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Re-readers - what do you re-read and why

i'll re-read anything that I've enjoyed really. I think mainly it's just lazyness a lot of the time, if I don't have the time to go out and find something new, I'll read something old. Good ones are like old friends.

More than anything I re-visit Pratchett, more than is good for me really, but they make me laugh and make me think, so what the hell. The same for Douglas Adams. Oh and some fantasy stuff too.

I also re-read popular science books and the like, but that's normally because I need (at least) two readings to have a handle on what's going on in them.

Like someone said, it's like ordering a good meal because you've had it before and you know you're going to like it. I may be in danger of being the bloke that only orders steak every time he goes out to eat though.
 
Why re-read?
Because there's no way I could afford a new book everytime I finish one, and because libraries don't usually have much in the way of good science fiction - add to that that I'm an American in Germany, and the library situation becomes a real problem.

I've got several hundred novels and dozens of technical books. I re-read novels, and refer to the technical books at need. A 400 page novel takes about 4 hours to read. When I could readily purchase english novels at low prices (long ago when I was still in the USAF) I bought two to three novels a week, and even then had to re-read novels. Nowadays, I buy one or two new novels a year and re-read from my collection.
 
MortFurd said:
Why re-read?
Because there's no way I could afford a new book everytime I finish one, and because libraries don't usually have much in the way of good science fiction - add to that that I'm an American in Germany, and the library situation becomes a real problem.

I've got several hundred novels and dozens of technical books. I re-read novels, and refer to the technical books at need. A 400 page novel takes about 4 hours to read.
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Your library situation sucks. Or you've got to brush up on a little German.

Reading a 400 page book in 4 hours! You've got to try some other types of literature then so you're down at more like 30 pages an hour and try War and Peace! That'll slow you up.
 
Mr Clingford said:
Your library situation sucks. Or you've got to brush up on a little German.

Reading a 400 page book in 4 hours! You've got to try some other types of literature then so you're down at more like 30 pages an hour and try War and Peace! That'll slow you up.
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I speak German like a native, and read nearly as fast in German as in English. Good SF is even more rare in German than in English.
German translations of English fiction SUCKs. For technical info, it's no problem. An accurate translation is a snap when translating facts. Translating what makes a good story a good, interesting read amounts to re-writing the story in that new language.

I've tried reading translations. Even books by authors whose work I like a lot doesn't work well when translated. I've got a couple of novels in both German and English. One of them, I never finished reading the German edition. It was dull and boring, no snap or sparkle - and that author normally has loads of snap. I bought the English edition after the German edition (several years after, actually) and it zips. I read it straight through.
 
Mr Clingford said:
Tell me about this Rags of Glory; I have studied the Boer War and have visited Spion Kop.
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Well, imagine a South African version of War and Peace, with less philosophy and more grit. Several simultaneous subplots occur in both England and South Africa, throughout; generally, you follow a British officer in the field and his household back in England, and various members of a Boer family. It's been some time since I read it, although I've made it a point to keep my copy and not sell or give it away, against a planned rereading. It has some of the most striking imagery I've ever read (YMMV).

It's long out of print, but I checked and you'll have no trouble picking up a used copy on Amazon for just pennies.
 
I re-read books all the time. Well not all the time, obviously that wouldn't work. But, depending on the book, sometimes I re-read it because I just skimmed through and chased the plot the first time, or I'll re-read something because I like the ideas in it or the places it takes me. I love how you lose time when you read a good story and you get lifted out of the world and into a new one for a while. It's nice to revisit those places sometimes.
 
hgc said:
Another Dracula repeater! I didn't think there were others.
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I wasn't able to finish it the first time. I only got to chapter 14 before giving up. Does it get any better at the end?

George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series really rewards re-readers. There's a lot of stuff that gains more signifacance on re-read, that didn't seem all that important the first time through.
 
I read obsessively so reread a lot.

It is nice to be able to dip into a familiar book at random and reread passages you like. Very comforting

What do I reread - Tolkien (of course), Douglas Adams, PG Wodehouse, Dorothy Sayers, some of Gould, Dawkins .....
 
Every decade or so:
"Middlemarch," "Bleak House," "Hucklebery Finn," "Tale of Two Cities," some Pynchon, complete Salinger canon, "The Mandarins," by deBeauvoir, some Conan Doyle, Shakespeare's sonnets, "Night," by Wiesel, some Austen, some Hemingway and "Flatland" and "Goedel, Escher, Bach," in an attempt to crack it.

I usually don't return to books sooner than four or five years; I like for them to fade somewhat from my conscousness before a re-acquaint myself.
b44
 
ZirconBlue said:
I wasn't able to finish it the first time. I only got to chapter 14 before giving up. Does it get any better at the end?
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Maybe it's not for everyone. If you didn't like it by Chapter 14, I can't give you much hope you'd ever like it. But go ahead and try again some time down the road. You never know...
 
Beady said:
Well, imagine a South African version of War and Peace, with less philosophy and more grit. Several simultaneous subplots occur in both England and South Africa, throughout; generally, you follow a British officer in the field and his household back in England, and various members of a Boer family. It's been some time since I read it, although I've made it a point to keep my copy and not sell or give it away, against a planned rereading. It has some of the most striking imagery I've ever read (YMMV).

It's long out of print, but I checked and you'll have no trouble picking up a used copy on Amazon for just pennies.
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Sounds interesting. I'll check it out.

BTW I have Desolation Island on loan.
 
andyandy said:
i think it's to do with how well you remember that which you've already read - my long term memory seems pretty shoddy - which means i can repeatedly be captivated by stuff that i used to know but have forgotten :)
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I re-read all the time -- mainly because my memory is crappy and I forget a book's contents almost as soon as I've read it. Some time I re-read because a book evoked a certain feeling and I want to revisit that feeling/experience.
 
I also have a rotten memory, so I'll often reread a book I remember that I loved, but can't remember the details of, and sometimes just for the pleasure of reading it again. Jane Austen gets a go-round every few years. I've also always enjoyed reading Shakespeare, and reread some of the plays from time to time. Others I do less systematically, but I've reread a bunch of novels including most of the older Vonneguts, a few Pynchons, some favorite Conrad, Steinbeck, Twain. I think I've read all the Hornblower books twice. There are some short story writers I can reread almost endlessly. V.S. Pritchett, Raymond Carver, Donald Barthelme, John Cheever, Ambrose Bierce, to pick a few off the top. There are a number of others but it isn't always systematic or particularly carfefully thought out. I just see a book and decide to reread it. In a way, because I have stacks and piles and boxes of books as yet unread, rereading seems like a guilty pleasure, and of course guilty pleasures are the best.
 
we're on the same page :)

I know exactly what you mean about rereading being a guilty pleasure. it seems we share austen, pynchon. twain and shakespeare, among others.
b44
 
and the Paddington and Don Camillo books (no relation, just really like both.). In case D. shows up, I do not include books I re-read as part of the number of books I have read (except the first time read).
 
Most great books get better every time you read them- they have little treasures hidden in them that reward multiple readings.

If anyone's ever read the graphic novel "Watchmen," you'll know what I meant- it's crafted so that there are hints to the overall plot scattered throughout the book. Nearly every panel has hidden meanings that only make sense the third or fourth time you read it.
 
MortFurd said:
I speak German like a native, and read nearly as fast in German as in English. Good SF is even more rare in German than in English.
German translations of English fiction SUCKs. For technical info, it's no problem. An accurate translation is a snap when translating facts. Translating what makes a good story a good, interesting read amounts to re-writing the story in that new language.

I've tried reading translations. Even books by authors whose work I like a lot doesn't work well when translated. I've got a couple of novels in both German and English. One of them, I never finished reading the German edition. It was dull and boring, no snap or sparkle - and that author normally has loads of snap. I bought the English edition after the German edition (several years after, actually) and it zips. I read it straight through.
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Just out of curiosity: where in Germany do you live?

I´ve had the same problem with translations. There are some good translations, many more or less decent ones (decent as in, doesn´t ruin the novel), and quite a few that STINK. On the top of my personal hit list for crappy translations is the Deathstalker series by Simon Green, BTW.
 
hgc said:
Another Dracula repeater! I didn't think there were others.
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Another one here, just finished it again last week.

I keep reading quite many books again and again: LOTR, the Discworld series (not all of them, though), some books of Umberto Eco, Agatha Christie (even if I remember who the killer is :)), Poe, Adams etc. Usually I like to re-read 'lighter' books - if you can call Eco light...
 
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