Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and books on tape. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.
Ernest Hemingway
http://www.brainyquote.com/...
One reason I keep so many books on my shelves is that I like to re-read them.
Some titles I have read several times over the years and I have been amazed that they held up so well. Sometimes I was disappointed or sometimes I realized that with the shock value gone, a book would have to be different the second time around. Sometimes, I am such a different person that the book seems strange. Sometimes I have forgotten so much that the book seems new.
Usually, I learn so much more the second or third time through because I am not
in a big rush to find out what happened and I can take time to savor it.
Dorothy Dunnett’s books are an example. I rushed through the fourteen books of The Lymond Chronicles and The House of Niccolo and couldn’t lay them down. The second time through, I took notes. I had missed so much.
Books that have worn well that I re-read recently were:
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
Mary Stewart’s books about Merlin and King Arthur
The Crystal Cave (1970)
The Hollow Hills (1973)
The Last Enchantment (1979)
The Wicked Day (1983)
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Actually, the second time was much better than the first time. I found the humor as well as the tragedy of the story.
Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens keep me enthralled
every time I read them.
Even though I grew up, I still enjoy Stevenson’s Treasure Island.
I have re-read Shane by Schaefer and Mrs. Mike by the Freedmans several times and still like them.
Two books I loved that I have been wondering if they would still be as wonderful are Losing Battles by Eudora Welty and The Secret of Santa Vittoria by Robert Crichton.
I didn’t realize how long it took Eudora to write Losing Battles. She began the story in 1955 and published it in 1970.
I want to re-read Buffalo Afternoon by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer.
I have been wanting to re-read Fred Saberhagen’s Sword books.
Complete Book of Swords has
First, Second, Third Books
Lost Swords: First Triad
Woundhealer’s Story
Sightblinder’s
Stonecutter’s
Lost Swords: Second Triad
Farslayer’s
Coinspinner’s
Mindsword’s
Lost Swords: End Game
Wayfinder’s
Shieldbreaker’s
I read A Pirate of Exquisite Mind, the biography of William Dampier by Diana and Michael Preston from the library and I bought it because I want to re-read it in a leisurely way.
I also have a copy of Jaques Barzun’s From Dawn to Decadence to re-read. I may put it on my challenge list in January.
I have sworn that I will get down my Loren Eiseley books asap.
I want to re-read Letters from Africa by Isak Dinesen, too.
What books are on your Must Re-Read Pile? Which books are you worried about not holding up? Which stories do you believe will still be read fifty years from now?
Diaries of the week:
Write On! Finding an agent.
by SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Thursday Classical Music OPUS 57: Beethoven's Symphony #7
by Dumbo
http://www.dailykos.com/...
He walks down mean streets no more: Remembering Piri Thomas
by Denise Oliver Velez
http://www.dailykos.com/...
NOTE: plf515 has book talk on Wednesday mornings early.