Which one book do you always go back to?

super_furry

I'm re-reading the Mists of Avalon by Marrion Zimmer Bradley for what is the sixth time. I've bought three different copies of it after losing one and giving one away, and never get tired of it. Anyone else got a particular book they re-read over and over?

Thanx 4 The Fish

I re-read the George R. R. Martin books over and over.

Sarky

Every time a new Malazan book comes out I start from book one again, and frequently uncover new little twists and plots I hadn't noticed before.

I could read Skullduggery Pleasant forever though, I think. It's just... enjoyable.

bonkey

Sarky wrote: »

Every time a new Malazan book comes out I start from book one again, and frequently uncover new little twists and plots I hadn't noticed before.

Same - the Malazan series.

After getting Night of Knives for Chrimbo 2006, I read it, then started from Gardens, getting to the end just in time for Reapers to be released.

This time round, I'm don't have the time, so I've re-read Reapers and Night, waiting for Toll and Crimson Guard...both of which are due out shortly.

After I read the new books, I may well re-start again, and read through the lot.

Branoic

I've read both Dune and Magician numerous times, and will continue to do so in the future. I've also bought numerous versions of both.

AceofSpades001

The books of Dan Simmons, The Hyperion/Endymion series, plus the ILIUM/OLYMPUS books.

shockwave

Must have read Magician 5 or 6 times. Its a pity his other books were never as good.

Nevyn

Hyperion/Endymion plus neuromancer to see how far we have come.

ixoy

None - more's the pity. I'd love to go re-read Erikson in particular but I've got a pile of about 40 books outstanding, that I've never read, to get through first and during all that my authors keep publishing more...

seagull

shockwave wrote: »

Must have read Magician 5 or 6 times. Its a pity his other books were never as good.

I thought Daughter/Servant/Mistress of the Empire were really good.

I've read some of L.E. Modesitt's sci-fi books a ggod few times. Also Discworld.

meditraitor

Sarky wrote: »

Every time a new Malazan book comes out I start from book one again, and frequently uncover new little twists and plots I hadn't noticed before.
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Same here, just starting on R Gale now. Toll the Hounds better hurry up (july the 1st I believe)

CiDeRmAn

I have reread Consider Phlebas a good few times, but the series I've read the most over the years has been The Hitch-hikers Guide To The Galaxy, genius.

fozzle

Hmmmm, I've a few series that I've read more times than I can count. For my sins, I must have read the Wheel of Time series more than thirty times - reread the lot every time a new book comes out, and usually once of twice in between.
I've read Robin Hobbs trilogy of series' about a dozen times - Farseer trilogy, the Lifeship Traders trilogy and the Fool trilogy as a set together - they really are awesome.
I've read the Hitchiker's guide "trilogy" about once a year for the last, what, 14 years?
Then there's things like LOTR and Magician. Oh, and Ian Irvine's Geomancer series. Truth is, if I like a book, I'll reread it, can't bear to never read something I loved again.

trout

seagull wrote: »

I thought Daughter/Servant/Mistress of the Empire were really good.

They were excellent books, all the better for the influence of Janny Wurts.
I found the other books suffered by comparison, when I re-read them, with the exception of Magician.

I re-read Barry Hughart at least once a year ... it's a crying shame he let difficulties with his publishers put him off writing again.
Cracking books

http://books.google.ie/books?as_auth=Barry+Hughart&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=author-navigational&hl=en

HEATZ

any of MacCafferys P.E.R.N/Dragon riders books

shrapnel222

same here, magician (3), hyperion (4), enders saga (4), and the amber series (3), crystal singer a couple of times also

heavymetalrock

i find that i was go back to the book called fred and roise west, this is the best book wroted,

nialo

Ive re read Magician way to many times. and will surely do it again and again.

The_Conductor

Collected works of Isaac Asimov

starchild

magician - again and again

i love the darkwar series as well

Overheal

The only book I think I've reread was harry potter

I would have done it for Dune but christ, those things are Tomes. And they still keep coming out: Paul of Dune just hit shelves a couple months ago. Youd think a dead author would stop them but NoooOOOoooo00o.... :pac: stupid son

MackDeToaster

I used to have a fantastic memory and so would never reread books, but now that I'm older and have simply read so many that I find myself forgetting the contents, I have no problem going back. Find it hard to pick just one though, maybe Roger Zelazny's 'Lord of Light' ? I think I've read that about three times.

Queen-Mise

I reread all the Raymond E. Feist books recently. absolutely love them.

the books i reread the whole time (and this is embarrassing) they are in my mothers house, so whenever I stay down there, I read them: David's Eddings, Belgariad series - it doesn't matter which book, i just pick up one and start reading it anywhere.

Lexie_Karas

For me its Feist's books. Lost count of how many times... ever time a new one is published I re-read all the others... still love them and always enjoy re-reading them

The final 3 Harry Potter books I can re-read every now and then. And I've no idea how many times I read TLoTR. David Eddings was another author I could read over and over, that kinda stopped once I started on Feist.

Shame there's not enough time to read all the books in the world.

Ironbars

The hitchhikers guide......... or anything from Ericksons Malazan series.:p

Morgase

For me it's Wheel of Time. I'm just obsessed with it.

Paddy Samurai

Legend by gemmell
Magician by feist
Chronicles of the Keeper(trilogy) by bernard king

HEATZ

Morgase wrote: »

For me it's Wheel of Time. I'm just obsessed with it.

on book 5 now tis excelent

CiDeRmAn

Consider Phlebas is the one book I have read again and again, as well as Hitchhiker.
Use of Weapons is another I have re-read a number of times too.

Another two works I have to recommend to everybody, At The Mountains of Madness by HP Lovecraft, an excellent starter to the Chtulhu mythos and a damn fine sci-fi horror, and also everyone should have read A Fall Of Moondust by Arthur C Clarke, a genius disaster story on the moon, a little outdated now, but would make a smashing movie!

pwd

Dune - The sort of book you can see in completely different ways at different times, because of the complexity.
Some of Pratchett's stuff - Just entertaining really.
Most of Gemmel's stuff - They're great for inspiring you if you feel down.
HHG2TG series - They're books that you can dip in and out of randomly, and enjoy.

The_Conductor

pwd wrote: »

HHG2TG series - They're books that you can dip in and out of randomly, and enjoy.

I love listening to the BBC Audio books for this- it used to be on BBC Radio 4 late at night after the shipping forecast. The books are great- the films (incl. the recent remake) really don't do it justice......

Silvio.Dante

Duncton Wood by William Horwood...

Trojan

Gemmell, Banks, Feist, Anthony, Pratchett.

The_Conductor

My one all-time favourite author has to be Isaac Asimov. While his scifi is excellent- his non-fiction works are also great reads (his 'New Guide to Science' is an excellent primer for any teenager with a science interest- but also tomes like 'A choice of Castrophes- the disasters that threaten our world' which rationally debate the many issues that cyclically arise- can be read again and again). The Foundation series was a very good friend of mine as a teenager discovering the sci-fi and fantasy genre.

I guess loads of people here are Philip K Dick fans- once you've read 'The Man in the High Castle'- any of his other works become must reads. This book in particular kindled a fire in my mind- all the 'What-ifs' something had or had not happened in history. The premise (of the axis powers winning WW2) has been touched on by other authors- such as Robert Harris (Fatherland), Murray Davis (Collaborator- set in a Britain that was occuppied in 1940), Harry Turtledove (Worldwar- the 4 of them) etc. It used to be very happen chance finding books like these- before the advent of alternatehistory.com and other useful repositories.

A good way of discovering gems that you don't hear about very often- and related to Asimov and PK Dick- is of course by digging out the Hugo Annuals from the 1960s. The many short stories often introduce to authors you might never have come across before- and also often may be the brief flash of inspiration that was never repeated for some writers.

I've also Arthur C Clarkes collected works on my book shelves- everything John Gribbin has ever published (I particularly like- In Search of the edge of Time) and many many others.

GisforGrenade

The Walrus and the Warwolf by Hugh Cook, it has to be the funniest fantasy novel I have ever read and follows the demented adventures of the pirate Drake Douay.

El Tarangu

"Day of the Triffids" - possibly my favourite book of all time.

And I've re-read a number of the discworld books, but that's usually down to inertia on my part - when I can't think of anything else to read, there are always fifty-million discworld books lying around the house. My Dad and sister are the same - at any given time, at least one person in the household will be re-reading some Pratchett novel or other

dermothickey

LOTR it's just everytime I re-read it there's better insights, though will have to do another round of Feists again

CiDeRmAn

smccarrick wrote: »

My one all-time favourite author has to be Isaac Asimov. While his scifi is excellent- his non-fiction works are also great reads (his 'New Guide to Science' is an excellent primer for any teenager with a science interest- but also tomes like 'A choice of Castrophes- the disasters that threaten our world' which rationally debate the many issues that cyclically arise- can be read again and again). The Foundation series was a very good friend of mine as a teenager discovering the sci-fi and fantasy genre.

Not sure about this one, he took a perfectly good Foundation trilogy and stretched to way too far, including the needless Prelude to Foundation.
Also didn't like his insistence in retrospectively tying all the books together, his many different series tied together in the later Foundation books, Daneel and all that... Don't like that at all.

smccarrick wrote: »

I guess loads of people here are Philip K Dick fans- once you've read 'The Man in the High Castle'- any of his other works become must reads. This book in particular kindled a fire in my mind- all the 'What-ifs' something had or had not happened in history. The premise (of the axis powers winning WW2) has been touched on by other authors- such as Robert Harris (Fatherland), Murray Davis (Collaborator- set in a Britain that was occuppied in 1940), Harry Turtledove (Worldwar- the 4 of them) etc. It used to be very happen chance finding books like these- before the advent of alternatehistory.com and other useful repositories.

Philip K. Dick, biggest genius of them all, and as nutty as a fruit cake!
Love his anthologies, most of his is all about self, and how do you know it's really you looking back at you in the mirror, methinks he was a little paranoid!
Love Alt History too, Fatherland was fantastic, Guns of the South great, try "What If" where real historians look at history and speculate what would have happened if one little thing was different.

smccarrick wrote: »

I've also Arthur C Clarkes collected works on my book shelves.

Arthur C Clarke, I cut my SF teeth on his short stories, and Fall Of Moondust and Songs of a Distant Earth are pure SF genius.

saruviel

GisforGrenade wrote: »

The Walrus and the Warwolf by Hugh Cook, it has to be the funniest fantasy novel I have ever read and follows the demented adventures of the pirate Drake Douay.

You might also like my fanfiction volume 11 of the chronicles of an age of darkness titled 'The Wyvvern and the Warlock' which is a work in progress finished soon, FREE to read at http://hughcookfanfiction.angelfire.com

the Walrus and the Warwolf was also my favourite story for many years when i was younger, but Julian May's 'Magnificat' I now rate pretty highly. a lot of people here like feists 'magician' and that is a grea novel as well. eddings 'Pawn of prophecy' began the belgariad with a bang.

Daith

Men At Arms by Terry Pratchett
The Scar by China Miéville

I think it's cheating somehow if I go back to read these when I've others outstanding.

scillaria

Every time there is a new wheel of time book I reread the entire series from the start. I now know this books so well that i just leave out useless chapters that have no relevance to the storyline. With the wheel of time books its love hate relationship.
Just finished my second read through of the malazan book of the fallen book series so currently waiting for the last book. Ive read the redemption of athalus every year since fifteen its not a particularly good book but nice to read a bit of fantasy fluff and try to read LOTR every year too.

Corsendonk

You reread the entire World of Time each time there is a new release!! Ouch Ouch. Do due to his death and also his ability to get distracted after book 5 the launches were getting longer and longer so you needed to jog the grey cells.

Magician was good and I always return to and the co authored books with Janny Wurts were as good as the Magician. Erikson Malazan books always open up new new twists and nuggets of knowledge every time I reread. George RR Martin A Song of Ice and Fire is brilliant but I am dreading that his output has slowed to a standstill with his recent decision to delay publishing and getting caught up with HBO filming of the book series.

Orson Scott Card Enders Game is a good book to revisit especially if you read first in your teens.

GodlessM

dermothickey wrote: »

LOTR it's just everytime I re-read it there's better insights

I can vouch for that. And every time I re-read it it pushes me to search out one of the History of Middle Earth Books (which are very hard to find) to get even deeper into the mytholgy.

Tehol

Always go back to the "Wheel Of Time" every few years. Takes a good 6 months from start to finish.:)

Lab_Mouse

For me two books that i have read numerous times are chasm city by alastair reynolds and magician by raymond e feist(have his first 6 books signed by himself)

Elfinknight

"On My Way To Paradise" by Dave Wolverton

Sleepy

That's some excellent thread necromancy!

Will be digging out a few of the recommended titles here.

For me, I'm currently mid-way through my 3rd re-read of George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, during my younger years I read Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles at least twice each and most of Douglas Coupland's earlier work has been read multiple times: particularly Microserfs.

Temptamperu

1984, wheel of time and the dark tower. I try to read them all at least once a year.

clashburke

The Hobbit is a favorite
GRRM A Song of Ice and Fire
Dragon Master trilogy by Chris Bunch ive read about 10times and keep going back!!

eaglebhoy

Any of Robert Jordans Wheel of Time books or Raymond E. Feists books or the series that got me started, either of David Eddings' the Belgariad or the Malloreon

nialo

Dresden files.. jim butcher - just love this series.