What do you re-read and why?

[Gary]

I have a few books/series that I regularly return to. I try to read Hamlet and/or MacBeth every year, but I often miss and it turns into every other year. Sometimes I'll slip King Lear in rather than one of those two, or one of the other plays, but I do revisit Shakespeare often. To me, Shakespeare is like exercise or eating right. You just have to do it from time to time if you want to live well.

I find myself rereading the Amber Chronicles a lot. I've probably gone through that series as many as a dozen times over the years. I just find them conceptually fascinating.

Dune is another book I've probably read half a dozen times. I've gone through the remainder of that series less frequently: Children of Dune and Dune Messiah probably only a few times each, until we get to God Emperor of Dune which I think I've only read twice. (I picked up a Brian Herbert prequel novel and put it down immediately. Horrible.) My reading/comprehension of these books has shifted considerably over time.

Tolkien gets several rereads. Probably four or so for The Hobbit and two or three for his LotR series. I only read The Silmarrilion once, but it was something of a study rather than a reading.

I was really into Tom Robbins' work for a while, so I read and reread several of his books. Jitterbug Perfume and Still Life with Woodpecker stand out amongst them for rereadability.

Recently, I went through my whole obsessive/compulsive rereading of The Epic of Gilgamesh. That'll probably get revisited yet again in the not-too-distant future.

When it comes to non-SF/F: The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, several Hemingway works, Twain's most famous books (Huck/Tom) and, weirdly, The Innocents Abroad. Lolita really needs 3-4 readings to fully grasp, and I'm recently finding that's the case for pretty much all Nabokov's work. I've got a pretty good handle on that one now, but it did take that much review. I'd still pick it up again happily. 1984 is a book that needs a second reading to fully appreciate, but I don't think I'm going to give it a third any time soon.

What books have you reread? What is it about them that draws a second, third or more readings?

[Brenda]

Oh, a Gilgamesh fan! I believe I have every possible translation of that epic. Did you read the verse translation by David Ferry? I found it so evocative, I wrote a novel, HOW LIKE A GOD.

[Gary]

Brenda wrote: "Oh, a Gilgamesh fan! I believe I have every possible translation of that epic. Did you read the verse translation by David Ferry? I found it so evocative, I wrote a novel, HOW LIKE A GOD."

I did read that one, in fact. Several years ago I read the Gardner/Maiar translation, and then I stumbled onto Stephen Mitchell's "adaptation" recently (he really amalgamates more than translates) and that kicked off the whole project. I get these freaky obsessions with a particular piece of work from time to time. (Or tome to tome, in this case....)

I wound up with half a dozen copies (including Ferry's) that I read in no particular order, usually with two or three open at once to compare/contrast them. It was a whole production.

Apparently, A. R. George has written a two volume review/history/interpretation of the epic which sets my little grubby fingers a-tingling:

http://books.google.com/books/about/T...

[Brenda]

Oh dear, oh dear. This is trouble.
I have a disc of someone reading it aloud in the ancient Sumerian!

[Yoly]

I'm not a big re-reader, I have such a long to-read list these days that I avoid re-reading on purpose. That said, since I first read them I must have re-read the Dragonlance Chronicles and Dragonlance Legends books more than 5 times each.

A couple of months ago I started re-reading Dragons of Autumn Twilight just because of nostalgia. I haven't finished this re-read but I know I will soon (soon...ish?). I guess the reason I keep going back to these novels is because I loved them back then when I was 15 and they remind me of that time when life was just simple.

[Gary]

Brenda wrote: "Oh dear, oh dear. This is trouble.
I have a disc of someone reading it aloud in the ancient Sumerian!"

Interesting. What are the details? Do you have a link to it?

[Matthew]

Good question. Dune is one I've also come back to time and time again, as well as the other books in the series. That needs no explanation really, its a wonderful and influential series. And given the way the series ended (horribly) in the hands of Brian Herbert and KJA, I often feel the need to mine the series for hints as to what Frank truly intended (because it couldn't be what they did with it!)

1984 is another, for obvious reasons. The book is so illuminating, and the centerpiece of the story - the Goldstein Manifesto - is something that I keep coming back to because the sheer amount of nuggets in it. Right now, I'm rereading Heart of Darkness because I never felt like I really absorbed it.

I've also reread Neuromancer and The Diamond Age in recent years because these two were really influential on me and pretty great reads. And in the former case (and owing to Gibson's infuriating style) I found it a little inaccessible the first time around.

[Gary]

I should have thought of Heart of Darkness. I've probably read that one three or four times....

There are probably more than a few poets I find myself picking up time and again. Walt Whitman, Edna St. Vincent Millay, most of the Romantics....

[Brenda]

Lemme go home and look at it.
What I do enjoy re-reading is Lois Bujold. CURSE OF CHALION is a never-fail for long airplane journeys or a hospital stay.

[Gary]

Brenda wrote: "Lemme go home and look at it."

My google-fu is weak on this one, but no rush. It took a few thousand years to come down the pike, so I'm sure I can go by your convenience.

[Brenda ╰☆╮]

I re-read the Amber Chronicles also.
Every time I do, I notice some tidbit the author slips in, that I hadn't noticed before.

I'm re-reading The Riddle-Master of Hed with another group, but I usually like revisiting it as a comfortable old friend.
I love the characters
Actually ...I re-read a lot of books.
Sometimes they give me the same enjoyment, sometimes... eh.....

[Gary]

Brenda ╰☆╮ wrote: "I'm re-reading The Riddle-Master of Hed with another group, but I usually like revisiting it as a comfortable old friend."

I remember reading that series and really liking it. This is the second time I've been reminded of it in as many days and now I'm starting to feel a little Jonesin'....

[Brenda ╰☆╮]

I probably reminded you the first time, too...
;)
Since I've been talking about it.

[Alicja, ἀπὸ μηχανῆς Θεός]

I've been starting to re-read many of the books I've read (and some I was supposed to read but I guess that's not a re-read :P) in high school and college. I just re-read The Great Gatsby last year and The Handmaid's Tale is on for July.

Other than that, like Gary said, Shakespeare makes it back onto my tbr whenever I'm in the mood. Believe it or not I was Shakespeare obsessed in high school and read most of his plays, seen many on stage, and watched movies upon movies (like 3 different versions of Romeo & Juliet- but that was middle school and my first Shakespeare).

Lastly, I think I've read The Persian Boy about 10 times so far. I read it first my sophomore year in college (I think) and its been a regular re-read for whenever I want some Alexander/Bagoas romance with a good dose of well done ancient Greece and Persia, Macedonian court intrigue, and a romanticized view of Alexander's personality and actions. It is a romance way above all other romances (even if it is mostly one sided, lol). Ok, done gushing about it and I think I'll go back between its feel-good pages.

[Brenda]

All Mary Renault is wonderful. I also enjoy classics like P&P or WOMAN IN WHITE.
The disc: it is Firehead Mythological Radio Players doing PRometheus and Gilgamesh, in 2 half-hour readings. No ISBN, but there is an email on the back, firehead@loop.com, and a phone number 818-893-5255.

[Gary]

Brenda ╰☆╮ wrote: "I probably reminded you the first time, too...
;)
Since I've been talking about it."

That's entirely possible.

Alicja wrote: "I think I've read The Persian Boy about 10 times so far."

On my "soon" list. (Which is just a mental list than an actual one, but still.)

HEY! Part TWO: What rereads didn't hold up for you?

That is, what books did you like the first time around, but didn't when you reread them?

I don't remember really liking it when I first read it, but I read the whole first trilogy. The second time around Lord Foul's Bane was absolutely painful, and I can't imagine picking up any more of that series unless someone shows up at my door with an over-sized novelty check with big, happy zeros on it....

[Bryn]

Almost always, books I discovered in my teens and that have been indelible. It feels as if they seeped in -- got into my blood I used to say -- in a way later-met fiction is challenged to do.
Aside from Dostoyevsky (my yearly or as near as I have one), then Beowulf, Malory & other medieval stuff, sf is Viriconium, The Once and Future King (fantasy?), The Forest Of Hours (fantasy -- and late-met, read twice, definitely further reads due). I've been revisiting a lot of sf that I was into early on, though that's a bit different: James Tiptree Jr and Lloyd Biggle Jr and other dusty sf I have on my shelves. For part two, most of mine have held up. I can't think of those that are now a dismal fail that I did once love.

[Bryn]

Oh, fails: Duncton Wood & its sequels. An enjoyment lost to me. I can see why I loved them, but these days, cannot go along with the good-evil division therein. Also, terribly sentimental. But I wish they were possible to me again.

[Brenda]

There is a technical term for this in the trade: the Suck Fairy. As in, "I don't know what happened to LITTLE WOMEN. I enjoyed it when I was fourteen, but now the Suck Fairy seems to have gotten into it."

[Heidi]

Brenda wrote: "There is a technical term for this in the trade: the Suck Fairy. As in, "I don't know what happened to LITTLE WOMEN. I enjoyed it when I was fourteen, but now the Suck Fairy seems to have gotten in..."

I hate the Suck Fairy LOL.

[Alicja, ἀπὸ μηχανῆς Θεός]

Brenda wrote: "There is a technical term for this in the trade: the Suck Fairy. As in, "I don't know what happened to LITTLE WOMEN. I enjoyed it when I was fourteen, but now the Suck Fairy seems to have gotten in..."

Haha! Awesome!

We grow. Which is why I don't know why we teach some of the lit we do in high school to kids that may not be able to handle or appreciate it (and it turns them off reading for the rest of their lives).

I do have a few books that were so life changing in my teens that even if my adult self knows they aren't that good, the emotions are still there and I can't knock the stars off those books. Anyone have that happen?