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Wednesday 16 March 2011

Books to go back to

After I have finished reading the Orange Prize longlist, there are a couple of books I want to pick up and re-read.

I am always astonished how fresh some books remain, even when you have read them a number of times.

Ones that I will return to when the judging process is over include:

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin

What do you like to re-read? How many times have you read the books you like to go back to? What is it about those books that recalls you?

15 comments:

  1. Bleak House. Studied it for English Literature A Level(30 years ago!) and go back to it again and again. I can never get enough of both the characters and the intrigue..

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  2. Susanna, you are the second person to mention re-reading books to me. I've never done it. I used to read voraciously from being a youngster and then it's dropped off since working for myself/having children/doing less train commuting. I prepare a reading list for each year, but always allow space to add new delights I come across or that people recommend to me. My reflection is that there's not enough time to read "the new stuff" so why re-read the old stuff? If I was to re-read I'd probably beging with Maggie O'Farrell's "After You'd Gone"

    I hope you thoroughly enjoy the long list. Happy reading,

    Jessica

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  3. That's interesting. I have repeatedly attempted BH and failed. Inspired by your comment, I will try again. I would also add Great Expectations to my list of re-reads.

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  4. Jessica - I know what you mean. So many new books, so little time. But there is such pleasure to be found in the books which endure for a reason. And often, they appear new even on the second, third reading.

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  5. Let me know if you succeed with Bleak House. I hated Tale of Two Cities with a passion! I was quite glad when Sidney Carton had his date with the guillotine..

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  6. I can tell you one trilogy I won't be re-reading in the future. Lord of the Rings. It has taken me something like 5 years just to finish the first 2 books, I still have to read the 3rd!

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  7. Three Men in a Boat. About once a year in one or two sittings. I Re-read it because I enjoy the repetition like a 3 year old would. I find it comforting I suppose.

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  8. Susanna, apologies for commandeering your comments! Ben, I agree - I still chuckle at Three Men in a Boat and I now have a very dog-eared copy.

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  9. The Catcher in the Rye brings me back to boarding
    school when I first read it.

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  10. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist. by Robert Tressell. Conjours up all sorts of emotions.

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  11. The Lovely Bones is a book I've returned to again. I tend to skip from one discovery to the next and always have a queue of books waiting for me to get to them. This book struck me so much I returned to it after a year just to check it was as good as I remembered. Several books I read as a teenager and inspired me to study English at Uni are on the list to revisit. These include the Sherlock Holmes novels and some science fiction greats!

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  12. Slaughter House Five. Tend to read every couple of years. Love it.

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  13. My favourite book, which I have reread many times is 'Mythago Wood' by Robert Holdstock. It maintains a charming beauty for me. There is something naive and yet wistfully romantic in its setting. I found it left on the coach that I was travelling on and started reading it to while away the miles. I'm not a great fan of fantasy literature in general, but this book has captured the spirit of the immediate post war period wrapping it in a magical rurality.

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  14. Faulkner's 'As I Lay Dying' is an inspiring, sometimes confusing, but never dull read that gives more and more each time you read. It also brings new meaning to the theory of 'whose voice are you reading in your head?' during each character's chapter. I always come back to this book.

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  15. Philip Larkin's Collected Poems is personally invaluable, even if the hat I take off for Larkin the poet is firmly put back on again for Larkin the man.

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