Your most-read novel

[albionism]

Factotum by Bukowski
and The Wasp Factory
by Ian Banks. I have read both maybe
a dozen times. I never tire of them.

 

[bubba_jones]

I teach literature, so I get to reread lots of books,just because I happen to be reteaching them and want to refresh my memory. So in connection with work I've probably read Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, Brave New World, The Great Gatsby, Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations, Things Fall Apart, all about 5+ times each. I'd probably have still read most of them a few times even if I didn't have to teach them, with the exception of some of the Shakespeares.

I've read Heart of Darkness and Catch 22 more times than I care to remember. I once ended up living in a place with extremely limited access to English language books for 2 years, and so read Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum at least 5 times.

I've also read Dalva / The Road Home by Jim Harrison many times each, but no one ever seems to have heard of Jim Harrison, and refuses to listen to my enthusiasm for his stuff.

 

[Sadken]

1984 or Gatsby. Oh, or maybe Catch 22. Or HHGTTG.

 

[DotCommunist]

Same here, on balance probably LOTR.

Other well thumbed: E.R.Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, also his Zimiavian trilogy; Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea Trilogy; Charlotte Brontë's Villette; Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast saga; Towers In The Mist and A City Of Bells by Elizabeth Goudge; the works of Jane Austen.

I like re-reading, probably because I tend to skim read.

thats a wierd book.

props for introducing me to the word 'wrastling' as a kid though

 

[the button]

I've also read Dalva / The Road Home by Jim Harrison many times each, but no one ever seems to have heard of Jim Harrison, and refuses to listen to my enthusiasm for his stuff.

I'm going to check these out, cheers. Not least because anyone with so few posts who pops up to recommend a couple of books deserves to be taken seriously.

 

[cesare]

thats a wierd book.

props for introducing me to the word 'wrastling' as a kid though

It is indeed. Tolkien was a fan of his work too. Have you read the others?

 

[DotCommunist]

It is indeed. Tolkien was a fan of his work too. Have you read the others?

from ourobus author? nay. And I haven't read ourobus since I was a boy. I remember bizarre races of Demons and shit and some kings having a big old wrastle.


Must dig it out and read it with a grown-up eye...

 

[Brinxmat]

Iain Banks - Espedair Street

Pratchett - Good Omens

Carl Sagan - Contact.


In fact, I think I might pick up Espedair Street again when I get home.

 

[DotCommunist]

Iain Banks - Espedair Street

Pratchett - Good Omens

Carl Sagan - Contact.


In fact, I think I might pick up Espedair Street again when I get home.

this post angers niel Gaiman

 

[cesare]

from ourobus author? nay. And I haven't read ourobus since I was a boy. I remember bizarre races of Demons and shit and some kings having a big old wrastle.


Must dig it out and read it with a grown-up eye...

Yep, worth a revisit. And the others develop the characters more ...

 

[Idris2002]

Simon Louvish's The Therapy of Avram Blok.

After being wrongly convicted of voyeurism, young Avram tells his psychiatrist that he has been living in an alternate reality where Rosa Luxemburg led a successful German revolution in 1923, causing Adolf Hitler to flee to the United States, where his son ran for president on a 'white America' ticket.

Blok then goes on to be an eyewitness to the Paris 1968 events, before getting a job as film editor in a New York pornography factory.

Then he returns to Israel just in time to go mad in combat during the 1973 conflict.

 

[Steel Icarus]

I think I've read The Stand about once a year since I bought it in the mid-80s.

 

[Pickman's model]

120 days of sodom

 

[rich!]

Simon Louvish's The Therapy of Avram Blok.

After being wrongly convicted of voyeurism, young Avram tells his psychiatrist that he has been living in an alternate reality where Rosa Luxemburg led a successful German revolution in 1923, causing Adolf Hitler to flee to the United States, where his son ran for president on a 'white America' ticket.

Blok then goes on to be an eyewitness to the Paris 1968 events, before getting a job as film editor in a New York pornography factory.

Then he returns to Israel just in time to go mad in combat during the 1973 conflict.

Read the trilogy, but the only bit of any value was the sequence recovering after the grenade bit. The rest of it has gone the way of all bland novels.

 

[rich!]

I'm thinking it's going to be Gardens of the Moon. When Crippled God is 45 days from publication, I'll read it for the 8th to 10th time, as part of the runup though the whole series.

(tho' I might have read LoTR more often, but that was back when we had fewer good books)

 

[rich!]

* checks earlier posts *

nice to know I'm consistent.

Recently started again on Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. It's now been so long I don't actually sing along with the doom.

Also, I may have read the Dying Earth books more times than is proper. I managed to avoid Cugel's hat, tho' I did have the cloak.

Did anyone ever understand the Book of the New Sun?

 

[Madusa]

Delta of Venus - Anais Nin. Totally awakened my sexuality.

 

[wayward bob]

i don't read many novels these days, so unless you count moomin books (which i do ) it's prolly esther freud's peerless flats.

 

[stethoscope]

Delta of Venus - Anais Nin. Totally awakened my sexuality.

Keep meaning to read that and Little Birds.

 

[imposs1904]

Gordon Legge's The Shoe.

Must have read it at least ten times since the mid -nineties.

 

[Madusa]

Keep meaning to read that and Little Birds.

PLEASE please do, steph. Forget Little Birds, just get a good copy of Delta of Venus and reread and reread. Had a copy of it when I was about 16 and lent it to a good friend at the time whom I knew was quite sexually in-tune...we used to quote huge chunks of the book on the tube to ourselves. Actually, think it's about time for a reread!

 

[goldenecitrone]

Lucky Jim. Read it a few times. Very funny.

 

[krtek a houby]

Lord of the Rings. 3 times.

 

[Santino]

Lord of the Rings. 3 times.

There are three volumes. Was the plot always different from how you remembered it?

 

[krtek a houby]

There are three volumes. Was the plot always different from how you remembered it?

I just loved the book. I don't normally read books more than once.

 

[nightowl]

hound of the baskervilles. probably a living on the edge of dartmoor for many years thing

 

[Cat Baloo]

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson. At least once a year - and I find new things about myself every time.
All of Jane Austen - every summer.
Same with Hitchhikers Guide.
And Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird when the bigotry around me gets too bad. Far too often :-( Although I have to admit that I "see" Gregory Peck ever since I saw the movie!
A bunch of others, too. From Sherlock Holmes to political satire.
Wonder I ever have the time to read NEW books.
^..^

 

[pennimania]

same here about jane Austen

Of Human Bondage - Somerset Maugham - my all time favourite book

 

[Cat Baloo]

Maugham - awesome - but very hard going. Not to read, but to internalize. Perhaps it cuts me too close?

 

[PandaCola]

The only book I have over and over is A Clockwork Orange. It's short, fits in my pocket and I really like the language.