'Go To' Books you return to time and time again

[Mr. Anonymous]

The Grapes of Wrath. Every year. Maybe even twice.

was my favorite book for a long time, maybe still is. Haven't re-read it though, afraid it won't be as good as I remember it to be. Also, I remember steinbeck goes on about the weather for pages at a time, lol. Have less patience for that than I did when I first read Grapes, though he is a fantastic writer.

 

[caspermac]

I love Niel Gaiman, I might have to go and look out one of his books again. I read a lot of new material as well, but sometimes, when I'm not 'feeling' anything new I return to David Eddings. Or C.J Sansom's books

 

[Grrarrgh]

Once a year, I usually go through It and The Stand by Stephen King, Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill, the Harry Potter series, and And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. I have a huge TBR, but I always make room for those.

Side note, I met Joe Hill at Comic-Con last week and he liked my T-shirt so much he made his son quit playing video games on his DS to come over and see it. Highlight of my year, possibly my decade.

 

[graywillow]

LITTLE WOMEN -- yes, re-read often.
ANNE OF GREEN GABLES -- golly, yes.
LORD OF THE RINGS -- I've read this too many times, the first "read" when I was maybe twelve, understanding a mere portion of it.
THE LITTLE PRINCE.
DUNE.
THE GREAT GATSBY.
PEACE LIKE A RIVER.

So many of the classics. There is no end to the list. I read a lot of Foucault philosophy.

One of my utter favorite, more contemporary novels is THE SHADOW OF THE WIND by Carlos Ruis Zafon. If you've never read, you must-must-must.

ETA: Those are specific books. I *always* return to Virgina Woolf diaries, and Margaret Atwood novels. They save me.

 

[caspermac]

I've never read little women but i really should invest in a copy.

 

[Vexen]

Let's see... Clan of the Cave Bear (too bad the series suffers from a bad case of Sequelitis) by Jean Auel. Insomnia, by Stephen King. When Christ and His Saints Slept, by Sharon Kay Penman.

 

[bearilou]

Dune by Frank Herbert
Different Seasons by Stephen King
Witch Hunter by C.L. Werner
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook
Anything by Robert E. Howard, especially Solomon Kane and Conan

 

[DreamWeaver]

Side note, I met Joe Hill at Comic-Con last week and he liked my T-shirt so much he made his son quit playing video games on his DS to come over and see it. Highlight of my year, possibly my decade.

Ok, so describe this t-shirt. Or better yet--pictures!!!!!

 

[LJD]

you know, I haven't reread any books for a long time. so many new things to try.

But I had several such books when I was a kid. Anne of Green Gables, Emily of New Moon. Various Gordon Korman books. All-of-a-Kind Fmily. Ballet Shoes.

 

[Shadow_Ferret]

With so many books I haven't read, I don't see any reason to reread a book.

 

[Jamie Stone]

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES -- golly, yes.
DUNE.

Well, you picked my top two! I just finished rereading Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea and now I'm in the first half of Anne of the Island. I LOVE these books, they're sort of a guilty pleasure because I know there's not all that much literary merit--they're very much a slice of life sort of thing without suspense or major conflict or anything resembling a plot other than the fact that they follow this spirited girl's life--but they are just so amazing at taking me to another place and time. Dune's also fabulous and people complain about how sci-fi-y it is, but I've never been a fan of much sci-fi yet I love it for its characters, its world-building, its villains, and what it tells about human nature.

Anyways, the rest of my go-to list includes ALAS BABYLON (Pat Frank), LIFE OF PI (Yann Martel), DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST and SON OF THE SHADOWS (Juliet Marillier--not such a fan of Child of the Prophecy), HARRY POTTER (especially PoA, OotP, HBP, and DH), and... I think there are more but I can't remember them all right now.

Oh, CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR is good, too! I enjoyed rereading them several times but I really didn't like Shelters of Stone and I don't think I'll bother to pick up the Land of Painted Caves. The first one was the best, then in the second one it seemed like Ayla invented every useful contraption known to man... Mammoth Hunters was better. I liked 1 and 3 the best.

 

[Jessianodel]

Harry Potter. They were what first inspired me to write so I always love re-reading them. Also; Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen, although the sequel wasn't as good.

 

[escritora]

The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
The Reader - Bernard Schlink
Like Water for Chocolate - Laura Esquivel
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

 

[screenscope]

George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman novels. I read them all again every few years.

 

[HuntfortheWildborn]

Tolkien's The Hobbit.

 

[mccardey]

Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead" - magical book! Also a quiet little thing called "Edens Lost" by Sumner Locke Elliott and "Tirra Lirra By The River" by Jessica Anderson. All three of them, lovely books - but Gilead is the one I'd want to be buried with.

 

[glendalough]

I love to reopen Under The Tuscan Sun and have quite a few dog-eared pages I go to quickly. It takes me to the villa I wish I owned in Tuscany.

Also, Memoirs Of A Geisha. I enjoyed it so much for my first reading, reading bits and pieces or starting it over takes me back to the first time I read it.

David Copperfield. I can read it from any page and go on and on, enjoying it.

 

[Max Vaehling]

Haven't re-read anything for a while because I'm way behind on my new books. But when I have the time, all my Neil Gaiman and Douglas Adams books are regular reads.

And Harriet The Spy. That one's an all-time (and all-age, so far) favorite.

Looking back further, there are some books I used to pick up more than once, but kinda reached my saturation point. Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco is one of those. (If you don't know that one, it's The DaVinci Code for smart people.) Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat, and absolutely Huckleberry Finn.

I still re-read my comic books a lot.

 

[CheG]

Aria of the Sea by Dia Calhoun. It hits me every time.
Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind by Hayao Miyazaki.

And The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is turning into one of those books.

Though lately I haven't had time to read much of anything...

 

[Duncable]

Oooh, I like this topic! I think I'll be stealing some of the books mentioned here and adding them to my reading queue.

Some of mine are:

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, by Douglas Adams, who also happens to be my favorite author of all time (no matter how many times I read about the mattresses that flollop floopily, or about the real problem with time travel being which tense to use, I literally )

The Ender's Game series of novels (including the Bean-centered books) by OSC

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Clan of the Cave Bear series by Jean Auel (first two are phenomenal, third is decent, and after the 4th it goes downhill, but still some of the most fascinating books I've ever read)

The Great Gatsby by, umm...someone I can't recall and I don't feel like googling it. ETA: F. Scott Fitzgerald!

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling (shut up you!!)

PS: In case you would like to as well, please enjoy the following excerpt from Restaurant at the End of the Universe: http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~param/quotes/guide.html (I need to work on my HTML, I couldn't get the <a> tag to work for me...)

 

[justkay]

Family members

"The Color Purple" - Alice Walker.

"Bastard Out of Carolina" - Dorothy Allison.

 

[Max Vaehling]

Forgot some:

Making God by Stefan Petrucha - short, fast-paced, self-published book about how some media shark builds a religion from a psychotic's ramblings. From the guy who always took the weirdos' side when he was writing X-Files comics. Not the best, but since it's a very quick read, I've managed to squeeze it in every now and then. And it's fun.

Flyboy Action Figure Comes with Gas Mask, by Jim Munroe. First read it as a free download, then bought the book and read it again, not for the last time. Real-life superheroes with an alternative, activist lifestyle.

 

[stormie]

Time And Again (almost every winter) by Jack Finney

The Cider House Rules (almost every fall) by John Irving

Jaws (almost every summer) by Peter Benchley

The Great Gatsby (almost every summer) by F.Scott Fitzgerald

I don't think I have a "springtime" book.

 

[DragonHeart]

I don't reread as much as I used to but just like movies, there are a few books I turn to when I'm feeling sick/upset/depressed and need the comfort of some old literary friends:

Pretty much anything by Michael Crichton, but specifically The Lost World. First adult novel I ever read. Been years since I read it last but I can still recite entire passages by heart.

The Green Rider series by Kristin Britain. Pretty much everything about the series just kind of resonates with me.

Actually, that's about it as far as comfort books go. Most of the others I read when I was much younger and they no longer have the same comfort value as they used to.

 

[childeroland]

The Alice books. Most delightful use of fantasy tropes I've ever encountered. The riddles, the sadness of the need to grow up.

Pride and Prejudice. Austen's voice, the three-dimensionality of Darcy and Bennett (maybe the most delightful heroine of English literature along with Alice) and of their world.

Lolita. The language and the sadness, as well as the dignity which the heroine finally finds against all odds justify returning to this book over and over.

Shakespeare's plays. The verbal texture may well be the greatest the world has ever seen, as Nabokov said. The characters are certainly the most bottomless, the deepest, the closest to putting living, breathing flesh on the page.

The Inferno. Dante's b*tchy takes on his contemporaries especially makes this the most fun of the whole poem.

Ulysses. Proves that every person's story in all its particulars is a giant story, a Homeric epic. Plus, Bloom gets Molly at the end, and a son in the delightfully erudite Stephen; the good guy triumphs.

Homer's epics. The best adventure stories I've ever read, period.

The Narnia books. Just a world to live in.