30-day Challenge! - Day 2: A book you have read more than three times

[Franky]

Of Mice and Men, Fahrenheit 451, The Great Gatsby, 1984, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, Hamlet.

[Janice]

The Bible, Pride and Prejudice, and Anne of Green Gables. I have lost track of how many times I have reread these, but once more is never enough. :)

[Janice]

Jen wrote: "The Bible, Pride and Prejudice, The Stand and my new obsession, light novels, specifically My Next Life as a Villainess All Routes Lead to Doom and I Swear I Won’t Bother You Again. Also Harry Potter."

I have reread The Bible and Pride and Prejudice many times too. :)

[Lynn, New School Classics]

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton is the book I have read the most times of all. I have read it twenty-three times. This is because I would read it in its entirety each year with each of my classes. That was four classes a day - five in the Covid year. Plus I read it twice before I started teaching it. I actually grew to appreciate it more each time I read it. When I was first hired and realized I would need to read it four times I groaned a bit, but that first impression of dread was completely unnecessary. It was so versatile. There are so many themes to pull from it. Usually, we would write an essay about peer pressure or bullying. Sometimes we wrote a personal narrative where students imagined Ponyboy's life ten years after the book finished. During 2020 - distance learning for Covid we read an informational text about the five stages of grief, analyzed the characters (orphans) in terms of the article, and then wrote about how grief contributed to the character traits exhibited. The characters tracked perfectly with the article - and this was all written by a teenager still in High School!!

[Carolien]

Lynn wrote: "The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton is the book I have read the most times of all. I have read it twenty-three times. This is because I would read it in its entirety each yea..."

I doubt if any of us can top this, Lynn!

Mine would by 84, Charing Cross Road which is also too many times to count, Anne of Green Gables and most of Terry Pratchett's books.

[Sherry]

As a child: Heidi; Island of the Blue Dolphins; My Friend Flicka

As a teen: Gone with the Wind

As an adult: Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor; Cry, the Beloved Country; Kristin Lavransdatter; Crime and Punishment: Anna Karenina

[Sherry]

Tibor wrote: "The only book I read more than twice is the Bible."

Forgot to mention that! Yes, I've read the Bible more than three times.

[Mike]

"Moby Dick", waaaay over 3 times. Also, most of Shakespeare's plays.

[Eleanor]

From the top of my head - Jane Eyre and Goodnight Lady. Chalk and cheese but I love them both!

[Luke]

I may have read a book or two more than three times when, as a child, I had a limited home library and was forbidden most other forms of recreation, but I doubt I've read anything more than twice in recent memory. Perhaps I'll get around to doing so in twenty years or so after clearing through my current TBR batch.

[Shaina]

Pride and Prejudice and The Harry Potter series

[Joseph]

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
http://100greatestnovelsofalltimeques...

[Michaela]

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

[Anne]

Pride and Prejudice and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

[Erin]

I don’t think I’ve read a book all the way through more than twice. I’m sure that I eventually will some of my favorites, especially The Lord of the Rings and Pride and Prejudice.

[Anne]

A Town Like Alice, Pride and Prejudice

[Scott]

As a teacher, I often have to re-read books, so novels like Jane Eyre and Great Expectations I've read at least 3 times.

When I was a kid, I often re-read my favourite books. I read the entire Narnia series at least 4x each (except for The Silver Chair, which I loathed). Now I'm reading the Harry Potter series to my son, which is a third reading for me.

I've only read the Bible once consecutively, from Genesis to Revelations. But I've read chapters and books many, many times.

[Terry]

Mostly, I try to read books I haven’t read. Not counting the books I read and re-read over and over to my daughter, I nevertheless have read these books at least three times:
- Pride and Prejudice
- The Secret Garden
- Angle of Repose
- Gone with the Wind

[Newly]

Blast from the Past
This story is so genuinely scary to me. If I'm honest, I find it absolutely terrifying. It's one of those books started by a 2 am phone call. I get why most avoid this book because it sheds an uncomfortable light on some huge problems we have, pedophilia and female targeted violence. It's like there was this situation that was violent towards women and the result was even more violence towards a woman. It's like when is ambition worth death? Blast from the Past puts you in the mind of a stalker and then blurs the lines on identity. This book plays on so many of my real fears.
Obsession, I know there have been many stories about obsessive behavior but this book highlights the powerlessness.
Revenge, Most people reek havoc for a reason and this is no different. Except the target of this aggression, the person expected to pay the ultimate price has done nothing. I mean the sum of her sins are a job and a bittersweet "relationship".
Finally, I have an irrational fear of authority and Blast from the Past tap dances all over it. I dont understand responsibility bestowed based on tenure, that is absolute madness. This is by no means a popular book although Ben Elton is prolific. But most people dont have the reaction I have to it. So it kinda makes me feel like he wrote this book just for me. I keep re-reading it to see if it's still scary and it is.

[Angela]

Diana S wrote: " A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens"

Me too! Every December.

[Robin P]

Angela wrote: "Diana S wrote: " A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens"

Me too! Every December."

Me too, I forgot about it!

[Piyangie]

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

[Gia]

I love the classic Nancy Drew Mystery Stories (I only read the vintage ones). Some of my favorite multiple rereads include: The Hidden Staircase, The Password to Larkspur Lane, The Mystery of Shadow Ranch, The Bungalow Mystery, and more. So fun!

[Bob, Short Story Classics]

I rarly read a book more than once, even so there is a growing list of books I have now read twice, mostly since joinning this group, ten years now. I have gone back and reread lots of earlier read classics.

If I disregard childrens books I read as a child, then read to my children and now read to my grandchildren. The only book I can think of that I have read more than three times is still A Cry of Angels. I have no idea why this books means so much to me, I just love it.

[Laurie]

I am not much of a rereader, but I have read To Kill a Mockingbird four times.

[Cynda]

Don Quixote part 1 maybe 4 or 5 times, Part 2 probably 2 times--by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.

[Kathleen]

I love your comment, Matt! It's those special books from our youth that did it for us, isn't it?

Looks like for me there is only two, and they're the ones I answered in 2017: Little Women and Dandelion Wine.

I'm having one of those getting old realizations that there may never be any others ... ... well that was short-lived! My reader's soul is ever hopeful (as evidenced by my tbr). There are a number of books I've read twice that I'll surely read again. Be back then. ;-)

[Cynda]

Right Matt and Kathleen.
Just as easily I could have answered
Gone with the Wind
To Kill a Mockingbird
Many Dr Seuss books.

Childhood when one felt there was time to read and reread.

[Robin P]

When I was a child, I lived on a farm. My parents valued books but felt there wasn't money to buy many. The local library was very small, only a couple of shelves for picture books and a few more for grade-school books. (There was no such thing as interlibrary loan then, let alone ebooks or audiobooks!) So I reread a lot the books we had at home, older ones that had belonged to my mother or even grandfather. These are a few I remember, that I'm sure I read at least 3 times each:

Five Children and It / The Phoenix and the Carpet / The Story of the Amulet
The Story of the Treasure Seekers
Heidi
The Water Babies
Anderson's Fairy Tales (really creepy and disturbing!)

When I was 10, my family moved to a big city, where the children's room in the main library was bigger than the entire rural library had been. I thought I was in heaven!

[Lynn, New School Classics]

Cynda wrote: "Don Quixote part 1 maybe 4 or 5 times, Part 2 probably 2 times--by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra."

Wow! That is such a big book to have read repeatedly!

[Lynn, New School Classics]

Robin P wrote: "When I was a child, I lived on a farm. My parents valued books but felt there wasn't money to buy many. The local library was very small, only a couple of shelves for picture books and a few more f..."

That is a really lovely story. I have fond memories of my small town childhood public library, but I remember going to college and spending hours and hours in the University Library. I was in awe. I was a 7 story tall building with a curved glass facade, completely full of books.

[Sara, Old School Classics]

Love both your stories, Robin and Lynn. My mother would go downtown to pay bills once a month and when I was allowed to go along, she would drop me at the Carnegie, a huge library, and leave me for the day, run her errands, and pick me back up after. I would pick a book and sit at one of the massive tables and read until she returned. I got pretty good at spotting books I could read in one sitting, but sometimes it was an entire month before I was able to go back and finish.

[Sara, Old School Classics]

Yes, I was obsessed with GWTW when I was young. Saw it when it was re-released in 1967 at the Loews. Toured the Cyclorama dozens of times and made several trips to The Wren's Nest, home of Joel Chandler Harris, who wrote the Uncle Remus stories.

I don't remember the tiles, Jillian. Doesn't mean they weren't there or that I didn't see them, but they aren't in my memory at all.

I have not visited the museum in Marietta that they put in Brumby Hall. I need to do that. Nothing like a Brumby rocker to make you nostalgic anyway!

[Lynn, New School Classics]

My mother took me to see that same rerelease. I was 5 years old.

[Lynn, New School Classics]

We had Braves season tickets in the 1970s. I have also seen the Cyclorama. I think. The other big attraction was the Atlanta Underground

[Sara, Old School Classics]

No, the 1967 re-release. The premiere was in 1939 and I was non-existent at the time, but I think she also came in 1961. I was only 10, so I didn't make that one either. :)

[Lynn, New School Classics]

I saw the movie "Gone With the Wind" at my hometown 1940s Art Deco movie theatre building. Our town's great tragedy was when this theatre was torn down. I remember being a little girl seeing the movie with my mother. My mother grew up in Greeneville, Mississippi - heavy accent - and Scarlett reminded me of my mom.

[Cynda]

Lynn, I lived in Greenville for a short time in the 1980s. I remember the warm welcoming library named for someone the Southern Lit people here may remember--William Alexander Percy.

His nephew's novel The Moviegoer I did read numerous times. Three or four. When I was under 30 my brain was lightening fast, so fast that I could read a novel one evening and reread it for delight the following evening. (Not high art novels of course, but more mid-level literary ones.)

[Wreade1872]

The Martyrdom of Man by William Winwood Reade . Its where i stole my screenname from :) .