Books to re-read

Via Philobiblon, I found the Guardian's report of 20 twenty books re-read by Britons.  I've italicized those books I've read, and bold-faced the books I've read more than once.

1. The Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling
2. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
3. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
4. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
5. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
6. 1984 by George Orwell
7. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
8. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis
9. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
10. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
11. Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
12. To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
13. Flowers in the Attic by Virginia Andrews
14. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
15. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
16. The Bible
17. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
18. Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
19. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
20. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

I re-read rather frequently, mostly to gain access again to a world I enjoy or characters whom I adore.

I haven't read Flowers in the Attic in more than twenty years, either.  I swear.

Comments

[chichimama]

Clearly, I am British, I've read them all and re-read all but two, most of them at least three times. Great list!

I love to re-read. M doesn't get it.

[Tracy]

Sadly, I may have actually read all of them. I am not entirely sure about the Bill Bryson book - I've read a couple of his, but maybe not that one. And the authors on the Good Omens book sound familiar - but I don't think I've read it.

It took years to forget Flowers in the Attic. Unfortunately, some of it still remains in my memory banks, much as I try to get rid of it.

[magpie]

What a mixed bag of a list!

You should read Wuthering Heights.

[merseydotes]

I re-read A Little Princess about once a year. Maybe I should try it with some other things.

Flowers in the Attic sticks out a little there, doesn't it? (Mind you, I've read the whole series right up through Garden of Shadows.)

[Kristin]

Ye great and small gods, I cannot imagine reading Wuthering Heights more than once. When I read it the first time, I got through it on sheer willpower, resisting the urge to throw the book and all its horrible inhabitants out a very high window on a rainy windy day. As Dorothy Parker (IIRC) said, "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."

But that's just me. I've re-read Tolkien more times than I can count (understanding Gandalf's deep compassion rather later than I like to admit). I go back to Harry Potter often (or did, each time a new one was about to come out). I often end up back at the children's or "young adult" books stuff that I've either always loved or (again) discovered later than I care to admit: Watership Down, the Earthsea series, and especially Lois McMaster Buujold's Miles Vorkosigan adventures. YMMV. =)

[Elizabeth]

Skip DaVinci Code, but otherwise the ones you haven't read are worth reading, at least once.