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.
A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy.
~Edward P. Morgan
http://www.quotegarden.com/...
During comments each week, I often express the need to re-read a book that I really enjoyed many years ago. One reason for re-reading is that I have forgotten so much about the book that it is almost new to me. Even the surprise ending after fifty years may have escaped me and surprise me all over again.
Another reason to read a book a second or third time is because I miss the characters and the world. Dorothy Dunnett’s books were so rich in characters and history that I had to re-read them fairly soon after the first reading and I found so much I had missed.
A third reason to re-read a book is because a long running series has a new book added and it is necessary to read the first books in the set over before reading the new one. In that case I usually don't bother. I just go ahead and read the new one. I know several of my readers here who do re-read, though. It makes sense especially if it has been several years between the books in the series.
I have explained to people that the reason I keep so many books is because of my wish to re-read them and there are a large number of books that I have re-read with pleasure.
When you reread a classic you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than was there before.
~Clifton Fadiman
Sometimes, I admit that I am disappointed when I re-read a book because I do know too much or the surprise was more necessary than I thought. When I re-read A Prayer for Owen Meany, it just was not as good as the first time. I am not sorry I did it, though, because there were things I had rushed through the first time that I needed to see again.
Sometimes a book will leave me with a lot of questions and after thinking about it, I will feel the need to read it again. I suspect that Stephenson’s Anathem which I just finished will be one of those. I enjoyed it very much and it will be worth re-reading in the future.
One reason for re-reading that has happened to me and that has been mentioned by friends here is when I read half a book and then put a book marker in and set it down too long. When I pick it up again, I need to start over from the beginning.
Then there are the comfort books that I have read over and over and over just because I want to do so. I am re-reading The Hobbit and will move on to The Lord of the Rings shortly after because no matter how often I read them, I still get into a comfort zone and even though I know the ending, I feel happy roaming the halls of the great cities and the forests and the elven homes. Another book that gives me the feeling of coming home is Great Expectations by Dickens. Jane Austen’s books affect me the same way.
To read a book for the first time is to make an acquaintance with a new friend; to read it for a second time is to meet an old one.
~Chinese Saying
I also have enjoyed re-reading books that I read when I was too young to really appreciate them. I have mentioned before how much I enjoyed Moby Dick when I re-read the book a few years ago. I recognized the humor and the tragedy so much better than when I was forced to read it in college.
I recommend trying books again that you disliked the first time. Of course, there are some that will just not work for me and I admit it. There are some books that I will never ever need to re-read such as Styron’s Sophie’s Choice. Once was enough and I will never forget it.
Some books that I need to re-read are Ellison’s Invisible Man, Solzhenitsyn’s First Circle, Adam’s Watership Down, Saberhagen’s books about the swords, Moer’s Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear, Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain, and P. f. Chisholm’s series about Robert Carey which has a new one coming soon.
"Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are" is true enough, but I'd know you better if you told me what you re-read.
~François Mauriac
So what books do you enjoy re-reading and why?
I am also going to include an alphabet letter each week as Sesame Street does to help start a discussion. I was going to list three letters at a time, but I discovered there were so many authors for each letter that even choosing just a few of the authors, I could only do one letter at a time.
By doing the letters in order, my readers can think ahead to favorite authors they wish to comment on that I did not list or mention the titles of books that they love by the authors who are mentioned.
So this week Bookflurries presents the letter A.
As usual, wiki has the lists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Diane Ackerman An Alchemy of Mind, The Zookeeper’s Wife
Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series
Richard Adams Watership Down
Edward Abbey The Monkey Wrench Gang
Lynn Abbey Thieves World
Aesop Fables
Joan Aiken The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
Louisa May Alcott Little Women, Little Men, Jo’s Boys
Lloyd Alexander The Chronicles of Prydain
Isabel Allende The House of Spirits, Of Love and Shadow
Stephen Ambrose D Day, Citizen Soldier, Wild Blue
Hans Christian Andersen The Snow Queen, The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Princess and the Pea, Thumbelina
Poul Anderson Time Patrol, The Van Rijn Method: The Technic Civilization Saga #1
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
K. A. Applegate Animorphs
William H. Armstrong Sounder
Harriette Arnow The Dollmaker
Isaac Asimov Foundation Trilogy
Robert Lynn Asprin the Myth Adventures series
Margaret Atwood Blind Assassins
Avi The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
Charlotte Armstrong The Balloon Man, Lemon in the Basket, Seven Seats to the Moon
Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility
I have read seventeen of these authors and several books of many of them. Which of these are your favorites and which of their books would you recommend? Who did I leave out?
Are there any of these authors that you feel the need to re-read?
Diaries of the week:
Community Quilts – Update
by Sara R
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Write On! A bad week.
by SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/...
S.E.G.O -- Raising Dodos for fun and profit
by Devilstower
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Factions, Riots, and a Wonder of the World
by Unitary Moonbat
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Why I Get Upset: Non-Violence and DailyKos
by geomoo
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Yom HaShoah: Holocaust Remembrance Day
by mole333
http://www.dailykos.com/...
A Photo Diary: Father's Flowers and Climate Change
by patrickz
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Too Big to Succeed! Bill McKibben's new book, Eaarth
by Growthbuster
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Let's read a book together: Ideas: A history of thought and invention from fire to Freud: Chap. 14
by plf515
http://www.dailykos.com/...
NOTE: plf515 has changed his book talk to Wednesday mornings early.
Please take a moment to check out the list. It is very impressive!
sarahnity’s list of DKos authors has grown so much that she has her own diary.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
and there is a part two:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
sarahnity says:
It turns out that we have quite a few authors hanging out here who have published books in the real world. A while ago, I started keeping a list of books by Kossacks, former Kossacks and Kossacks-once-removed. I was posting it each week to the diary series What Are You Reading and Bookflurries, but the list has grown long enough, that I've decided to turn it into a diary and post it as a weekly series on Tuesday evenings.
Not all Kossack authors may wish to lose their anonymity, so I am only including the author's UID if he has outed herself here (gender confusion intended). If you'd like to be included on the list, or if you know of an author who is left off, please leave a comment or email me.
(sarahnity@gmail.com)