I'm a re-reader: if I like something, I will re-read it. Like AstroKath, I do alot of skim/skip, especially if the book has a strong plot, so I often find something new as I re-read. For me, the more interesting (and much shorter) list is of books that I thought were outstanding, utterly compelling, yet I do NOT re-read. Sarah Canary fell on that shorter list for me, also David Almond's Skellig, Jayne Phillips' Lark & Termite, Irene Nemirovsky's Fire in the Blood, Cherryh's Downbelow Station, Kage Baker's Company series, to name a few.

On the re-read list, Heyer (as for many others!) is a frequent re-read of mine, also Dick Francis, Margaret Frazer's Frevisse books, Elizabeth Moon's Paksenarrion set, and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Onesies on the re-read list: Octavia Butler's Fledgling, Robin McKinley's Chalice, Kage Baker's House of the Stag, Diana Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle, Megan Whalen Turner's The King of Attolia.

I find I re-read more when I'm stressed out or overwhelmed from work - I immerse myself in old friends.

Oh, yes. I forgot Dick Francis--and Helen MacInnes. I once reread all the Barbara Michaels books after Ms. Metz quit writing under that name. My favorite of those is Ammie, Come Home. I like them much better than the Elizabeth Peters books except for the last one that was a real washout.

I'm another one who likes to reread. I consider favorite books to be old friends that I turn to when none of my TBR's appeal or when I just need to recapture a mood. For example, although our winter has been very mild for central NY, there have been many cold, damp and dreary days and I wanted something to make me feel warm and lose the sense of cabin fever so I reread Thale's Folly by Dorothy Gilman. It's set during the summer in New England and the descriptions of the warm sunny days, the herb gardens and the characters going for a swim in the pond let me feel like it was summer here, if only for the duration of the book.

Ahhh, the joy of having family guests, one of whom -- coincidental to this thread -- is the dear auntie who once informed me that "rereading a book is self-indulgent." Of course I dismiss practically all her notions that reading is intrinsically selfish, but she managed to confuse me a lot when I was younger.

Chris, I hadn't thought of Emilie Loring in years. My mother who is ninety waxes nostalgic about all Loring's good, clean stories. But as I recall, Loring's writing wasn't overtly religious like Grace Livingston Hill's; is that right? I read oodles of both, but I can't tell you now any of the titles.

Atlas Shrugged: I had to read it as an assignment, which was always reason enough to inhibit my pleasure, so I can't judge the book fairly. I just know that I've never wanted to reread it. The elder of my brothers, though, claims to have read it 50 times. I believe him 'cause he's always quoting from it.

Woodnymph, I've especially noted your rereading of narrative nonfiction and essays; e.g., Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. With the exception of Walden and a few others, most readers don't usually mention nonfiction as favorite material to read again and again. I've never quite understood why that is, but there's probably plenty of reasons. I can get so lost in nonfiction that sometimes I just can't be pleased with something fictional. Nonfiction is just too darn easy for me to inhale. I think it was you, Woodnymph, who turned me on to Montaillou -- I do adore that time and place! :-)

Donnamira, oh, you are so right about those books that are "outstanding, utterly compelling, yet [we] do NOT re-read"! (Hope you don't mind me substituting the 'we' into your phrase.) That's a category I've failed to consider and will have to ponder.

Carolyn and Kath, you've just about sold me on the Morland Dynasty. Actually, I think I bought three or four of them several years ago -- probably, Kath, when you originated the recommendation -- but I've left them behind somewhere and will probably have to buy them again.

Helen MacInnes: She's a blast from my past, too, Carolyn.

Rouan, you've pegged it. You have to know exactly what will suit your mood and needs, so if you haven't read the book before, how will you know? :-) Oh, btw, Rouan, did you ever read Witch's Silver by Dorothy Gilman Butters? It's a historical novel geared for YA, I guess. I first read it when I was about twelve, and I'm still rereading it fifty years later.

Frieda, what an adventure you must have had, soggy books and all! As for my favorite Pyms, top of the list is Some Tame Gazelle. I believe that was the first one I read, and it led to reading all her others. Jane and Prudence and Excellent Women are two others I favor.

You mentioned re-reading non-fiction. One book I've returned to several times is Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris, a collection of essays about books, reading and life. I am a huge fan of her writing, though when I finally met her at a book signing some years ago, I was terribly disappointed to find her rather cold and stand-offish (I hoped it was just a bad day and not her usual demeanor).

Chris, I'd forgotten about Alcott's Eight Cousins, a book I read to pieces as a child. I also read and re-read Rose in Bloom as well as the Little Women sequels, Little Men and Jo's Boys.

Goody! More Dorothy Gilman novels to try. Caravan is the one I've reread a couple of times.

Frieda, Grace Livingston Hill was a favorite during my teen years. Yes, the stories were about good Christian girls, or girls finding happiness through becoming religious. Loring was more about high standards and gracious living.

Donnamira, you've certainly made me think about books that are outstanding, utterly compelling, yet I do NOT re-read. Sometimes they are too painful - Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow was that way for me.

I suppose this a good time to mention that I am a huge Tolkien fan and have read Lord of the Rings nineteen times since 1976.

I have a book of poetry, a compilation called Silver Pennies that I have been re-reading since childhood. I have many of the poems memorized and read a page or two every night. My nightstand would not be complete without this little volume with its worn green cloth cover and silver embossing.

Friedag, I suspect most readers have a guilt trip-laying non-reader relative or two. They do not understand the desire to read much less the enjoyment of re-reading. Have you noticed that they do not attribute selfishness to repeat viewings of movies and television shows or listening to their favorite songs over and over? Oh but that is different, they would say.

I re-read a lot when I was a kid but grew out of it in high school and college. There were too many other things to do and too many other books I wanted to get around to. I recently took it up again, though; I think because I am tired of books that disappoint me.

I confess to going on a spree of re-reading Judy Blume's books. You can tell how old I am by that, I am sure. :)

I also like to read "A Wrinkle in Time" every couple of years.

A book that I loved immensely as a teen is "The Thorn Birds". I thought I wanted to visit it again but about 20 pages in I put it down, saying to myself, no, I am not ready for this yet.

It pleases me that Frieda has read SC more than once and that donnamira found the book "outstanding, utterly compelling." I would love that book no matter what, but for some reason it pleases me when others find it worthy.

One non-fiction book that I have reread more than once is Steve Hagen's Buddhism Plain and Simple. I just like to remind myself how significant that book was to me when I first read it. But there's actually a part in there that tells me I'm not supposed to keep rereading it. Oh well...

Siobhan, you're way ahead of me. I've only read LotR about six or seven times. However I've read all six Jane Austen novels, Jane Eyre, and my childhood favorite A Girl of the Limberlost each no less than a dozen times each. If I thought about it I could probably come up with more titles on my dozen-times list. There are probably close to a thousand novels I've read three or more times. As someone said, re-reading a beloved book is a visit with old friends.

Rosefolly

Woodnymph, is The Finishing School on your list the one by Muriel Spark? I found a couple of others with that title by authors unfamiliar to me, so I thought I had better ask you. I wasn't sure about The Narrowing Stream either. I see it's by John Mortimer, but I don't think I've read anything by him except some of the Rumpole books.

Sheri, Some Tame Gazelle is a very curious title! If I ever read it, I think I would've remembered it -- but I don't. I've been told that any Austen-lover should love Pym. Do you think so?

I've been thinking of Donnamira's excellent new category: "outstanding, utterly compelling, yet I do NOT re-read." I have read only a few that would fit, one being John Gunther's Death Be Not Proud which I read only once in high school, circa 1967. I can remember it almost too vividly. Another is Blood Meridian: or, The Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy. I give McCarthy credit for using violence in an appropriate context and creating "the Judge," the most horrid villain I can think of. I never want to experience the violence or meet "the Judge" again, though.

Nineteen times! Siobhan, that's tremendous, especially since LoTR is a trilogy.

Lydia, I've noticed the incongruity. Believe me! It wouldn't do any good, though, to point it out to my auntie. :-( As for your age, I know you're considerably younger than I am. I've never read a Judy Blume book -- they were too late for me and I never had a daughter.

The mentions by Woodnymph of Adam of the Road and Lydia of A Wrinkle in Time remind me of all those wonderful Newbery Medal books that I read again and again. Caddie Woodlawn and The Witch of Blackbird Pond are the ones I've read most. I quit borrowing the Newbery winners from our town library after I, Juan de Pareja in 1966 because I thought I was getting too old. As soon as I possibly could, I bought my own hardbound copies of my favorites to read when I was twenty, thirty, forty...

Paula, I don't know if I've read a thousand novels but if I can count nonfiction books, I'd say I have lots of old friends too. Jane Eyre is on my dozen-times list as well.

Frieda, I am fond of "The Finishing School" by Gail Godwin.

I, too, loved "A Girl of the Limberlost". (Was that the one set in the swamps of the Mid-West, with all the butterflies?)

Another old favorite I've re-read many times for the humor and pathos is "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie."

I would guess I've read "The Wanderer" by Alain-Fournier at least a dozen times, both in French and English.

I am a firm and enthusiastic rereader, particularly when time is short for recreational reading-which I know is counter-intuitive, but when I have limited time I want to read something I know I will enjoy!

Books/series I have reread more than twice:

...and Ladies of the Club Santmyer
In This House of Brede and Kitchen Madonna Rumer Godden
the Little Women trilogy-Alcott (started rereading these every Christmas vacation in elementary school when I received my first copies, and kept it up well into my 30s-reading them out loud with my daughter. Read them again in the months after her wedding...)
the Anne of Green Gables series Montgomery
all of Austen
all of Agatha Christie's mysteries
all of Ngaio Marsh's mysteries
all of Dorothy Sayer's mysteries
all of Georgette Heyer's mysteries
all of the Nero Wolfe mysteries
all of the Gideon of the Yard mysteries
(sensing a theme here?)
all of the Harry Potter books
all of the Elizabeth Peters "Amelia and Emerson" mysteries-although I do not like her other series at all!
God is an Englishman, Theirs Was the Kingdom and Give Us This Day, the Swann trilogy R.F. Delderfield
Matriarch, Queen Mary and the House of Windsor Edwards
Wallis And Edward: Letters 1931-1937
Elizabeth Carolly Erickson

clearly, most of my rereads are escapism!

on the other hand, there are books that have stayed with me that I do not think I will ever reread:
The Splendor of a Thousand Suns
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Bel Canto
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
anything by Faulkner

Stayed with me and I will never re-read would be The Road, a vivid, beautifully written novel which sent me into what I believe was an actual depression. I will never willingly do that to myself again!

I don't often reread but sometimes do. I think I have read Gone With The Wind 3 times. I have also done a second read of Hannah Fowler, The Believers, Mila 18 and a few others. I usually reread books I read first in the 70's. Right now I am thinking about a possible reread of Anya by Susan Fromberg Schaefer and The Thorn Birds. The biggest problem with rereading is having the time to do it and I don't want to have too vivid a picture of the story or I won't enjoy it a second time.
Then there are the many books I have read so many times I can't begin to count when I was a high school English teacher. My favorites-Ethan Fromme and To Kill A Mockingbird

I have some favorite authors whose work I will re-read, such as Dickens (I'm re-reading "Our Mutual Friend" right now), Faulkner, and Austen--they never fail to entertain. I also re-read particular books, such as "The Worst Journey in the World" (about the race to the South Pole), "The Good Soldier," and "Madam Bovary," among others.

On the other hand, when I have gone back to re-read an influential or meaningful book from my youth--such as "The Stranger" --it has been a peculiar experience. My tastes have changed, and life experience has completed altered my perception, I suppose.

I will echo rosefolly. "The Road" was the first to come to my mind as a worthy book I am glad I read...I guess (sometimes I am not quite sure). I do not want to re-read it.

Friedag, I still every year check out the latest Newbery Medal Award winner. There have been some good recent ones but I am partial to those I first read as an adolescent. Along with my favorite "A Wrinkle in Time" I have re-read "Sounder" and two by Katherine Paterson, "Bridge to Terabithia" and "Jacob Have I Loved". I was already an adult when "Sarah, Plain and Tall" won, but it became a favorite too. My daughter loves it dearly. It will probably be the book of her childhood that she will always read again and again.

I love, love, love "Sarah, Plain and Tall." I was just thinking about that today.

I have spent a couple of frustrating days: I can read the threads here at RP, but I've been unable to post. I've wanted to respond. Hopefully, this time my log-in will stick.

Woodnymph, thanks for setting me straight on The Finishing School by Gail Godwin. I think I must have spurred your memory when I mentioned Muriel Spark. I've read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie several times myself.

Cece, reading the familiar when time is short may be "counter-intuitive" to many readers, but it makes perfect sense to me. And I think escapism is a perfectly legitimate reason for reading and rereading! I enjoyed your list. I always enjoy when readers list their favorite books, but I often wonder: how favorite is favorite? When they say how many times they've read a book, that's a pretty good indication the book is among their "favorite favorites."

Hmm, I have been extremely leery of reading other Cormac McCarthy books after Blood Meridian. I didn't want to read The Road, and now, thanks to Rosefolly and Lydia relating their experiences with it, I think I probably made the right choice for me. I agree -- going by what I have read of his books -- that he's a hell of a good writer of very unpleasant stories.

Pam53 and KKay: Interesting choices of books both of you have mentioned. I'm fascinated with the number and kinds of books people choose to reread, often similar and just as often so different from my own.

Lydia, the Newbery books have the best track record, I think, of pleasing generation after generation of readers. I'm thinking of all those Pulitzers and even the Bookers that are no longer read except by mavens. The Newbery award is the same age as my mother -- ninety! She still recalls and loves best the ones she read as a child. I suppose that's true for every generation. Mama so loved Hitty: Her First Hundred Years that it was the first gift she bought for her great-granddaughter (my granddaughter) "just so A-- can have her own copy."

I will definitely be reading Sarah, Plain and Tall soon!

Thanks to you all. As always, you've given me lots to work with and chew on. :-)

Chiming in to say "The Road" was probably the most depressing book I've ever read, outside of a few by Chas. Dickens. I admire the author's style, but would never re-read this.

And thank you, Frieda, for mentioning Hitty: Her First Hundred Years. Someone gave me that book when I was very young and I loved it, like I loved all books at that age. I have ordered a copy from Amazon.

With regard to re-reading, when I was a kid I read all of my books over and over because the number of books available to me was limited. We didn't have a library in the small town where we lived and even the school library did not have a lot to offer. I think that may be one reason why we love the books we had as children -- we may have appreciated them more because we didn't have so many.

I continued to re-read some books after childhood but, because I read books very thoroughly (no skimming for me) I tend to remember them well for quite some time and there are so many new books available now. I am collecting some of the books I appreciated the most on my Kindle so I can re-read them in the future. Yesterday I downloaded Janice Meredith by Paul Leicester Ford, a book I remember checking out of my high school library multiple times. I want to remember why I liked it so much.

Thank you all for this thread. Following Freida's idea, I am also creating lists of the books I re-read (not many) and the books that touched me that I shall not re-read. May I agree with all of you? I used to believe that life was too short to re-read. And indeed, for the most part, I still agree with that statement. But there are times when I want the comfort of an old friend. Sometimes, just knowing what will happen next is the only control I have had over my day. Then again, it IS the newness of plot, of character, of idea, that I crave in a book most often. I LOVE to learn and believe that one can learn from everything one reads, both fiction and non-fiction. As I grow older, (Yes, we all know I am 45 now...), I have come to appreciate that I can learn much from a re-read of books as well as the first read of a book.

I guess the bottom line is that I will read... no matter what, I will read. And that is comfort enough.

PAM

I've re-read the Little House books many times--the whole series in sequence. They are still delicious to me, even as they were when I was a child.

Thanks to the topic of this thread and sheriz6's mention of it, I sought out "Ex Libris" by Anne Fadiman. My library did not have a copy immediately available but they did have Fadiman's "Rereadings" so I checked it out instead.

The first thing I noticed was Fadiman's spelling - reread, rereading, rereader - that agrees with Friedag's and other posters' spelling here. I have always used hyphens in these words and I notice that other posters do as well. The dictionaries I consulted give both spellings as correct, with most modern publishers opting to print without the hyphen. RP posters cause me to learn something new every time I visit this site!

I have not finished all the essays of the seventeen writers who acknowledge that each "rereading" of a book is never the same as a previous reading. I like this comment in the Amazon description of Fadiman's book:

"These essays are not conventional literary criticism; they are about relationships. Rereadings reveal at least as much about the reader as about the book: each is a miniature memoir that focuses on that most interesting of topics, the protean nature of love. And as every bibliophile knows, no love is more life-changing than the love of a book."

Friedag, I also like reading other readers' lists. I do not have a long-enough list to supply you with one however. I notice that you have given hints of the books you revisit, but you have not offered your own list. How about it? - if you have the time and can stay logged in. I for one would like to see it. :)

I am not really a big re-reader for several reasons, but mainly it's bc I feel that there are all those newer books (to me) out there, so how can I read something that I already know about? (But then, I do understand the point of some of you when you say you may be craving something that is familiar especially when Life is tossing you around a bit)...

Looking back over my reading list for the past years, I see that there is very little repetition, but there is some, mainly non-fiction. However, it's less than two each year so far...

When I was a younger reader (like in my early teens), I would re-read my books all the time, but again, they were mostly non-fiction and it seems like I had oodles of spare time...

I know I read and re-read one fiction book: Fifteen (or was it Sixteen?) by Beverley Cleary. This was a sweet little romance book set in America which convinced me to set really high bars for the boys in my English town, and led to much disappointment in the romantic world when the boys didn't act like this one did!!

Perhaps my brain categorizes non-fiction and fiction separately or something.

I can definitely see some benefits from re-reading, esp some of the classics which were foisted on me in the early school years, so I am not against re-reading. I just don't think I do it that much myself.

Just when I thought this thread had wound down, I see it has garnered some additional comments. I appreciate all of them! Glad I checked in.

Frances, you could very well be right about treasuring the books we read as children and reading them over and over because we didn't have so many. Of course when I was a child there weren't near as many books of any kind as there are nowadays. Just think of the accumulation of books published in the past fifty to sixty years!

I vaguely remember the title Janice Meredith. I think it was set during the Revolutionary War. But I may be confusing it with Celia Garth.

Marita, I was forty-seven years old before I decided to read the Little House books. They were around when I was a child, but for some reason I didn't get hold of them back then. Even though I was late coming to them, I thought they were all charming. But the two that really pleased me are Farmer Boy and The Long Winter. I've reread those but not the others.

PAM, as usual, you make perfect sense to me!

Lydia, the spelling is a style preference. With me the spelling sans hyphen is a habit engrained by an editor who would screech over unnecessary hyphens. A lot of words that were once spelled exclusively with hyphens no longer have them; e.g., to-morrow, to-day, co-operate, etc. I figure most readers, though, can figure out what the writer means whether the spelling is with or without the hyphens.

Both of Fadiman's books sound interesting and apropos to this topic.

Lydia, it would almost be easier for me to list the books I have not reread. Like Donnamira, if I get all the way through a book and don't loathe it, I'm likely to reread it. I'll draw up a list for you though, Lydia. Let me think about how I would can make it a manageable size. I'll get back to ya. :-)

I reread some books over and over again, all the Austens including the juvenilia, Jane Eyre, The Tennant of Wildfell Hall, Dorothy L. Sayers, David Lodge, Oscar Wilde, E.M. Forster, T.S. Eliot's poems, always when I want to fall back on something comfortable. Two funny books from the thirties I reread every other year in the original language are the German Erich Kaestner's Three Men in the Snow and the Norwegian Servant's Entrance by Sigrid Boo.

We keep the children's books in the combined guest room/husband's study in the basement. I often reread some of them while waiting for the washing machine or the dryer, also in the basement. Kipling's Kim, the Alice books, the first Harry Potter, all books by E. Nesbit, the first Anne of Green Gables, Jean Webster. I don't think I would reread them if they were kept upstairs. I also reread some favourite Swedish books, of course.

My greatest fear of rereading a beloved book is that I will notice all sorts of flaws which ruin for it forever. I have some favorite books, novels like Defoe's Moll Flanders for example, which I indefinitely have put off reading again just for this reason. Oddly enough, I can reread a book I don't particularly admire, Wuthering Heights comes to mind, and not care whether my initial assessment of it changes.

An issue which is related to this topic is that of differing translations of a book which is not in the reader's native language. I reread and enjoyed a rather workmanlike translation of Madame Bovary. When I read a much better translation years later, it was truly discovering a whole new, much more profound book.

I didn't find the Little House books until I bought them for my daughter. My favorite is Those Happy Golden Years. I read The Long Winter before wrapping it one very cold Christmas Eve and almost froze to death on the couch in the den.

Oh! Mariannese, do you have Jean Webster's Daddy-Long-Legs and/or Dear Enemy? I read both of those many times. My brothers and I adored Kim, and we spent many happy hours acting out scenes of Kim on the Grand Trunk Road. We read a lot of Kipling, especially Captains Courageous and Stalky & Co and his poems "Danny Deever" and "Gunga Din."

Timallan, I understand your differing experiences with translations of Madame Bovary. I had similar ones with Le Grand Meaulnes by Henri Alain-Fournier (mentioned by Woodnymph above). I first read it in French and was quite taken with what I perceived as an ethereal quality in certain key scenes. When I read it in English, that quality seemed to be missing entirely. I had to reread it in French to regain that perception. I don't know if the English translation I read was not very good or I was misunderstanding the French. If it was the latter, I liked misunderstanding better!

Lydia, I'm still working on the list. Here's something for you that I remembered:

Rescued on the Way to the Incinerator

Off to Arcady: Adventures in Poetry - edited by Max J. Herzberg, Copyright 1933
This was a high school textbook, marked on the inside of the front cover as "This Book Is the Property of the State of Iowa." Underneath were lines on which to list all the students to whom it was issued. Apparently one of those students had received the book in good condition but returned it in only fair condition. On the page of Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" the student's fountain pen must have malfunctioned in a major way because there's one large inkspot and many splatters.

By the time I was in junior high school in the 1960s, this battered single copy was considered by the school librarian as so old it needed to be discarded, along with a cartload of other old books -- to be burned. But I couldn't stand the idea and pleaded to save at least as many books as I could carry. I didn't know it then, but I had retrieved a gem in Off to Arcady. This nearly eighty-year-old book has followed me all over the world for almost fifty years.

I've been amazed all these years at the quality of the instructive "study suggestions," assignments, and "questions to be answered by pupil." These are all in small, close print and there's nary a photograph or illustration in the whole book. Mind you, this was a poetry course for high school students. I had a less demanding poetry class in college.

Oh yes, Frieda, I have both Daddy Longlegs and Dear Enemy. The Patty books, too. Love them all.

Lydia, I found making the list much harder than I expected. I kept adding and subtracting titles, then I tried to be ruthless in winnowing down. I left out whole categories, but I tried to include what I recall has interested you. It remains unwieldy, but I gave up and now will just copy and paste what I have. Remember, you asked for it! :-)

Autobiography & Biography The Brontes - Juliet Barker
Captain Bligh and Mister Christian Richard Hough
Janet Frame's Autobiography: To the Is-land, An Angel at My Table, Envoy from Mirror City
Period Piece - Gwen Raverat

Archaeology and History
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus - Charles C. Mann
The Bible Unearthed - Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman
Martin's Hundred - Ivor Noel Hume (my favorite archaeologist)
The Mummies of Urumchi - Elizabeth Wayland Barber
Return to Sodom and Gomorrah - Charles Pellegrino
The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest People from the West - J. P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair
Unearthing Atlantis - Charles Pellegrino (about archaeology on Santorini and the impact of the Theran volcanic eruption; needs to be updated but is still a good overview)
The Virginia Adventure - Ivor Noel Hume

The Classics No One Had to Bribe Me to Read
Austen's canonical six
The Brontes' novels, except Charlotte's The Professor which I barely got through once
Thomas Hardy's novels...most of them, I think
The one I've read most is Astrokath's all-time favourite: she once referred to it as Tess of the 'Bloody' d'Urbervilles. :-b
Mark Twain -- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will always be my favorite of his, even though I'm well aware of its flaws. I get a kick out of most Twain, nonfiction as well as fiction, although he did get to be something of a sourpuss.

Coming of Age -- for the Main Character and Me
The Human Comedy - William Saroyan
I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith
The Last Picture Show - Larry McMurtry
To Kill a Mockingbird
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
Winter Wheat - Mildred Walker

Daphne du Maurier
I've read all of her novels at least twice, even the egregious (in my opinion) Rule Britannia.
My favorites are The House on the Strand and The King's General. After those, the next in my ranking are The Scapegoat and My Cousin Rachel. Rebecca comes in about 5th, maybe 6th, although I've read it umpteen times.

Diseases in History
Napoleon's Glands - Arno Karlen
Plagues and Peoples - William H. McNeill, first published in 1977 -- a classic!
Purple Secret: Genes, 'Madness', and the Royal Houses of Europe - John C. G. Rohl
Queen Victoria's Gene: Haemophilia and the Royal Family - Potts & Potts

I Have Seldom Run Across Another Reader, Except My Mother, of:
Before the Sun Goes Down - Elizabeth Metzger Howard
Former RP poster Bob (from Canada) surprised me when he said it was one of his favorites.

Frieda, I have a copy of Roller Skates from my childhood, too. My favorite Newbery (although I haven't read many) is Caddie Woodlawn.

As I've told you all, my mother was a primary teacher so we had a lot of school readers up to maybe third grade level. After that, I didn't have many books of my own and reread what I had multiple times. I also read her college textbook from her Children's Literature course, which is where I learned to love mythology. I didn't have access to a library until I moved to the "big city" but did subscribe to Calling All Girls Magazine.

Frieda, that is such an interesting list. I don't think I know another person with such catholic tastes.
And I should add, that I was forced to read Thomas Bloody Hardy at age 15, and was possibly a bit young for Tess of the bloody D'Urbervilles *VBG*
I have read very few on that list - TKAMB, one du Maurier, Katherine and GWTW.

Kath, I was lucky to have been spared reading Hardy at school, although some classes 'did' The Trumpet Major & Under the Greenwoods Tree. We were too deep into most of Austen or Bronte; so up to our necks we were probably put off both authors for life. ;-)

Frieda it was you who introduced me to Gwen Raverat and the slightly bonkers, if brilliant Darwin family and I still have Emma Darwin the bio by Edna Healey on my TBR stack.
Have read some of Janet Frome's sad auto-bio's and Betty MacD's books are some of my rare re-reads.

I have to say I see little point in reading whodunits and similar as the outcome is already known.

Frieda, I was intrigued by your list. I've never met anyone else who admired the writings of Ivor Noel Hume besides myself. I've read all his books and he lived in Williamsburg, when I was living in the Historic Triangle area of VA. In fact, "Martin's Hundred" was just up the road from where I lived. That's one thing I do miss about VA -- all the colonial history in that part of the state. Mind you, Charleston is fascinating, but in a different way.

I, too, am a fan of Mark Twain. My favorite is "Tom Sawyer."

And how could I have forgotten to list "I Capture the Castle"? I have re-read it several times and loved it.

Friedag, I enjoyed your anecdote about the poetry book you saved. It bolsters the saying, "the right book for every reader, the right reader for every book." My daughter's current textbook "Survey of Literature" is beautiful and glossy, but more than 50% of each page has elaborate graphics - photographs, illustrations and colored boxes with items "of related interest" (more pictures usually) - and the actual text is minimal, with more white space than words.

Wow! Friedag, your list is a goldmine. Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness and taking the time and effort to write it. I think you must have read more books twice than I have once.

> "in spite of the accusations by some against Ms M for being insensitive toward certain groups of people and not having the foresight to know what would be politically incorrect after she was dead..."

No kidding! I know a few of those self-righteous readers. One woman related how disgusting she thought Mary Stewart's books are and she would not be reading any others. Puzzled, I had to ask why. "Stewart's characters smoke cigarettes" was her pursed lip reply. I wanted to say something sarcastic like, "Think you might get the affects of secondhand smoke?" I refrained.

I have read only "The Egg and I" but not recently. I think I will re-read it to see just how not-PC Betty MacD was.

There are a few I plan to re-read; but for the most, I'm not a re-reader, unless en it's a book or SS, for school.

I do re-read my favorite Children's books once, every 2-years.

Carolyn, I remember the Calling All Girls magazine and even a few of the stories I read from it. All the good magazines -- Ladies' Home Journal, McCall's, Redbook, Seventeen... -- had their literary sections that I relished. I thought Redbook had the best serials, and I particularly remember a Seventeen short story in 1967 because the punchline ran "Well, it's only seventeen years until 1984." Gosh, I thought 1984 was so far off!

After most of the magazines discontinued their lit, I missed the anticipation of wondering if the new issues would have good stories. Now you have to buy a strictly literary magazine or better yet, I suppose, download something onto your favorite electronic device. Sigh.

Kath, I've never been able to specialize in anything.
I really shouldn't have evoked your name along with Hardy's, but I thought what you said about him and Tess was so darn funny!

Vee, I will reread most mysteries usually only after enough time has passed for me to have forgotten 'whodunit'. However, sometimes I just like to soak up the atmosphere of a good setting or enjoy an intriguing character. I'll always know what happened in, say, The Riddle of the Sands (Erskine Childers) or The Hound of the Baskervilles but the solution of the mystery is no longer my raison d'etre for reading them.

Woodnymph: The Noel Humes, Ivor and Audrey, were a wonderful couple who very graciously enlightened me on the subject of Virginia archaeology. I was shown the Carter's Grove site when it was just stakes in the ground strung with twine. I had neither the knowledge nor imagination to conjure Martin's Hundred, but INH and Audrey were so good at explaining things that I fell in love with the whole project. Lucky you to have lived just up the road! I have always meant to go back and take a look at the Jamestown Fort site. Its location was still unknown when I was last there in the 1980s.

Lydia, the list was fun to do. I just had trouble deciding what to include and what to leave out. Hope you will find something useful in it.

Ach! What is it with these people who want to impose present-day views onto the past? You had more self-control than I probably would've.

Sarah C. -- I also read "Atlas Shrugged" in my early-20s. Began re-reading it in mid-20s. Just couldn't get through it again (the first time, it took me a year!). It took me a couple years to get its influence "out of my system." Over time I've discovered that I just don't like authors who push their ideology on me -- or as Wm. F. Buckley, Jr. said (of "Atlas Shrugged') -- "... a philosophy in which every star is fixed."

Frieda -- Really enjoyed going over your well-thought-out list. I love to re-read,too. I'm usually never disappointed. In fact, sometimes a book is even better the second time around.

The little Agatha Christie mysteries never let me down (except maybe a couple). I rarely remember "who dunnit" - and if I do, the story and characters are so delightful I don't care. (But I only re-read those about every 10+ years.) They have such a magic to me! I tried an old Ruth Rendell, but it didn't work out -- was only good on a first reading.

Here are some that held up on second -- or more -- readings:

Mary Stuart (some of her books).

Jane Austen -- read "Emma" 3xs,
Penhaligon's Winter Garden (winter verse) -- poetry book I bring out every winter.
Daphne Du Maurier -- "My Cousin Rachel".
David Sedaris -- "Me Talk Pretty Someday".

Annie Hawes -- Non-fict/Travel -- "Extra Virgin" -- 2 young, single, English sisters go to Italy (early-1980s) ... end up getting more than they bargained for! Absolutely delightful! Read it 3xs.

Paul Gallico -- "Love Let Me Not Hunger" ... Deep, meaningful story w/ optimistic view of Life.

Was it dwindling reader interest that made the women's mags stop offering fiction and poetry? After my grandmother died when we were distributing her possessions we found a cache of old magazines from the 1950's, some I never knew existed. One was "Everywoman's: The Guide to Better Living" - 5 cents was the price printed on the covers. I asked my mother why grandmother had saved them. She said "Mimi" liked to re-read the short stories in them. I saved a few and read the fiction sections. They were quite good but very tame by today's standards.

Friedag, what is "Before the Sun Goes Down" about? I found several copies available from used book sellers for under $10, but none of them have descriptions about the writing itself. I found only one rating and that reader did not like the story without saying why.

I saw with interest that Sarah Canary re-read the Steve Hagan book Buddhism Plain and Simple, and smiled with recognition as that is one of the books that I do re-read every now and then. (It's almost time for a re-read right now, but it's all in the timing.)

Another lovely quiet meditative re-read is Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh, the noted Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist.

I forgot to mention that I often reread favorite short stories. Around Hallowe'en I will make a point of reading "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad". Still spooks me every time.

A book which I have enjoyed reading more than once, is Susan Hill's The Woman in Black. This book was recommended in an RP thread on scary books.

I have enjoyed rereading all the novels of Jane Austen. I find I can read them all again about every 15 years or so, with no diminished enjoyment.

Lauramarie, ahhh yes, the Ligurian coast. I enjoyed Extra Virgin but for some reason never reread it. Another one for the reread pile! I've liked several of Paul Gallico's books, though I don't think I ever read the one you mention.

Annie Hawes' book reminds me of a category I left out in my list above: Travel memoirs and the related I-Bought-a-House-in-a-Foreign-Country books a la Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence. I read a whole bunch of those several times, until I think I must have burnt-out on them. I never bought a house outside the USA, but I've rented a few delightful ones and many dumps. And, oh! the landlords.

Lydia, I suspect that's right: the magazines had to cut out the lit so they could make room for more beauty tips, advice columns, fashion spreads, interior decorating displays, and other pretty pictures. Give the reader what she wants... Actually I don't know if all the magazines did that, since I haven't bought those sorts of general magazines in several decades. I think the UK publications held out longer than US ones -- some of them may still print stories and poems...I don't know.

I was introduced by the magazines to a lot of writers who later became well known. I recall a Judith Viorst story from the early 1970s called "The Tenth Good Thing About Barney" and the Redbook novel for August 1973 was Richard Bradford's So Far from Heaven (a condensation, of course). I liked the Bradford one so much that I sought out the complete version and have reread it several times. Sylvia Plath got her start in magazines, too, although that was a little before my time.

I've never heard of the Everywoman's magazine your grandmother collected, but I know that those 'little' magazines could contain gems. Yes, I suppose they were tame, but watch out! The characters may not be hopping in and out of bed with each other, etc., but they might smoke cigarettes! :-b

Lydia, the dustjacket on my copy of Before the Sun Goes Down says it won the $20,000 Doubleday Prize and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer $125,000 Annual Novel Award for 1945. Evidently, it was quite popular in the 1940s and '50s because even small-town libraries usually had a copy. I didn't read it until the early 1960s, although I had heard my mother and grandmother often refer to it. I suppose it became one of those family favorites that all the readers know what the other readers are talking about when they quote from it at apropos times.

It's rather old-fashioned in the storytelling style, so I'm not surprised that modern readers might not like it -- it's too straightforward. Oh, and what it's about: The setting is a small town in Pennsylvania, the year is 1880. The main character is the town's doctor. The story is his interaction with the townspeople, most of them having been his patients, and he attended the births of nearly all the children in the previous twenty years. It's an evocation of another time, of course, but there's change in the...

Ah, those magazine stories. My mother got Ladies' Home Journal and Redbook, and I subscribed to some of them as a young homemaker. I did not resubscribe to American Home after they ran a feature on bathrooms that had the bathtub walled with mirror. I had a five year old at the time and decided it was not for me.

I think it was in Calling All Girls that I first read Who Rides a Tiger by Doris M. Disney and really liked it. I remember being overjoyed to find it later in the library and be able to read the uncut version.

lemonhead -- Thich Nhat Hanh is another author that I reread. I don't own Being Peace but I do have Peace Is Every Step, which I do like to reread. Thanks for the reminder. I also enjoy Sylvia Boorstein's books, especially Happiness Is an Inside Job. But I seem to have given my copy away -- something I do with these types of books.

Has anyone ever reread a book by accident? My father was such a fan of Louis L'Amour that he would frequently get halfway into a book before realizing that he had already read it.

Another re-reader of Woman in Black here - I think most regulars here recognize my love of ghost stories. Odd really, as a child I couldn't stand anything scary and now it is bread-and-butter to me. Hated vegetables too, and now I can't live without them. Strange.

Anyway, I can't believe I forgot to mention Harry Potter. I've read the series several times and I think a few others here have also.

siobhan, two for one coming your way with the UK film Woman in Black starring none other than Daniel Radcliffe.

Here is a link that might be useful: Woman in Black movie

Hmmmm what a weird coincidence...

Hey, Harry Potter is all grown up!

Friedag - Speaking of "How-I-dropped-everything-and-ran-off-to-live-in-a-foreign-country" books - I forgot two books I've read a couple times ... just adore them! "The Hills of Tuscany" and "A Vineyard in Tuscany", by Ferenc Mate. An emigre to Canada and U.S. from Hungary, the writer lived/travelled to many parts of the world -- Malibu, California; New York City; British Columbia; etc, etc. At last, he and his artist-wife put down roots in Tuscany. They live there still ... and love it. After some time in a lovely old farmhouse, they moved into a 13th century friary. One of the books tells the story of how they accomplished the feat of bringing it back to its former glory. Then, worked the land into a successful winery -- w/out any experience. It's a dream world full of amazing people! Somebody pinch me!