# What book do you turn to again and again?



## Joseph_Evans (Jul 24, 2011)

Sometimes, when I'm halfway through a mediocre book I just put it down and pick up one of my old favourites even though I've read them countless times, because I know they're going to deliver, even if I do know the story inside out! The first Harry Potter is definitely the main one I turn to again and again, it's just pure enjoyment.

Does anyone else do this?


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## Jonathan C. Gillespie (Aug 9, 2012)

Yep. I keep some old favorites on my shelf; stuff I can grab and get a quick dose of enjoyment out of. One of these is _Expedition_ by Wayne Barlowe. _My Tank is Fight_, various gaming supplements (yes, I'm not kidding), and for a while and old box of Dark Horse comics helped out a lot, until, sadly, I sold them.

My old reliables tend to allow for vignettes of content I can quickly inhale at a moment's notice. They are the equivalent of a pewter flask, tucked into one's pocket.


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## Todd Wheeler (Mar 6, 2012)

My favorites are (I'm realizing just now) are all relatively long. Perhaps because I have to set aside some time to immerse myself and really focus on them all the more?

_Dune_ by Frank Herbert and _Gravity's Rainbow_ by Thomas Pynchon are the top two. Johnathan's post about comics also reminds me that I have years of issues of _Love and Rockets_ that would be a treat to re-read.


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## Groggy1 (Jun 21, 2010)

Lackey/Dixon or Modisett Jr.  Not a particular book, but author I'll go back to repeatly, might want to toss Ringo and Weber in there too...


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

Yeah, I pick up one of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series. Sometimes I only read several chapters.

Or a book or short story by Clifford Simak or Ray Bradbury. Clears the 'taste' of a poorly written or dull, uninteresting item from my mind.

Mike


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## cork_dork_mom (Mar 24, 2011)

I always turn to Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. Because it's like getting back together with some crazy a$$ friends!


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## 31842 (Jan 11, 2011)

I am so careful with my books, never licking my fingers to turn a page or breaking the spine, but my copy of "Sunshine" by Robin McKinley has been read so many times it is worn out.  It is a case of a favorite childhood stuffed animal.  It is very well loved.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

See this post.


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## vikiana (Oct 5, 2012)

My best top book I do turn again and again is "The last temptation of Christ" by Nikos Kazantzakis. I also adore books for misteries and all sorts of secrets. In general I don't like to go through any book second time but if I have to make my choice this is mine! What do you think?



Todd Wheeler said:


> My favorites are (I'm realizing just now) are all relatively long. Perhaps because I have to set aside some time to immerse myself and really focus on them all the more?
> 
> _Dune_ by Frank Herbert and _Gravity's Rainbow_ by Thomas Pynchon are the top two. Johnathan's post about comics also reminds me that I have years of issues of _Love and Rockets_ that would be a treat to re-read.


 I have some very favotire books on the shelfs as well/ They can bring me sometimes so needed desire for something good. The more I try to read contemporary literature (not the classic one from before) the more desperate I am! The literature now is full with very shallow ideas and nothing in common with some philosophy or feeling. I don't say that includes completely everything, of course. I just say what I faced in my reading experience !


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

I can't say I do it while reading other books, much, but I have favorites I return to again and again.  When I was younger it was HG Wells' War of the Worlds.  Right around this time of year I usually end up re-reading Stephen King's The Mist.


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## Gayle Miller (Sep 22, 2012)

I always turn to the book of Urizen by William Blake as it makes me stop and question things and gets my creative juices going.


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## Routhwick (Apr 1, 2012)

As a writer, a lot of manuals from Writer's Digest and the like--one of which I have.

Sometimes (but only infrequently), I pick up books on architecture. (I use SketchUp, which explains why.)


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## MeiLinMiranda (Feb 17, 2011)

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series, especially the first one (_Master and Commander_).


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## Aaron Scott (May 27, 2012)

James Agee's _A Death in the Family_.


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## Sam Kates (Aug 28, 2012)

LOTR, Clive Barker's Imajica, any TP Discworld book, SK's IT, Peter Straub's Shadowland...


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## Dosho (Oct 19, 2012)

We

by Eugene Zamyatin

The best dystopia novel writtein IMHO

D


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## Jenni Norris (Oct 10, 2012)

LOTR are the only books I reread. But I return to some non-fiction books e.g. Stephanie Dowrick, Deepak Chopra.


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## mistyd107 (May 22, 2009)

The Notebook 
The Green mile
The Harry Potter series are my go to books


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## MeiLinMiranda (Feb 17, 2011)

Sam, I reread Imajica, too.


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## Sam Kates (Aug 28, 2012)

MeiLinMiranda said:


> Sam, I reread Imajica, too.


MeiLin, it conjures up wonder every time I read it. Don't think I'll ever tire of it.


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## BRBogle (Nov 14, 2012)

Much of my life was spent reading and re-reading and thinking about and writing about everything available from Frank Herbert. Now I feel as if I've fully taken it all in.

A few years ago I read Joyce's _Ulysses_ for the first time. I've been re-reading and re-re-reading it, and so on, ever since; I doubt I'll ever stop reading it. This is a very hard book the first time through, but once you start "getting it" it becomes more and more interesting and enjoyable with later reads. There is a literary architectural magnificence at work in _Ulysses_ that is initially almost impossible to even glimpse. An awful lot to have to hold in your head in its entirety before you can say: Whoa. Perhaps fully taking in all of Frank Herbert helped to prepare me for Joyce.

I still fear _Finnegans Wake_, although I've dipped into it occasionally.

I'm sorry to say that I've only read _Moby-Dick_ one time -- I wish I'd read it 15-20 years ago -- but it's another of those books that, on a creative scale, dwarfs so much of what we commonly think of as good books -- and what indeed truly are good books. Like _Ulysses_, _Moby-Dick_ hints at just how much more is really possible in fiction than we very often are privileged to encounter or even suspect. Neither _Moby-Dick_ nor _Ulysses_ is an "epic," but they both are stories of common people that illustrate how all of our lives are clandestine epics lived from minute to minute.

For mind-dazzling economy with words, there's always Hemingway. For simple-appearing, painful literary beauty (at least if you fancy yourself a writer, I think that may be a common reaction), there's _The Great Gatsby_. And if you want dystopia -- true dystopia, not what passes for it these days -- there's the incomparable _1984_.


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## Klip (Mar 7, 2011)

I'm afraid I re-read many, many books again and again.

I've got TLOTR on audio so I relisten to that many, many times.

Just recently - everything by Elizabeth Enright.
Anything by Arthur Ransome  
Pretty much anything by Terry Pratchett, but esp Night Watch and Witches books.

Margaret Mahy, and Diana Wynne Jones are great favorites too.


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## thebookcoverdesigner (Nov 16, 2012)

Henry Miller's _Tropic of Cancer_ is probably my ultimate 'I-don't-know-what-I-want-read-but-I-want-to-read-something' book. It's so well-written no matter how many times I read it I can't get bored of it.


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## kenhensley (Nov 17, 2012)

One of the books I return to is Stephen King's "On Writing" which is his memoir / tutorial on how he approaches writing.  It often helps me get unstuck.


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## dkrauss (Oct 13, 2012)

Any of my Neal Stephenson's.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

Sherlock Holmes. The Hound of the Baskervilles, or any of the short story collections. 

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2


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## telracs (Jul 12, 2009)

Robert Fulghum's books.

And a few of the Star Trek Original Series books.


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## dmoonfire (May 7, 2012)

Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon.
Sentence to Prism by Alan Dean Foster
Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin

Those are a few of my favorite books...


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## gljones (Nov 6, 2012)

I must say I read the Tolkien books, Hobitt thru Return of the King, about once a year.  I do it to "recharge the batteries" and it never fails me.


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

Mine would have to be old childhood favorites. Like right now, I'm reading through the Anastasia Krupnik books because I gave in and bought them when they were the daily deal a few weeks ago.


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## DCBourone (Sep 10, 2012)

Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier.


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