I have several Lenten reads that I rotate through: Death Comes for the Archbishop, The Power and the Glory, and Laurus. Last year I read Graham Greene and before that it was Vodolazkin, so that means that Cather is up. I also reread Josef Pieper’s Leisure: The Basis of Culture a lot — as well as Makoto Fujimura’s Culture Care. And I reread a bit of C. S. Lewis non-fiction like A Grief Observed, The Abolition of Man, and The Four Loves. I do like to pick up some random fiction from time to time… but more often than not I read my favorite parts of books. Like sections Lord of the Rings, East of Eden, Shakespeare’s plays (certain monologues I could just reread over and over again). Probably one of my most favorite things to read though is the first part of Luke in the Bible. The account of the birth of Christ is one I still get emotional about. I don’t know why and I suppose it makes me look like a religious nut, but it is true. Certain religious stories shock me or give me such peace.
Since I am a poet I think that it is much easier to reread my poetry collections. They are so much shorter than fiction, but there are compelling narratives in them too. Frost is wonderful for a variety of characters and ideas, and he is a joy to read aloud. Emily Dickinson was a true master, and I think everyone should have a book of all her poems.
Death Comes for the Archbishop is high on my to-read list. I also resonate greatly with the idea of rereading favorite parts of books. It’s like stopping by for tea with an old friend. You are also one of many lately who has mentioned rereading Luke, so I think I will finally give it a dedicated read this advent!
The book I come back to again and again is The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin, which rearranged my head, and particularly my notions of gender, and of what science fiction can be, the best part of fifty years ago.
I’m organizing my library too. ☺️ I love rereading books about writing. I’ve probably reread Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird the most. Recently bought the new 25th anniversary copy because I’d already used all the colors of pens to annotate my old copy. 🤓
The idea of rereading seems quite romantic to me. As much as I’d like to revisit beloved books, new books and the next breadcrumb on my life’s trail call to me. I have more pool-books (books you dip into; not books about pools) that follow me through life: Walden being one. True Devotion to the Holy Spirit (originally titled The Sanctifier) is another.
Poetry, however, is infinitely readable to me, as are certain books of the Bible. I’m always gleaning something new there, hearing God’s voice in his living word.
On a less poetic note, if I planned to reread one book of fiction it would be The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I never finished the series, so this would be a refresher before moving forward.
I love Patrick O’ Brian and everything by Mark Helprin. Helprin doesn’t get the credit that he deserves. And Aubrey/Martin was fantastically popular and now kind of forgotten
Yes I think both, perhaps for different reasons, are almost criminally underrated. O Brian’s grasp of the minutiae of British Naval personnel,procedures, and history is impressive on its own, but then to write with such sensitivity about male friendship, the bonds forged by war, the looming specter of death under the most capricious circumstances… not to mention music, food, romance, and on and on —
just masterful. I think he’s never been given his due because historical fiction (particularly military or naval) has gone from being under-appreciated as an adult genre (sort seen as “adolescent male” fare) to being very much dominated by bodice ripping tales of sex and murder.
Helprin is probably as far from fashionable as could be. Conservative, a veteran of Israeli Air Force, Jewish, outspoken, with a lot to say on manners and morals and wildly romantic. He is an incredible stylist but reads like he’s from another age — of high ideals and romance in the best sense of the word. He is also very difficult to categorize and describing what each of his novels is about reminds me of the Monty Python “All England Summarize Proust Competition” sketch.
Paul — Lost in The Cosmos is an odd work. It’s subtitled “The Last Self Help Book” and is a sort of hybrid philosophical discussion of semiotics and other topics of enduring interest to Percy sandwiched around a novella. First time through I just read the novel — it was awhile before I returned and read the rest. Fascinating but maybe not everyone’s cup of tea. Thanatos reads like it was written today — incredibly prescient IMO as it was written decades ago…. Cheers
I hate to be the outlier (or, at my age, the curmudgeon) but I have only reread The Lord of the Rings—once. The reason was I first read it in Junior High and I wanted a refresher when the movies started rolling out. Other than that? I can’t bring myself to go backwards. I will never finish the books I want to read, especially since authors keep writing new ones, so I continue marching forward into new territory. It’s the same with movies and TV shows. Always new, never reruns.
Love this. Probably the ones that still have an effect after numerous re-readings are:
The Little White Horse - Elizabeth Gouge (I love the story, but it was the bedroom that hooked me).
I Capture The Castle - Dodie Smith (the narrative voice in this one rang so true to my adolescent self that when I came to re-read it as an adult, I was shocked to discover that what I thought of as my voice was actually Cassandra's).
The Crow Road - Iain Banks (best opening line ever).
Emma - Jane Austen (what I love about JA is that you can find her characters unbearable, but still love them and root for them).
Brighton Rock - Graham Greene (haven't reread this for decades, but I lived and breathed it as a teenager).
The Jackson Brodie series by Kate Atkinson - I love everything she writes, but I reread these, starting at the beginning every time a new one comes out.
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Nothing deep here, but these are all books that have traveled with me through the decades, and many of them I read as a teenager, so they definitely took root.
I grew up in Italy with limited access to new books in English, but my father was a librarian in a British school, so I had unlimited access to books I could read and reread, and at one point I read my way through the shelves - Asimov to Zola - but these are the books that stay with me.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I've read it (with The Hobbit) four times. It keeps getting better with each reading. Two others I never tire of are the Gospel of John and the Book of Acts in the Bible.
Maybe this is a skunk at the party comment: I wonder if the opportunity cost of re-reading books is higher than we let ourselves think. The universe of great books I haven't discovered is almost incomprehensibly wide.
Of course I do pay that cost sometimes. I indulge a re-read of A Confederacy of Dunces once every few years and enjoy it immensely each time. I just re-read The Body, Stephen King's novella that was adapted to the film Stand By Me. It's a third time through, once every bakers dozen of years and maybe gives a litmus test to how my feelings about age change with aging.
This post lights a fire of course to re-read some old favorites like Crime and Punishment, which I've only read twice. Can I afford that when I've not read anything by Thomas Mann? Such is the self-punishing navel gazing maybe a lot of avid readers have.
The discipline I'd like to cultivate is re-reading a great book shortly or immediately after having just read it. The depth of understanding appreciates considerably, and maybe sets the clock a lot further away for any re-read.
I will frequently re-read P. G. Wodehouse. They're perfect escapism and funny. I also will reread Nabokov. Somehow I still haven't read Lolita, but I I've read almost every other novel of his, most of them at least twice. Back when I worked in life science research, I'd reread Janeway's Immunobiology to remind myself how weird biology is.
The books I keep on my limited shelf space are the ones I reread - the ones I write about in my Substack series 'Why is this Book on the Shelf?'. I have some classic works, but others are more obscure. I came to love them through the serendipity of my unique life circumstances and experiences.
Perhaps it is a combination of personality and life experience that leads each reader to find their special books. Even if there are Venn diagram overlaps with other people's beloved books, the combination of books each person loves will be entirely unique, like a fingerprint.
Joel, as usual, your posts are thought provoking and enjoyable. I wonder how many people, especially young people, know about Mencken's Chrestomathy. Not many, I wager. A dear friend, about ten years older than I, gave me a copy. I love it for its honesty (moderns might say its 'hate) So what.
Along with that book, I lent (and never got back; you're right about this phenomena) The Captive Mind, a soul/psyche-forming read. I have another of Czeslaw Milosz's books that I haven't gotten to. And of course, a long lived resident of the bookshelves in my hovel is The True Believer by Eric Hoffer. Note: Both of these writers were from the Soviet Bloc nations. They warn us about the perils of Socialism/Communism, the Totalitarian variant (supposedly we'll get the beneficent version in Heaven... if we've been 'good.' ) Another book that might as well be banned here in the U.S. is The Coolidge Effect by Glenn Wilson. All about the relations between men and women, the whys and biological imperatives. It is a book that modern young women--the kind who are currently on their knees, rending their garments as their sisters shear their locks--would disassemble and scatter to the winds.
As far as books for writers, my fav is The Art of Fiction by John Gardner. Lots of good tutelage and love of literature in there.
I've read C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to my children. One of the few children's books that captivated me--the dad holding the tome as he read to his son and daughter. (Was soul-fully moved by the movie, by its theme of forgiveness, almost to tears.
I must confess... I have a copy of Saint Augustine's Confessions, a paperback, underlined, annotated, on my shelves, had it for ten years... but I'm only about halfway through it. Isn't it amazing how books give us the ability to listen to a mind that penned their thoughts thousands of years ago?
I'll have to look at Montaigne's Essays.
Of course, Orwell. I read Homage to Catalonia, his account of his joining the Republicans in their fight against the Fascists. When I finish The Last Crusade, I will have to read Homage to Catalonia again. Because, as you know, Orwell went on to write 1984, his dark warning against the communists (that were aiding the Republicans) in their war against the fascists. OMG! Young people are being cheated in our schools. (They believe that simply because a half dozen people call one a Nazi, that person must be a Nazi.) I know Ambrose Bierce was another bad boy writer from the early twentieth century. I'll have to pick up the Devil's Dictionary.
As a writer myself, this jumped out at me: "Some books are disposable. They leave little mark on the mind. It could be a shallow novel, something someone insisted was brilliant but wasn’t, or a book a friend recommended but you feel guilty about disliking." Why did this get my attention? Because some of my own books might be in this category. Well, I've written 13. About half are genre, meant to entertain, but other half are more serious.
Well, that's just the way it goes.
As to what I come back to, or will, two immediately come to mind: Moby Dick by Herman Melville and From Here to Eternity by James Jones. Read them both in my twenties. I might have to buy a La-z-boy for the re-read. It will require hours in the seat. But I will love it!
Besides the Bible and childhood favorites like Little Women, I had to think of what I've reread. I'm more likely to pick up and browse such as Lamont's Bird by Bird or Stephen King's On Writing. (Gets confusing here. My husband is a contractor and our window salesman is also Stephen King. Lol) Also the English Patient. Cover to cover rereads? 1984, Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, To Kill a Mockingbird... There are so many I'd love to read again but so many I have not read. This is a great post that I'll be saving for future reference. So many great suggestions!
I have several Lenten reads that I rotate through: Death Comes for the Archbishop, The Power and the Glory, and Laurus. Last year I read Graham Greene and before that it was Vodolazkin, so that means that Cather is up. I also reread Josef Pieper’s Leisure: The Basis of Culture a lot — as well as Makoto Fujimura’s Culture Care. And I reread a bit of C. S. Lewis non-fiction like A Grief Observed, The Abolition of Man, and The Four Loves. I do like to pick up some random fiction from time to time… but more often than not I read my favorite parts of books. Like sections Lord of the Rings, East of Eden, Shakespeare’s plays (certain monologues I could just reread over and over again). Probably one of my most favorite things to read though is the first part of Luke in the Bible. The account of the birth of Christ is one I still get emotional about. I don’t know why and I suppose it makes me look like a religious nut, but it is true. Certain religious stories shock me or give me such peace.
Since I am a poet I think that it is much easier to reread my poetry collections. They are so much shorter than fiction, but there are compelling narratives in them too. Frost is wonderful for a variety of characters and ideas, and he is a joy to read aloud. Emily Dickinson was a true master, and I think everyone should have a book of all her poems.
Death Comes for the Archbishop is high on my to-read list. I also resonate greatly with the idea of rereading favorite parts of books. It’s like stopping by for tea with an old friend. You are also one of many lately who has mentioned rereading Luke, so I think I will finally give it a dedicated read this advent!
Luke's perfect for Advent reading - 24 chapters!
....onward to Bethlehem! ✨🌴🐪
Good post.
The book I come back to again and again is The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin, which rearranged my head, and particularly my notions of gender, and of what science fiction can be, the best part of fifty years ago.
Neil Postman's Technopoly. I've read it four or five times, and it still opens my eyes to the ways technology can undermine our humanity.
I also love Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives. So much wisdom from a humble man. Sophrony's The Monk of Mount Athos is another good one to keep nearby.
Good call Amigo
Hard to keep it short, so I will limit it to ten that I constantly think about:
Number one for sure is The Pilgrim's Progress by Bunyan
Number two is Confessions by Augustine
Others that then follow from those are:
Life of Antony by Athanasius
Imitation of Christ by Kempis
Pensees by Pascal
Orthodoxy by Chesterton
Mere Christianity by Lewis
Proper Confidence by Newbigin
The Crucifixion by Rutledge
John Newton biography by Aitken
I’m organizing my library too. ☺️ I love rereading books about writing. I’ve probably reread Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird the most. Recently bought the new 25th anniversary copy because I’d already used all the colors of pens to annotate my old copy. 🤓
I was about to say exactly the same … ‘25th anniversary edition’, you say! Fabulous book, re-read annually here.
The idea of rereading seems quite romantic to me. As much as I’d like to revisit beloved books, new books and the next breadcrumb on my life’s trail call to me. I have more pool-books (books you dip into; not books about pools) that follow me through life: Walden being one. True Devotion to the Holy Spirit (originally titled The Sanctifier) is another.
Poetry, however, is infinitely readable to me, as are certain books of the Bible. I’m always gleaning something new there, hearing God’s voice in his living word.
On a less poetic note, if I planned to reread one book of fiction it would be The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I never finished the series, so this would be a refresher before moving forward.
I love your term, pool books. Well said.
Books/series I come back to:
— Aubrey Maturin Series- Patrick OBrian
— Thanatos Syndrome & Lost in the Cosmos- Walker Percy
— Another Sort of Learning - James V. Schall
— Space for God: Study and Practice of Spirituality and Prayer - Don Postema
— A Soldiers of the Great War - Mark Helprin
— How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth - Gordon Fee and Doug Stuart
I love Patrick O’ Brian and everything by Mark Helprin. Helprin doesn’t get the credit that he deserves. And Aubrey/Martin was fantastically popular and now kind of forgotten
Yes I think both, perhaps for different reasons, are almost criminally underrated. O Brian’s grasp of the minutiae of British Naval personnel,procedures, and history is impressive on its own, but then to write with such sensitivity about male friendship, the bonds forged by war, the looming specter of death under the most capricious circumstances… not to mention music, food, romance, and on and on —
just masterful. I think he’s never been given his due because historical fiction (particularly military or naval) has gone from being under-appreciated as an adult genre (sort seen as “adolescent male” fare) to being very much dominated by bodice ripping tales of sex and murder.
Helprin is probably as far from fashionable as could be. Conservative, a veteran of Israeli Air Force, Jewish, outspoken, with a lot to say on manners and morals and wildly romantic. He is an incredible stylist but reads like he’s from another age — of high ideals and romance in the best sense of the word. He is also very difficult to categorize and describing what each of his novels is about reminds me of the Monty Python “All England Summarize Proust Competition” sketch.
https://youtu.be/IScaIp2fVIw?si=oAGo-vB_dxcq2nAH
A fools errand. Anyhow, fatally out of fashion which is a shame because his latest “The Oceans and the Stars” shows him at his very best.
What great summaries of my two favorite authors. Thank you.
Thanks for the tip on Walker Percy. I never read the two you list. Will have to look 'em up.
Paul — Lost in The Cosmos is an odd work. It’s subtitled “The Last Self Help Book” and is a sort of hybrid philosophical discussion of semiotics and other topics of enduring interest to Percy sandwiched around a novella. First time through I just read the novel — it was awhile before I returned and read the rest. Fascinating but maybe not everyone’s cup of tea. Thanatos reads like it was written today — incredibly prescient IMO as it was written decades ago…. Cheers
Thanks! I just ordered The Thanatos Syndrome and Love in the Ruins, also Bierce's Devil's Dictionary.
*Soldier of the Great War
I hate to be the outlier (or, at my age, the curmudgeon) but I have only reread The Lord of the Rings—once. The reason was I first read it in Junior High and I wanted a refresher when the movies started rolling out. Other than that? I can’t bring myself to go backwards. I will never finish the books I want to read, especially since authors keep writing new ones, so I continue marching forward into new territory. It’s the same with movies and TV shows. Always new, never reruns.
Love this. Probably the ones that still have an effect after numerous re-readings are:
The Little White Horse - Elizabeth Gouge (I love the story, but it was the bedroom that hooked me).
I Capture The Castle - Dodie Smith (the narrative voice in this one rang so true to my adolescent self that when I came to re-read it as an adult, I was shocked to discover that what I thought of as my voice was actually Cassandra's).
The Crow Road - Iain Banks (best opening line ever).
Emma - Jane Austen (what I love about JA is that you can find her characters unbearable, but still love them and root for them).
Brighton Rock - Graham Greene (haven't reread this for decades, but I lived and breathed it as a teenager).
The Jackson Brodie series by Kate Atkinson - I love everything she writes, but I reread these, starting at the beginning every time a new one comes out.
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Nothing deep here, but these are all books that have traveled with me through the decades, and many of them I read as a teenager, so they definitely took root.
I grew up in Italy with limited access to new books in English, but my father was a librarian in a British school, so I had unlimited access to books I could read and reread, and at one point I read my way through the shelves - Asimov to Zola - but these are the books that stay with me.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I've read it (with The Hobbit) four times. It keeps getting better with each reading. Two others I never tire of are the Gospel of John and the Book of Acts in the Bible.
Walker Percy's "Love in the Ruins." It's not just funny. It's prophetic. "The center did not hold." No, it did not.
Maybe this is a skunk at the party comment: I wonder if the opportunity cost of re-reading books is higher than we let ourselves think. The universe of great books I haven't discovered is almost incomprehensibly wide.
Of course I do pay that cost sometimes. I indulge a re-read of A Confederacy of Dunces once every few years and enjoy it immensely each time. I just re-read The Body, Stephen King's novella that was adapted to the film Stand By Me. It's a third time through, once every bakers dozen of years and maybe gives a litmus test to how my feelings about age change with aging.
This post lights a fire of course to re-read some old favorites like Crime and Punishment, which I've only read twice. Can I afford that when I've not read anything by Thomas Mann? Such is the self-punishing navel gazing maybe a lot of avid readers have.
The discipline I'd like to cultivate is re-reading a great book shortly or immediately after having just read it. The depth of understanding appreciates considerably, and maybe sets the clock a lot further away for any re-read.
I will frequently re-read P. G. Wodehouse. They're perfect escapism and funny. I also will reread Nabokov. Somehow I still haven't read Lolita, but I I've read almost every other novel of his, most of them at least twice. Back when I worked in life science research, I'd reread Janeway's Immunobiology to remind myself how weird biology is.
Wodehouse, yes. I forgot him on my own list earlier!
Amen, P. G. is always appropriate for difficult times!
The books I keep on my limited shelf space are the ones I reread - the ones I write about in my Substack series 'Why is this Book on the Shelf?'. I have some classic works, but others are more obscure. I came to love them through the serendipity of my unique life circumstances and experiences.
Perhaps it is a combination of personality and life experience that leads each reader to find their special books. Even if there are Venn diagram overlaps with other people's beloved books, the combination of books each person loves will be entirely unique, like a fingerprint.
Joel, as usual, your posts are thought provoking and enjoyable. I wonder how many people, especially young people, know about Mencken's Chrestomathy. Not many, I wager. A dear friend, about ten years older than I, gave me a copy. I love it for its honesty (moderns might say its 'hate) So what.
Along with that book, I lent (and never got back; you're right about this phenomena) The Captive Mind, a soul/psyche-forming read. I have another of Czeslaw Milosz's books that I haven't gotten to. And of course, a long lived resident of the bookshelves in my hovel is The True Believer by Eric Hoffer. Note: Both of these writers were from the Soviet Bloc nations. They warn us about the perils of Socialism/Communism, the Totalitarian variant (supposedly we'll get the beneficent version in Heaven... if we've been 'good.' ) Another book that might as well be banned here in the U.S. is The Coolidge Effect by Glenn Wilson. All about the relations between men and women, the whys and biological imperatives. It is a book that modern young women--the kind who are currently on their knees, rending their garments as their sisters shear their locks--would disassemble and scatter to the winds.
As far as books for writers, my fav is The Art of Fiction by John Gardner. Lots of good tutelage and love of literature in there.
I've read C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to my children. One of the few children's books that captivated me--the dad holding the tome as he read to his son and daughter. (Was soul-fully moved by the movie, by its theme of forgiveness, almost to tears.
I must confess... I have a copy of Saint Augustine's Confessions, a paperback, underlined, annotated, on my shelves, had it for ten years... but I'm only about halfway through it. Isn't it amazing how books give us the ability to listen to a mind that penned their thoughts thousands of years ago?
I'll have to look at Montaigne's Essays.
Of course, Orwell. I read Homage to Catalonia, his account of his joining the Republicans in their fight against the Fascists. When I finish The Last Crusade, I will have to read Homage to Catalonia again. Because, as you know, Orwell went on to write 1984, his dark warning against the communists (that were aiding the Republicans) in their war against the fascists. OMG! Young people are being cheated in our schools. (They believe that simply because a half dozen people call one a Nazi, that person must be a Nazi.) I know Ambrose Bierce was another bad boy writer from the early twentieth century. I'll have to pick up the Devil's Dictionary.
As a writer myself, this jumped out at me: "Some books are disposable. They leave little mark on the mind. It could be a shallow novel, something someone insisted was brilliant but wasn’t, or a book a friend recommended but you feel guilty about disliking." Why did this get my attention? Because some of my own books might be in this category. Well, I've written 13. About half are genre, meant to entertain, but other half are more serious.
Well, that's just the way it goes.
As to what I come back to, or will, two immediately come to mind: Moby Dick by Herman Melville and From Here to Eternity by James Jones. Read them both in my twenties. I might have to buy a La-z-boy for the re-read. It will require hours in the seat. But I will love it!
Homage to Catalonia, never thought of it as a reread. But it is a wonderful book.
Besides the Bible and childhood favorites like Little Women, I had to think of what I've reread. I'm more likely to pick up and browse such as Lamont's Bird by Bird or Stephen King's On Writing. (Gets confusing here. My husband is a contractor and our window salesman is also Stephen King. Lol) Also the English Patient. Cover to cover rereads? 1984, Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, To Kill a Mockingbird... There are so many I'd love to read again but so many I have not read. This is a great post that I'll be saving for future reference. So many great suggestions!