currently re-reading 'Hester' by the Victorian writer, Mrs Oliphant. It is quite long and I read it about a year ago and had to put it down at the end and let it rest. It was such a belter and had such an emotional end (I am not talking about romance).

I have just started re-reading it and it is even better on the second read than on the first, I am not chasing the plot and I am now really seeing how well it is constructed, how insights into the later behaviour of major characters is woven into the early sections.

I have also been reading some critiques and analyses of the book online and it is already rapidly climbing the list of my all time favourite novels.

I’ve read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and
Tess Of The Durbervilles many times and am about to re-read The Pillars Of The Earth by Ken Follett.

I am reading The Count of Monte Cristo for the 3rd time. It always reveals something new. On the second and third readings though, I begin when he is realessed from prison.

So many books & not enough time, this thread is only adding to my list of books to read. I only occasionally re-read a book, usually because I had forgotten I had read it in the first place . This does not happen very often now as I have quite a concise list of authors & books that I have enjoyed( or not as the case may be) going back many years.

I must have read “Crampton Hodnet” by Barbara Pym a score of times. It’s my “comfort blanket” book. I think it’s the humour, the believable plot, and the quiet stoicism that I find comforting when things are a bit sad or worrying in my life. I wonder if any other GNers have books they read as a comfort?

who will cry when you die and the monk who sold his Ferrari By Robin Sharma are the two books which I have re-read. These books help me a lot in self-development.

Newbie long-time lurker here, may I join in please? Like Jalima upthread, I sometimes reread Miss Read, but my all time reread favourite is Georgette Heyer. Alas no-one writes similarly in my view.

I quite regularly re-read Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories.
Edgar Allan Poe’s stories are another favourite re-read.
Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels are also a favourite re-read.
For individual books rather than collections Diary of a Nobody and Dracula are two favourite re-reads.
A guilty pleasure is re-reading biographies of actresses Joan Sims, Margaret Rutherford, and Beryl Reid - they are ‘comfort reading’ on my kindle.