College girls reading.
I'm going to borrow this topic from Joe Barone.
What book would you reread? It's as simple as that.
My choice would be a Hoke Moseley book by Charles Willeford, maybe SIDESWIPE. I need the laughs some days.
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The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley. I just read it for the first time a few months ago and I already want to read it again.
I reread Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next novels; I'm currently listening to Something Rotten. Also P.G. Wodehouse on occasion. I just realized that my rereading preference is for humor.
I haven't reread any crime fiction what with the size of my TBR stack.
Hum, probably something by Louis L'Amour at the moment. Maybe " A Man called Noon"
I must read Crumley for the first time. Shame on me. Yes, Mack, if I reread it's usually for comfort and humor serves that best.
In crime fiction without humor, it would have to be a book that didn't depend on plot very much.
I love that I have friends reading westersn. My husband's grandfather, who read several a day for his 98 years, would be so proud. (And often the same ones). He would send us to the used bookstores with a dollar or two saying, "Get me a western. But nothin' too fancy."
A Moveable Feast by Hemingway or The Nick Adams Stories also by Ernesto.
Now he's one I have reread because I felt I didn't get the greatness when I was younger. I reread THE SUN ALSO RISES not long ago. I like the Nick Adams stories the best perhaps because they are set in Michigan.
If I had the time (which I hope to find someday), I'd like to re-read all of the novels by Ross Macdonald, Raymond Chandler, and Arthur Lyons as well as Peter Lovesey's Sergeant Cribb series, Max Allan Collins' Nate Heller series, and Jonathan Valin's Harry Stoner books. Oh, and outside of the crime-fiction field, I'd enjoy reading Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove series again, this time in chronological order.
But if I must start with one book, let it be either The Instant Enemy or The Doomsters, both by Macdonald. It's been a long while since I've tackled either work, but I have fond memories of both.
Cheers,
Jeff
I always go back to Chandler when I need a dose of prose that inspires. Usually, but not always, The Big Sleep.
I can only read him when I'm not trying to write. Otherwise, too intimidated.
I had completely forgotten Jonathan Valin. Someone should do one of his for forgotten books.
James Ellroy... I have to reread White Jazz this year, and American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand as well to prep myself for Blood's a Rover in Sept. I have a lot of stuff that I still need to read for the first time, but I would like to go back and reread some of my remaining Louis L'amour paperbacks and of course Chandler and Hammett....
He's certainly a favorite of my daughter's.
I'm rereading John Mortimer's Rumpole of the Old Bailey mysteries. If you want to laugh, try some of these.
I'll put it on my list.
The Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit, and 1984. Those I re-read periodically for pleasure. No others.
I will occasionally re-read a book for Forgotten Fridays, to brush up if It's been a long time since the other read.
Randy-When you reread classics like those, are you ever disappointed. Do they ever lose their luster over time? Probably not.
Funny you should ask. I just reread The Big Sleep a couple of weeks ago. I try to read at least one book by Chandler, Ed McBain, and Elmore Leonard every year, so that includes quite a bit of re-reading for me. I like to do it, to see if my reading skills have imporved since last time, or if my evaluation of the book has changed over time.
I'm re-reading Craig McDonald's "Toros & Torsos." I just love the way the book was constructed and how wall-to-wall it is with history and fiction blended. And of course, it messes with my mind and I do like that.
And does it change?
T & T -On the top of my TBR pile, as soon as I finish Castle Freeman.
Hi Patti,
If I liked a book or story well enough to read it from beginning to end, then I would re-read it down the road.
If I put it down part way through and never picked it up again, then even if years have gone by and I decide to re-start the book, it never works out.
Like Randy, I have to say that Forgotten Friday has me re-reading beloved books and that is a wonderful thing.
Terrie
I have re-read Mystic River three times just because it's so brilliant. The first two times was b/c I just loved the story. The third was to figure out how Lehane did it.
Ender's Game is still the only book in the world where I literally finished the last page, turned the book over, and started reading again.
Back in the day, I re-read a few set of books, mostly Star Wars and Star Trek.
Any and all of the Richard Stark novels. I've been making my way through all of the new reissues of the first six Parker novels. Stark/Westlake was a staple in my house growing up, so as I re-read them now I'm having memories of when I was thirteen and lost in the dusty stacks of my hometown's one and only used bookstore (the store was about the size of a spacious walk in closet and was packed from floor to ceiling with great old paperbacks. This was also where I discovered both Jim Thompson and Kurt Vonnegut.)for hours on end as my Mom ran around town doing errands.
Mystic River knocked me out. I almost wouldn't read it again for fear of having a different reaction.
Keith-is there anything better than a good used bookstore. We have one, but people always beat me to the more unusual finds.
Terrie-I live in fear of dying before I clear the TBR pile so I seldom reread.
Patti--If you ever get the chance to come out to Phoenix, I'll take you to the best used Bookstore ever. Bookman's in Mesa, AZ. Imagine a used bookstore the size of B&N or Best Buy. You can find some seriously great reads there.
Thanks, Keith.Megan will be there in July. Maybe next spring break.
Months ago I bought SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION, by Ken Kesey because I loved it when I read it years ago and I want to reread it. I haven't gotten to it yet, but this one also doubles as a submission for forgotten books too.
The short fiction of Avram Davidson. I have to be careful if I don't have much time in a given circumstance not to pick up one of his collections or an anthology with a story or so of his in it.
I don't know TOROS AND TORSSOS, but if you like Borgesian meshes of history and invention, you'll like Davidson. And Borges, for that matter...whom I also find myself rereading.
We're seeing a play of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest this weekend. Two great books.
You are devoted to that guy. I must read him. I wonder who I am devoted to with that fervor? I'm thinking about it.
Ulysses.
For a while there they used to do a 24 hour reading every year with actors at Kelly's Irish Times in Washington, DC. It was fun especially the stream of consciousness Molly Bloom thing at the end...
Loved THE DUBLINERS and PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST, but have never gotten through ULYSSES. You're a good man.
Philadelphia still has Bloomsday readings...I'm surprised no one's doing so in DC any longer, if not.
Erudite, witty, fascinated by the corners of the world and the people you'd meet there. At his best, a bit like an amalgam of Borges, Bellow and Thurber. Not to oversell Davidson, mind you. (Most of the novels and some of the short fiction just good, or just good enough. The stuff close to his heart, brilliant.)
Re-reading those books I mentioned, I almost always find something new. Does that say something about me? I don't know. I just like them and have read each about a half dozen times in my lifetime. There are aa few others I've read twice, but none more than that.
Kieran,
I applaud your dedication to re-reading Ulysses so many times. I love it, it's one of the finest novels of the 20th--but damn, so very, very long.
Of Mice and Men or To Kill A Mockingbird would be a good start.
Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella. Another book I keep planning to read again is Larry McMurtry's Cadillac Jack.
Love SHOELESS JOE. I wish you would do that for forgotten books, Kent. I bet a lot of newbies don't know it.
Patti:
I suppose some readers might not connect the novel Shoeless Joe to the movie Field of Dreams. Probably not many realize that Kinsella expanded a short story from the book Shoeless Joe Comes to Iowa into the novel at the request of a publisher. Maybe I'll try to combine the two books into a Forgotten Books piece, but it will have to wait until after our big Children's Hospital Book Market that starts next week and runs for ten days.
That sounds terrific, Kent. Whenever you get the time, I'd love to have it. Good luck with the book market. My daughter works for a non-profit in New York and these are hard times to raise money.
Whiskey Road by Karen Siplin. I normaly don't read love stories/romances but the blurb caught my eye and I read it in two days last summer.
A totally new author and title, G. I'll look them up.
"Dashiell Hammett: Five Complete Stories."
It has all the essentials-
Red Harvest.
Red Harvest.
Red Harvest.
Oh, yeah, some other filler like "The Thin Man," "The Dain Curse," "The Glass Key," and some story about a bird or something.
Uh, "The Choco-Malted Falcon?"
Something tells me RED HARVEST is your favorite.
The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley
The Green Ripper by John D. MacDonald
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
Bo Fexler short stories by Clair Dickson
Good list, Randy. ALICE is such a clever pick. And Bo, of course,
I must have read Casino Royale a dozen times and I read Tom Sharpe over and over
I re-read quite a bit.
But those that I need to re-read at the moment are Jack Kerouac, Nelson Algren and Willard Motley - and find a copy of Morton Thompson's 'Not As A Stranger'.
NOT AS A STRANGER was the first adult book I took out when the librarian let me move from kid's books to adult around 1960. It was marvelous.
wel,.I re-read 'Dorian Grey' pretty regularly but the books I want to reread most are Richard Ford's 'The Sportswriter'anf Milan Kundera' 'Laughable Loves' both of which had a great impact on me in the 80's.
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