OT: - Books you have read twice..no phonebooks | Page 2 | The Boneyard

OT: Books you have read twice..no phonebooks

All 9 books of The Little House series by Laura Ingalls .
Most of Agatha Christie's books.
Most of the Sherlock Holmes stories.
The Arabian Night.
Tom Sawyer.
 
Last edited:
Bama fan said:
I have read many books through the years, and a few of them twice. When younger I went through a spell of reading many great works. So I read James Joyce and Thomas Hardy , among others. But those two authors were so confounding that I had to read most of their stuff at least twice. Tess of the d'Ubervilles operated on several different layers, and I reread it several times to grasp its intricacies. Jude ,the Obscure and The Mayor of Castorbridge and Far From the Madding Crowd were all tough reads, but rewarding. And Joyce's Ulysses was so unfathomable that I am certain that I am uncertain of its meaning. No amount of rereading will enlighten me there I fear. I read Candide several times because I was quite amused by Pangloss. And I was as enamored of Cunegonde as Candide once was! Pride and Prejudice was also a gem, and I read it again after the spate of screen plays made it "de rigueur" once more. Moby Dick and In Cold Blood are others I revisited. But my favorite novel remains To Kill A Mockingbird. Moving to Alabama 35 years ago made it that much more poignant. I am sure I have personally met some of the richly developed characters that Ms Lee brought to life. Although I have yet to encounter Miss Maudie, I have not given up hope. As the old public service announcement used to say "Reading is Fundamental".
Expand ...
You forgot Return of The Native...!
 
The entire Tolkien (J.R.R.'s works only) ouevre -- still pick one of them up & read a scene (and many following pages) every so often.
Ready Player One, Ernest Cline -- even tho I didn't come of age in the '80s, it's a trip I'm glad I didn't miss.
The Annotated Sherlock Holmes , William S. Baring-Gould -- every novel & story by Sir Arthur in 2 huge volumes. (BTW, I think the TV series Elementary does a pretty good job of capturing Holmes as I pictured him in my mind.)
The Wheel of Time series, Robert Jordan -- But only the first one and last 2 volumes. Forgive a very ill man the excesses of the middle 10 books, but you don't have to read them. Find a summary somewhere instead.
Systemantics, John Gall -- Similar to The Peter Principle but funnier and sadder because it's all true. There are PDFs available online.
Pride of Chanur/The Kif Strike Back/Chanur's Homecoming, C.J.Cherryh -- She made me believe I could understand how the culture of a race of intelligent felineites would work, had me appreciate the basis of their emotions and enjoy a rollicking story involving 5 spacefaring cultures all at the same time.
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson -- His debut, not like his later books below. A fast-moving story with well-delineated characters and a number of outstanding turns of phrase.
The Diamond Age, Reamde, Neal Stephenson -- His attention to detail is amazing; I've learned a lot from his books about a plethora of subjects. It'd probably be stultifying to some others, but I love it.
Time Enough for Love, Robert A. Heinlein -- Mostly not a science fiction story, though it takes place on many planets over hundreds of years of one man's life.

And on, and on, but those are the biggies that come up today.
 
Last edited:
I assume the qualification is at least twice, not exactly twice:
To Kill A Mocking Bird
Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas
Catch-22
Slaughterhouse Five
The Catcher in the Rye
Fahrenheit 451
The Great Gatsby
Steinbeck quartet (Grapes, Eden, Mice, Cannery)
Hemingway quartet (A Farewell, The Sun, For Whom, The Old Man)
In Cold Blood

So many more

It's almost as if my father taught a course in 20th Century American Literature...which he did.
 
FeloniousMonk said:
Off the top of my head:

Huckleberry Finn
The Lord of the Rings
All the Sherlock Holmes stories
A bunch of Dr. Seuss

More recently, Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere and The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Expand ...
It might come as a surprise but my wife and partner in our business, one of the largest mystery specialty bookstores and presses in the world, didn’t read a Sherlock Holmes story until she was 30. I wasn’t sure how this transfer from sf would handle Holmes but I sent her off with The Red-Headed League. She returned to say why have you been holding out on me? And so a Sherlockisn was born. It should be noted that the first appearance of the Holmes stories in the new magazine, The Strand, coincided with many of the first Brits to benefit from universal education, thus the first truly literate British population, and the lines went round the corner from the newsstands each month for the latest installment in The Adventures and Memoirs in the Strand.
FeloniousMonk said:
Off the top of my head:

Huckleberry Finn
The Lord of the Rings
All the Sherlock Holmes stories
A bunch of Dr. Seuss

More recently, Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere and The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Expand ...
 
.-.
boy, i must be missing something. or you all are the biggest bunch of BS'ers in the universe!!

why in heck would you be re-reading all these books, multiple books, long books, whole lengthy series of books rather than using your limited time to experience all the thousands and thousands of potentially fantastic books that you have not experienced at all.

please, clue me in.

excuse me if you are just listing some of your favorites. cool. ... but if you are actually re-reading all of them, well, ... i'm sorry you don't have better things to do.

btw, i do see why someone would re-read a book or two, but not a library. myself, i am blown away by the prose of 'the great gatsby' -- plus it's short and an easy read.
 
Like many of you I read quite a bit. These are some that I've come back to.
The Lord of the Ring series (several times)
The Hobbit (several times)
The Master and Commander Series (probably my favorite series, I've read all 20 at least twice, some more.)
The Foundation Series (Asimov)
Killer Angel Series (At least twice, great description of the Battle of Gettysburgh and then the Civil War, generally)
I Robot.

Probably more, if I think about it. Books are like old friends. It is nice to revisit them with a different life perspective.
 
Moby Dick
Huckleberry Finn
The Right Stuff
Sirens of Titan
The Trial
Childhood's End
A Brief History of Time
Walt Disney A Biography
Hello, I Must Be Going (Marx Brothers Biography)
The Wit and Wisdom Of Mark Twain
All I Really Need To Know I Learned From Watching Star Trek
 
.-.
José Gorostiza Poesía
Mark Twain Letters From the Earth
Francisco de Quevedo (Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Santibáñez Villegas)
Obra Completa-Poesía
Dava Sobel Longitude
Nicolàs Guillén Tengo
Richard Feynman Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character
Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss) And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street*

*The first book I ever read aloud by myself, and read again dozens of times to my kids, often doing a running translation into Spanish or Portuguese Dr. Seuss and I were both thrown off the same college satire magazine for... ermm... going above and beyond.;) He changed his name, became a great writer. I did neither.
 
Last edited:
I know This Much is True, by UConn's own Wally Lamb. UConn women's basketball gets a mention in there, if I recall correctly.
 
The Old Man's War series of books by John Scalzi. Science fiction done with humor. After that, the Lock In series by Scalzi. Completely different but sucks you into the story just the same.
 
Love Story - more times than I can count
When Breath Becomes Air - cried even though I knew how it would end
True Story of the Three Little Pigs
Where the Wild Things Are
 
Last edited:
tomcat said:
I know This Much is True, by UConn's own Wally Lamb. UConn women's basketball gets a mention in there, if I recall correctly.
Expand ...
She’s Come Undone was a good read...tried to read ’I know This Much is True’...hated it and gave up.
 
Golf in the Kingdom, Michael Murphy
The Four Magic Moves to Winning Golf, Joe Dante
Cobble Valley Golf Yarns, and other Sketches, A.W. Tillinghast
 
.-.
The complete works of Shakespeare. Dickens.
My Uncle left copies of his college books in my Mom's basement so I read everything he left over and over. Great memories
 
JRRRJ said:
The entire Tolkien (J.R.R.'s works only) ouevre -- still pick one of them up & read a scene (and many following pages) every so often.
The Annotated Sherlock Holmes , William S. Baring-Gould -- every novel & story by Sir Arthur in 2 huge volumes. (BTW, I think the TV series Elementary does a pretty good job of capturing Holmes as I pictured him in my mind.)
The Wheel of Time series, Robert Jordan -- But only the first one and last 2 volumes. Forgive a very ill man the excesses of the middle 10 books, but you don't have to read them. Find a summary somewhere instead.
Pride of Chanur/The Kif Strike Back/Chanur's Homecoming, C.J.Cherryh -- She made me believe I could understand how the culture of a race of intelligent felineites would work, had me appreciate the basis of their emotions and enjoy a rollicking story involving 5 spacefaring cultures all at the same time.
Time Enough for Love, Robert A. Heinlein -- Mostly not a science fiction story, though it takes place on many planets over hundreds of years of one man's life.

And on, and on, but those are the biggies that come up today.
Expand ...
I no longer read much, sad really. I am trying in this time to pick up some books from our home library, mostly non-fiction.

But - while I have reread Shelby Foote's Civil War series and most of Bruce Catton's various Civil War books - it is science fiction and fantasy that I have most often reread, they always tempted me back.

While I reread a lot "in the day", eventually I packed the paperbacks up and most are gone. There is one box still in the garage, it may contain a few I mention below.

Tolkien, but only twice I'm pretty sure.
You mention the Baring-Gould Sherlock Holmes collection - those sit on our bookshelves and I too have dipped more than once.
CJ Cherryh - not just the Chanur series, but several of her others, including the Mri Wars series and the Morgaine books (also read some of her singletons, more than once).

In the quote from your post I kept your reference to The Wheel of Time (I read at least some of it, I think) and Time Enough For Love which is, as you say a wonderful book, but I'm sure does not qualify as something I read more than once.

And to contribute something of my own - the writings of David Eddings, particularly the Belgariad and the Malloreon, but others of his as well. I think this is what is in the mysterious box in the garage.

And yes, in the day, as some others said, I did reread the Agatha Christie mysteries, at least most of them.
 
1. Three Musketeers
2. Twenty years after (Sequel to 1 and better)
3. Count of Monte Cristo

4. Ivanhoe (Go fast over the pages you do not like)
5. Westward Ho (Amyas Leigh was a favorite hero when I was young)
6. Treasure Island
7. King Solomon's Mines (I read this book before I learned to be politically correct. I never regretted rereading it. Alan Quatermain ranked higher than Amyas Leigh.)
8. Children of the New Forest

10. A white sail gleams
11. Story of a real man
12. How the steel was tempered (10-12 are Soviet books and may need some effort on your part to read. They are worth the effort.)

13. Prisoner of Zenda, and The Rupert of Hentzau - two brilliant Ruritanian novels
14. I Claudius, and Claudius the God

15. Complete Sherlock Holmes (Doubleday has a good one volume edition. I bought mine from BOMC 40 years ago. This is one of the few volumes I can pick up today with the same enthusiasm I had when I was 10 years old)

Among my favorite detective fiction:
.
16. Murder of Roger Ackroyd
17. The hound of the Baskervilles (See 15 above)
18. Trent's last case
19. The house of the arrow (18 and 19 were part of "Three famous Murder Novels", a Modern Library Giant)
20. The Bishop's crime (Hard to find)
21. The name of the rose

22. And now Miguel
23. Anne of Green Gables
24. All children's books by Roger Lancelyn Green: King Arthur, Robin Hood, the Norse Saga. He wrote about 20 of them. His son Richard Lancelyn Green edited the superb "Further adventures of Sherlock Holmes" containing this gem of a warning from Moriarty to his minions: He is the most dangerous man in London. His name is Sherlock Holmes.

25. 20000 leagues under the seas, Around the world in 80 days, The mysterious island
26. The amphibious man (wonderful Russian science fiction)
27. Dover volume of 7 science fiction novels by H.G. Wells

28. The Armada
29. Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
30. Eminent Victorians
31. The year of the decision, 1846. Across the wide Missouri. The course of the empire. - Bernard Devoto trilogy
32. Brighter than a thousand suns

33. The day of the Jackal
34. Rebecca
35. Key to Rebecca
36. The Great Impersonation
37. Odessa File

38. Jane Austen's novels
39. Middlemarch
40. Wuthering heights
 
Last edited:
Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End - my mother recommended it to me one rainy day when I had nothing to do and was bugging her - said it was one of her favorites. Loved it so much that for years whenever I found a copy in a used book store I would buy it and give it to a friend as a 'must read'. No one I have ever given it to has gotten past the first half of the first of the four books. Go figure.

Most of Dashiell Hammet but particularly my personal favorite The Glass Key. (Love the movies as well which I watch whenever I can as well.) And a follow on with Raymond Chandler - most of his books.

Edie by Joan Stein - about Edie Sedgwick and NYC and the Warhol crowd

Most of Shakespeare

All of Dorothy Sayers mysteries and some of Ngaio Marsh, Agatha, Josophine Tey (The Daughter of Time a favorite), Elizabeth Daly (fiiting for this thread as her detective is a rare book specialist!), Le Carre.
 
.-.
Given my profession, I was happy to see many Golden Age mysteries (my specialty) listed.
 
I normally do not read off-topic threads, but this new one on reading books whetted my appetite.

First of all, let me eliminate Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings series because they will rightfully be on many lists. I have read both on multiple occasions. Instead, the focus will be on other titles.

With regard to mystery stories, always enjoyable recreation, any novel by Dorothy Sayers is worth multiple examinations, but my favorite is The Nine Taylors.” Another great read is Anthony Berkeley, The Poisoned Chocolates Case.”

Other fictional works that I have read multiple times are: Nordoff and Hall, Mutiny on the Bounty; Walter D. Edmonds, Drums Along the Mohawk; C. S. Forester, Captain Horatio Hornblower; Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian, an excellent novel on the Dracula theme; and Iaian Pears, An Instance of the Fingerpost, a murder of an Oxford Don in the 1660s told from four different perspectives.

For nonfiction, I have enjoyed reading on multiple occasions Catherine Bailey, The Secret Rooms; George Dangerfield, The Strange Death of Liberal England; Alistair Horne, To Lose and Battle; Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought; and Roy F. Nichols, The Disruption of American Democracy; and the classic Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August. The first is focused on the disappearance from an archives of letters relating to a member of the British nobility, Dangerfield on events in Great Britain from 1906-14, Too Lose a Battle on France between the wars, while the Nichols book studies the collapse of the Democratic Party between 1856 and 1860. All are extremely well written, enjoyable, and inform the reader about important historical eras.
 
The Hunt For Red October (I have an autographed copy)
The Excorcist

I was never much of a book reader except when making patrols on a SSBN and there were just a few things to do while cruising underwater. I read these 2 twice because I read each before the movie was out and then again after watching the movie version.
 
Love the Hornblower saga and have read the books more than once. Along those lines - Rafael Sabatini's Scaramouche with the opening line 'He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad and that was all his patrimony' The bolded section supposedly was carved on the Yale library along with other famous author quotes and all the scholars thought it was a wonderful line and wonder which great author had written it - when they discovered it was Sabatini a popular 'hack' they were rather embarrassed. He also wrote another great boys adventure 'Captain Blood'. And Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel.

All great escapist fun.
 
Seems appropriate with Geno as our coach, have read The Godfather numerous times. One of the few cases where the book and original movie were both classics.
 
.-.
You must log in or register to reply here.

Forum statistics

Threads
167,983
Messages
4,548,306
Members
10,431
Latest member
TeganK


Top Bottom