Books You've Read More Than Once

In no particular order:

A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving. The book strikes a Pete Townsend-ish chord with me for some reason. It's fucking hilarious in spots and hashes out both sides of belief and non-belief (at least I think it does). I've read it eight or nine times and I've given it to at least 15 people, who all, but for one, love it, too.

The Cider House Rules, Irving. Another that resonates in my brain when I'm into it. And when I'm into it, I can't put it down.

The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas (and others, supposedly). Not the bullshit abridged and condensed Reader's Digest version or fucking hack-movie-script versions either. The whole thing, a 2,200-onion-paperthin-pages-of-type-from-nearly-top-to-bottom-paperback version. Straight from the translators (with some French left in that you have to look up). A book so thick you could knock out a toddler with it.
It's epic and gorgeous, hateful and redemptive, briny and smart and full of unmitigated passion.

The Stand, Stephen King. Maybe the best thing he's done, and he did some awfully good stuff early in his career.

The Brothers K, David James Duncan. A great book about baseball, family, religion, spirituality and just how different everyone is. The redemption theme rears it's head again. I love this book.

Guilty pleasures: Anything by Elmore Leonard and Robert Parker.

 

Brave New World

 

Damn, I can't believe a couple that have been mentioned that I forgot.
I love John Irving, I have read nearly all of his books twice and Prayer for Owen Meany 6 or 7 times, just a great book.
And good call on Sherman Alexie a couple of posts ago, I love Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.

As for C.S. Lewis, my favorite book by him is 'Til We Have Faces', it is kind of in a Beowulf (sp.?) genre.

 

Mostly history books for me. I can't think of a work of fiction I've ever re-read.

 

1) The Hunt For Red October.

Tom Clancy's last 3 or 4 books in the Jack Ryan series have sucked, but THFRO is the very definition of "page-turner." For those with short attention spans, the movie was a nice adaptation even though Alec Baldwin starred in it.

2) The Dilbert Priniple.

It'sa collection of cartoons and stories from Scott Adams. I worked for Gannett and get the feeling that Scott Adams did, too. No one could dream up such massive clusterfucks without having spent at least some brief time at a Gannett paper.

 

sportschick is gonna make some nerdy as hell, long-haired, tatted-up dude very happy someday.

Also: for my list . . . .can't believe I forgot Friday Night Lights and Dune. The first Dune novel was amazing, even if it telegraphed the ending. Dune Messiah was OK, but it was pretty clear that Herbert blew almost all of his good ideas on that first book.

 

• The Hunt for Red October
• The Glory of Their Times
• Eight Men Out
• The Mental ABC's of Pitching
• The Mental Game of Baseball
• Dracula
• The Last Best League
• Without Remorse
• the Bible

 

I'm not big into rereading, and if i do, there's generally got to be a 5-year(ish) gap before I can pick up a book again. But that said, that I can remember...

Crime and Punishment -- Dostoyevsky
Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy -- Adams
Big Trouble -- Dave Barry
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest -- Kesey
Catch-22 --Heller

There may be one or two more I'm forgetting. Currently reading Atlas Shrugged (I was feeling ambitious at the library) and I could see where that could be a reread some day. Good stuff.

 

Various Kerouac. Straw for the Fire by Theodore Roethke.

 

the illustrated man was so good in high school, i stole it. read it every few years to this day.

 

--Ball Four (duh!) about 10 times.
--The Nearest Faraway Place (the definitive Beach Boys biography).
--Beatles Anthology.
--Live From New York.

 

oh yeah, the physics of baseball. good read.