Recommend Five Books You've Read More Than Once

[MN Dave]

Fiction, non-fiction, whatevs...

Thanks.

[Franco]

The Liar's Club (Mary Carr)
This was a book that right after I finished the last page went to the first page and read the whole thing again.  That's never happened before but I enjoyed it so much that by the end I wanted to re-read the earlier chapters again and then just kept going.

To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
Great book that I re-read every 3-4 years, and one in which the movie is good too.  I have zero patience with people who claim it is dated.   I love this book and will tolerate no detractors.

The Shakespeare history plays
Not "a book" I know, but I have read these in order at least three times and there was a period when I was reading them every year - but I haven't read them in about five years.  Time to do it again.  These are my favorites of his plays, to me they have everything: drama, character development, great poetry and comedy.

Most Cormac McCarthy books
Again, not just one book - but these are too good to choose just one - I've probably read Child of God, Suttree and Blood Meridian the most of any other.  These are some of the greatest books written in the 20th century, IMO.  Yes, they are dark and dense - but fantastic literature.  The Border Trilogy is good too, but it's hard for me to forget the terrible movie made of All The Pretty Horses.

The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner)
Initially I re-read this book in order to try to understand what was going on.  But once I got it, I've re-read it several times because it is just so good.  Not for everybody, but if it resonates for you, can't be beat.

Bonus books:

In Country (Bobbie Ann Mason)
Ironweed (William Kennedy)
The Moviegoer (Walker Percy)

I am one of those people who does not buy many new books but chooses to re-read books that are important to me over and over.  A really good book is new each time I read it, and I come to a deeper understanding of it - which only makes me want to read it yet again.

[Daedalus]

Ulysses would definitely be one of them for me.

I would have to have a long, hard think about the others. 

[vandermolen]

I haven't read many books more than once:

Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment

St Exupery: The Little Prince (read hundreds of times)

Lao Tse: Tao Te Ching

Willans and Searle: the Compleet (sic) Molesworth

Herge: Tintin: The Calculus Affair


Non Fiction would Include:

Rollo May: Man's Search for Himself

Erich Fromm: Man for Himself

Allan Watts: The Wisdom of Insecurity

[Joe Barron]

The Great Gatsby
Moby Dick
Absalom! Absalom! William Faulkner --- nice companion piece to The Sound and the Fury, mentioned above. It, too, is hard to follow at first, but once you get it, it rewards rereading.
Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Critique of Religion and Philosophy by Walter Kaufmann

Actually, I can't remember if I've read the Critique through more than once, but I do go back and re-read sections of it. I enjoyed Sirens so much I read it straight through twice in succession.

[Scarpia]

Absalom! Absalom! William Faulkner

I read that book many years ago and was simultaneously baffled and had the impression I was reading the finest book ever written.  So many layers of history in that novel.  I've re-read numerous Faulkner novels since then, but have been too intimidated to approach Absalom, Absalom again.

[Franco]

I just began rereading Absalom, Absalom last week. 

I am only reading a few pages each night - but taken like this it is a very rewarding experience to luxuriate in the prose and allow the story to unfold as a leisurely pace.

[mamascarlatti]

Herman Hesse - the Glass Bead Game. First read it as an adolescent and have enjoyed revisiting it as I grow older.

Maupassant short stories - hundreds of times. I love the way his stories take such a vivid snapshot of a time and a place, and creat pictures in your mind

Jane Eyre

Jane Austen - can't choose

Margaret Atwood - the Handmaid's tale. Still as apposite now as it was then, more so actually as fundamentalism keeps its grip on the world.

[kishnevi]

More than five, but these are among my favorites

Everything by Jane Austen--probably read all her novels at least a dozen times each

Everything by Charles Williams

Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

The Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries by Dorothy Sayers

Barry Hughart: Bridge of Birds

Cao Xueqin: The Story of the Stone (also known as The Dream of the Red Chamber)--one of the greatest novels not only in Chinese, but in world, literature.  In fact, I'm giving it another reading right now

William Manchester: Alone --the second , and unfortunately, last volume, of a planned three volume biography of Winston Churchill

Simon Schama: Citizens--an excellent one volume history of the French Revolution up to the fall of Robespierre

[Florestan]

Back in my childhood I've read most books by Jules Verne, Alexandre Dumas and Paul Feval at least twice. 

Now seriously, OTOMH:

Dostoyevski - The Brothers Karamazov
Thomas Mann - Doktor Faustus
Cervantes - Don Quijote
Victor Hugo - The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Umberto Eco - The Foucault Pendulum, The Island of Yesterday

And there are books that I've started more than once, but never finished them:

Stendhal - The Red and The Black, The Charterhouse of Parma

[karlhenning]

Dostoyevsky, The Devils (aka The Possessed)
Dostoyevsky, The Idiot
Melville, Moby-Dick
Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance
T.C. Boyle, Water Music

[sTisTi]

I seldom read books more than once, although the following were really worth it:

Thomas Pynchon: V and Gravity's Rainbow (let's be honest, you can't fully get those during the first read )
John Barth: The Sot-Weed Factor (brilliant, intelligent novel, & VERY funny!)
Douglas Adams: The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Just too damn funny to read just once  )

T.C. Boyle, Water Music[/font]

I enjoyed that a lot as well. Can you recommend any other really good ones from Boyle?

[MN Dave]

Very nice lists, folks. I have actually read some of these already.

Since I'm the OP, I might as well list some of my own.

THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN by Gene Wolfe
Various Conan tales by Robert E. Howard
JAZZ: AMERICA'S CLASSICAL MUSIC  by Grover Sales
THE MIRACLE OF MINDFULNESS by Thich Nhat Hanh
DHAMMAPADA (and various other Buddhist stuff)
SALEM'S LOT by Stephen King
SONGS OF A DEAD DREAMER by Thomas Ligotti

That will do for now. Not necessarily "recommendations" unless you are interested in the subject matter.

[MN Dave]

The books mentioned above that I have read once:

Douglas Adams: The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Victor Hugo - The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Umberto Eco - The Foucault Pendulum
Margaret Atwood - the Handmaid's tale.
The Great Gatsby
Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment
Lao Tse: Tao Te Ching
Ironweed (William Kennedy)

And I have read one of those Faulkner's but I forget which one.

[sospiro]

Great idea for a thread - some really fascinating books.

Mine

The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells
An Evil Cradling - Brian Keenan
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
Cannery Row - John Steinbeck
The Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux 

[MN Dave]

Great idea for a thread - some really fascinating books.

Mine

The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells
An Evil Cradling - Brian Keenan
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
Cannery Row - John Steinbeck
The Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux

Nice, Annie. I have read THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and your mentioning Wells reminds me that I should read THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU a second time. I loved that book. Have you read TORTILLA FLATS by Steinbeck?

[karlhenning]

I enjoyed that a lot as well. Can you recommend any other really good ones from Boyle?

I read quite a few back when I first 'discovered' Water Music, much of it good.  I still think Water Music is about his best, but World's End and East Is East are very good, too (and I am planning to re-read them . . . .)

[kishnevi]

Very nice lists, folks. I have actually read some of these already.

Since I'm the OP, I might as well list some of my own.

THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN by Gene Wolfe
Various Conan tales by Robert E. Howard
JAZZ: AMERICA'S CLASSICAL MUSIC  by Grover Sales
THE MIRACLE OF MINDFULNESS by Thich Nhat Hanh
DHAMMAPADA (and various other Buddhist stuff)
SALEM'S LOT by Stephen King
SONGS OF A DEAD DREAMER by Thomas Ligotti

That will do for now. Not necessarily "recommendations" unless you are interested in the subject matter.

If you have an interest in Buddhism, Story of the Stone/Dream of the Red Chamber will probably interest you. The full translation is in five volumes, but there are some one volume abridged versions, most under the "Dream of the Red Chamber" title.  Also  Journey to the West, which is an semi-anonymous work; the full translation is a four-volume set, but the first version of it I read was Arthur Waley's one volume yes-it-was-heavily-abridged version, which he entitled "Monkey".

[MN Dave]

If you have an interest in Buddhism, Story of the Stone/Dream of the Red Chamber will probably interest you. The full translation is in five volumes, but there are some one volume abridged versions.  Also  Journey to the West, which is an anonymous work; the full translation is a fourvolume set, but the first version of it I read was Arthur Waley's one volume yes-it-was-heavily-abridged version, which he entitled "Monkey".

Thanks so much!

[sospiro]

Nice, Annie. I have read THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and your mentioning Wells reminds me that I should read THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU a second time. I loved that book. Have you read TORTILLA FLATS by Steinbeck?

Not read Tortilla Flats so might get that next.

I believe Wells researched the area before he wrote WOTW. I have friends who live in Surrey & last year we went for a walk on Horsell Common, then to Woking to see the Martian then next day went along the Thames Path from Chertsey to Walton following in the narrator's & what we think was Wells' footsteps. It was wonderful.