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Post by ganews on Sept 22, 2014 12:24:09 GMT -5
I used to re-read books all the time as a kid. What have you read the most number of times?
There's no telling how many times I read the books from the "The Great Brain" series by John D. Fitzgerald. There are others, but this has to be the top of the list.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2014 12:46:04 GMT -5
Aww I remember "The Great Brain!" It almost made me like mormons!
As for myself, I find it really hard to fall asleep reading a new book, if it's at all compelling. So to get to bed, I usually crack open something I've read many times before, because it's comforting, soothing, and I can just sort of drift off. ASOIAF has been in that position for a couple years now, and LOTR (plus the Silmarillion) was the primary one before it, so I'd say probably LOTR... And if I had to pick just one volume, I'd guess either ROTK and its appendix, or The Silmarillion, hold the all-time record. Prior to that, probably "Mostly Harmless" from H2G2...
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Post by MrsLangdonAlger on Sept 22, 2014 13:46:33 GMT -5
Oh gosh, so many books go under this category. I reread LoTR every year, along with Deerskin and The Giver and The Phantom Tollbooth and so many other books it's ridiculous.
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Post-Lupin
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Post by Post-Lupin on Sept 22, 2014 14:50:37 GMT -5
The Sam Vimes books by Terry Pratchett, Sterling's Zeitgeist.
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Sept 22, 2014 15:52:34 GMT -5
Almost certainly 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King, if we're going back to the teen years.
In non-fiction, David Foster Wallace's story on the porn awards, Big Red Son, is the thing I've reread more than any other. Also the funniest piece of non-fiction I've ever read. It's in Consider The Lobster.
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Post by Nudeviking on Sept 22, 2014 21:21:40 GMT -5
In the words on paper category: Lord of the Rings + The Hobbit and The Silmarillion hold the record for most re-reads over the course of my life.
In the words and pictures on paper category: The Dark Phoenix Saga.
Special award for book I've read in the greatest number of languages: The Little Price/Le Petit Prince/어린왕자
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 22, 2014 21:58:33 GMT -5
Um, embarrassingly, it's probably Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I've read that a bunch of times since I was about eight or so.
I want to start reading As I Lay Dying once a year. I just started this "tradition" last year and I haven't gotten around to it in 2014, so I don't have much of a streak going yet, though.
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Post by usernametoolong on Sept 23, 2014 5:22:20 GMT -5
Probably Good Omens, with Happiness by Will Ferguson a close second. Although I'll re-read Good Omens, Happiness I'm not so sure.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2014 8:55:07 GMT -5
My most re-reads are exactly the same as idiotking's: LOTR, the Hitchhiker books, and ASOIAF. Frankly, I'm never NOT reading something from Song of Ice and Fire - all the books sit on my nightstand and I pick them up at random for drifting-off-to-sleep reading. Do I have the World of Ice and Fire compendium on pre-order? You betcha! |
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Invisible Goat
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Post by Invisible Goat on Sept 23, 2014 8:58:16 GMT -5
Yeah, Hitchhiker's and LOTR.
Also, my most re-read short story is the story "You Start to Live" from Tom Perrotta's Bad Haircut. I read it for a course in college and it takes like 15 minutes to read so I've probably read it 15-20 times.
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Post by Dr. Dastardly on Sept 23, 2014 9:16:14 GMT -5
I'm sorry in advance for being a big pretentious nerd asshole, but I re-read Shakespeare like all the time. Two or three a year, probably. That's really the only thing I always return to.
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Post by ganews on Sept 23, 2014 10:10:21 GMT -5
I first got "Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink'" in second grade, after which I gradually acquired and re-read many times every collection of "Calvin and Hobbes", "The Far Side", and "Bloom County"/"Outland".
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Post by MrsLangdonAlger on Sept 23, 2014 10:42:34 GMT -5
The Sam Vimes books by Terry Pratchett, Sterling's Zeitgeist. The Vimes books are so perfectly re-readable. Might have to do that soon. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2014 11:12:21 GMT -5
I first got "Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink'" in second grade, after which I gradually acquired and re-read many times every collection of "Calvin and Hobbes", "The Far Side", and "Bloom County"/"Outland". Oh my god, if we're including comic collections that I had/have stacked up atop the toilet tank for duce-reading, I need to update my list! |
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Kid Q
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Post by Kid Q on Sept 23, 2014 12:01:11 GMT -5
Not sure which I have re-read the most, but the ones in the running are Iris Murdoch's A Severed Head, J.G. Ballard's Crash, and Marguerite Duras' The Lover.
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Smacks
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Post by Smacks on Sept 23, 2014 12:11:30 GMT -5
Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy (especially Crystal Cave)
Grapes of Wrath about a billion times
Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series (which I just purchased for a friend that's how bad I want her to read them) These books really take you out of your own life. I can almost feel the calm afternoon of sipping tea under the acacia treee, and Mma Ramotswe is the most brilliant soul. Very uplifting.
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Post by Dr. Dastardly on Sept 24, 2014 7:48:02 GMT -5
Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy (especially Crystal Cave) Grapes of Wrath about a billion times Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series (which I just purchased for a friend that's how bad I want her to read them) These books really take you out of your own life. I can almost feel the calm afternoon of sipping tea under the acacia treee, and Mma Ramotswe is the most brilliant soul. Very uplifting. Fuck yeah, Grapes of Wrath! |
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Post by rimjobflashmob on Sept 24, 2014 8:22:23 GMT -5
It ain't glamorous, but I grew up reading the Harry Potter series over and over and I still reread it probably once a year.
I've reread Dune over 10 times as well.
R is for Rocket/Martian Chronicles/Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury.
I've reread The Name of the Wind a few times already, too.
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Smacks
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Post by Smacks on Sept 24, 2014 11:04:46 GMT -5
It ain't glamorous, but I grew up reading the Harry Potter series over and over and I still reread it probably once a year. I've reread Dune over 10 times as well. R is for Rocket/Martian Chronicles/Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. I've reread The Name of the Wind a few times already, too. I gotta read Martian Chronicles again. |
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Baron von Costume
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Post by Baron von Costume on Sept 24, 2014 11:44:01 GMT -5
Being a very fast reader I re-read pretty much every book I buy at some point.
Comfort food books though would be Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry, the Harry Potter series, a few Dick Francis books, the earlier Vimes/Guards discworld books, the x-wing series of star wars books (and actually pretty much all the Zahn books as well.)
I also reread 'Paddle to the Amazon' every year or so, true life story of a guy who took his sons on a trip from here (Winnipeg MB) to Brazil by canoe back in the 80s.
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heroboy
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Post by heroboy on Sept 24, 2014 12:29:36 GMT -5
I've read every novel I own at least twice, but beyond that the top pick would most likely Virtual Light or Idoru by William Gibson which I've read a couple times per year since they were released, though this has petered out for the past year or so. The original Dragonlance trilogy must be right up there as well since I read them at least once a year for years on end when I was a teenager.
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Post by MrsLangdonAlger on Sept 24, 2014 15:07:06 GMT -5
It ain't glamorous, but I grew up reading the Harry Potter series over and over and I still reread it probably once a year. I've reread Dune over 10 times as well. R is for Rocket/Martian Chronicles/Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. I've reread The Name of the Wind a few times already, too. I gotta read Martian Chronicles again. Do it for this Coursera class! (I just really like pimping Coursera everywhere) |
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Post by Smacks on Sept 24, 2014 15:14:20 GMT -5
I gotta read Martian Chronicles again. Do it for this Coursera class! (I just really like pimping Coursera everywhere) That is really really cool MLA. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2014 21:01:32 GMT -5
"Breakfast of Champions."
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Sept 25, 2014 4:53:50 GMT -5
I’m not necessarily a big whole book re-reader, but I’m definitely a big essay/chapter (even in narrative fiction) re-reader, with the leader being bunch from Stephen Jay Gould The Lying Stones of Marrakech. This has dropped off since shifting to mostly ereader, though—I don’t have a physical sense of where something is in a book and so it’s less easy to flip back. Others that pop into mind are bits of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Right-Ho, Jeeves, The Water-Method Man, Gödel, Escher, Bach, My Name is Red, and Desolation Island.
Also Logicomix, the graphic novel about Bertrand Russell, which is a pretty quick re-read.
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Post by usernametoolong on Sept 25, 2014 6:50:26 GMT -5
There's still some Wodehouse I haven't read (more than I have), but I can see he'll be an author I'll re-read quite a lot. I read about four of his a year, I doubt it will stop.
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Post by ganews on Sept 26, 2014 7:27:19 GMT -5
I'm impressed with how many people have posted to the thread here. Sadly I haven't found as much time to read in general in the past five years. Perhaps the only thing I've re-read in that period is 1984.
Another couple things I re-read many times as an adolescent were the various works of Edgar Allan Poe and Michael Chrichton novels.
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Post by repulsionist on Sept 26, 2014 12:23:21 GMT -5
Paul Bowles, Collected Stories (I have re-read this collection more than 5 times) Philip K Dick, A Scanner Darkly (re-read count is around 5) Cookie Mueller, Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black (re-read count was up to 5 before I gave the collection to a friend in North Carolina) |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Sept 27, 2014 23:33:59 GMT -5
Hmm, I'm not entirely sure. Depends on my mood. I'm a fast reader, too, so re-reading can be done quickly for me. Sometimes some Shakespeare.
Sometimes Borges "Ficciones". I cannot get enough of those stories. They are so freaking fun.
I think I've now read "The Great Gatsby" about 5 times.
I've re-read some of Bujold's Vorkosigan books a lot, 5-8 times?
I've probably read Elizabeth Peters "Crocodile on the Sandbank" nearly 10 times.
Re-read both Harry Potter and LOTR quite a lot. Way more than I care to admit. Let's say, I've read LOTR a tad fewer times than Christopher Lee.
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Post by socalledboothy on Sept 28, 2014 17:10:50 GMT -5
I rarely have the time to re-read books so when I do, you know it's good. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman is definitely up there (and I think I've read Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett a couple times too) with a TON of re-reads. It's one of my all-time favorite books. Meg Cabot's books (specifically The Princess Diaries series, and her adult Boy and Heather Wells trilogies) are also books that I can definitely re-read; her books are so light and great that I love revisiting them and the characters within. I have re-read Ellen Degeneres' books too as they are hilarious.
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