what's the most times you've re-read a book?

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Righting

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hands down - the book i' writing - oh about 507 times - b/c of editing. i still think its great so i guess that's a good thing.

A published book - it would have to be harry potter, read it twice. and i've also read The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents twice.
 

kristie911

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I've read The Stand at least a dozen times. There are lots of books I've read 2 or 3 times but I'm not going to try naming them all!
 

cherubsmummy

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I could just about recite Pride and Prejudice. I have read it, and all Jane Austen's novels, more times than I could possibly remember. Good books are like old friends. I return to them, maybe just to read a couple of chapters, and put them down contented.
 

Stormhawk

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I've read Going Postal so many times...a few times twice in a row (finish it, turn it over and start it again).

Same with Goodnight Mister Tom - most of the time I don't even look at the words even more, just have the pages open.

Neverwhere...probably twenty times. ^_^ Not nearly enough.
 

Blondchen

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I have two - P&P I've read about 5 or 6 times, and The Thirty-Nine Steps which I absolutely adore, I've ready 7 or 8.

They're like mac and cheese to me - COMFORT FOOD!
 

Mumut

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lol -- My own -- who counts! I run out of brain cells, never mind fingers and toes.

Same here. And I'm still re-reading it two years after publication. I'm going through it again prior to it being published by Lachesis, Canada. I thought once it was on the shelves of the bookstores I'd finished with it but it's back to haunt me.

Oh, talking about fingers. Have you heard that the Scots wouldn't be expected to count on their toes - too cold to take their brogues off. So if they had one left when they'd counted on all their fingers they'd say 'ein leven' - one left over - eleven. And 'twa leven' was two left over thus twelve. I don't know how true it is but I like the story, anyway.
 
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geardrops

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I rarely re-read books. Too many that I haven't read to spend time re-reading ones I've already experienced. I've re-read The Stranger three times, The Fall twice, probably a couple other books a couple other times. But rare.

That said, I've read Good Omens fifteen times. I rather had a problem with that one. I'd close the book then flip it over and open it up again.
 

Alvah

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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.

I've read it about ten times.
 

KTC

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I can't count how many times I read the following books:

Great Expectations
Franny & Zooey
Feast of All Saints
The Great Gatsby
Wonder Boys
A Confederacy of Dunces
Of Human Bondage


I read each one at least once a year. Franny & Zooey I read more often than that.
 

HeronW

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Bram Stoker's Dracula 12x or more. It's a novel of its time done in multiple POV via letters, telegrams, diaries, journalist clippings. Knowing Bram Stoker's background --working at the Lyceum for Sir Irving, he uses those theatrical tricks like moody weather/lighting, agnst-filled soliloquies about what's happening, mood swings, deaths, and off-scene spicing to keep the action going. This was also the time of Gilbert and Sullivan & Jack the Ripper--while not mentioned in the book knowing they add to my enjoyment of the whole.
 

willietheshakes

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I stole my first copy of The World According to Garp the summer that I was twelve. (Don't worry -- I've apologized to John Irving; publically, no less. All is forgiven.)

It was like a thunderbolt from the heavens. Here was a book that spoke to me. Here was a family more fucked up than my own. Here was someone building a life - in all its confusing, ramshackle glory - as a writer.

In a very real way, Garp gave me permission to be the writer I wanted to be, to not need to conform in any way I didn't want to. It gave me permission to lead the life that I wanted to lead.

It set me free, and put me on the path I've walked ever since.

I re-read Garp every summer, getting something new out of it every time. So... 25 times? Coming up on 26 sometime in the next few weeks.
 

KTC

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Oh, I loved Garp too. I've read it maybe 4 or 5 times... not much in comparison to the others I mentioned, but man... that book spoke to me. I went insane for it the first time I read it.
 

Memnon624

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The Lord of the Rings -- 90+ times over the course of my life (first read it when I was 12; I'll be 41 next week). The comfort food comment is particularly apt. A close second would be Robert E. Howard's Conan series (started as a kid on the Ace editions, though now we have the spiffy Del Rey editions).

Scott
 

WendyNYC

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Behind you! Boo.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Native Son
To Kill A Mockingbird
Richard III
The Great Gatsby
This Earth of Mankind

I've read all these 3 times or so.

Does reading aloud to my kids count? There would be dozens more.
 

Phaeal

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I constantly reread books. I have a stable of favorites that I reread at least once a year. A number of them are mentioned above -- these may belong on the "Most Rereadable Books of All Time" list.

My stable:

The Jane Austen Six
The Lord of the Rings
The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged
The Trollope Six Times Two (the Barsetshire novels and the Palliser novels)
Franny and Zooey
Bleak House
The H. G. Wells Five (The Time Machine, The First Men in the Moon, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, The Food of the Gods)
All of H. P. Lovecraft, but particularly the longer stories at the heart of the Cthulhu Mythos
The Bestseller (an Olivia Goldsmith tell-all on the publishing industry that's candy for writers)
Gone with the Wind
Huckleberry Finn
Salem's Lot
Moby Dick
Little Women
This Perfect Day (a great, little known Ira Levin SF)

The latest addition to the list will probably be Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I'm on the second read of that one.

The stable books? A couple dozen rereadings for some of them!

If I'm not willing to reread a book, I didn't really like it.
 

tehuti88

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Maybe two or three times. I read so slowly, and have so many books to read, and so little time to read them, that re-reading isn't usually an option, at least not soon. I like to let at least a few years go past, by which time I've likely forgotten a lot of what I've read! Otherwise it's like a rerun of a TV episode that was just on two days ago, rather than an old episode from years ago that I'd like to see again.

I've found that the ones I tend to re-read are Lovecraft's and Derleth's works, and my books on Ojibwa mythology and culture. Want to get back into the latter sometime soon.
 

inkkognito

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I can't really answer because the number keeps going up and I continue to re-read treasured tomes like Garp (willietheshakes, I agree it's awesome), A Prayer for Owen Meany, virtually any early work by Stephen King and V.C. Andrews, Ann Rule's true crime books, and a few classics like 1984 and Catcher in the Rye. I will never get tired of them so the count will continue to rise
 

LloydBrown

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Lord of the Rings, 19. Unlike many fans, I don't deliberately read it annually. I probably had a dozen of those knocked out by the time I was 21.

In 6th grade, I read a book called Big Mutt 11 times.

When I was a kid and had access to fewer books, I re-read books more often. Twice was the standard. I've read numerous books 5 times or more: The Hobbit, Dune, The Black Company by Glen Cook, The Silmarillion, Firestarter, Clancy's Without Remorse, ERB's A Princess of Mars and Tarzan, Dracula (Leonard's Wolf's Annotated version ONLY for me, thanks)...
 
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Kalyke

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"The Stand" about 5 times in my 20's. I don't know what it is about that book. It was just a rambling journey to Las Vegas to detonate a nuclear bomb, and to Denver to start a new world, after (evidently) the devil came to town. Those were the good old days.
 
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