It seems to me there are two kinds of book one re-reads, the old friends you read in the bath, or when you've got flu, or need a comfort-read for some other reason, and the ones you read once, at least semi-forget, and then come back to years later and find... what? Quite different? The same?

My 'flu books are:

Miss Mole by E H Young (never met anyone else who's read this)
Raymond Chandler
Dorothy L Sayers
Georgette Heyer

And I've re-read after a gap, and been taken aback by:

Mansfield Park
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and other LeCarrés
Katherine Mansfield

I've just decided to try re-reading Olivia Manning's Balkan and Levant trilogies, which I read about twenty years ago, and loved. I wonder if they'll seem the same now? Will I not love them so much, and wish I hadn't shattered my memories, which is what's happened to me with Antonia Forest...

Anyone else?

Emma

I'm trying to re-read old favourites, but they will keep publishing new novels I want to read that rather get in the way.

However, I'm about to toddle off to bed and begin my fourth read of Middlemarch. This will take some time as it's a very long book, but I absolutely love it.

This year I've re-read a Fay Weldon, an Iris Murdoch and a Barbara Pym. They were faves of mine back in the 70s and I was wondering whether I'd still think they were great. They were!

My comfort read these days would probably be anything by Anne Tyler. I've read several of hers several time. Oh, and Carol Shields' Unless, which I've read every year for the last four years.

Cliche as it is, I always come back to The Hobbit by J.R.R.Tolkien.

It takes me right back to being a child and wanting to get out in the woods on some adventure. I find it extremely comforting in times of cold or discomfort, and I make a point of rereading it every 3 or 4 years. And I always love it.

JB

I go back to Barbara Pym's books when I'm tired and miserable!

My illness books are anything by Bill Bryson (especially A Walk in the Woods) or Laura Ingalls Wilder.

sharas: 'I go back to Barbara Pym's books when I'm tired and miserable!'

She's not exactly the most optimistic and cheerful of writers, is she? But I love the sublety and gentleness of her writing; the way she doesn't hit you over the head with stuff but allows thing to slowly emerge.

I loved Bernice Reuben's books too, so mean to have a re-read of one hers soon. And my re-read of an Iris Murdoch (The Sea, The Sea) has left me wanting to re-read more of hers.

Saki and E M Delafield's Provincial Lady series are my comfort reads. Oh, and the Mapp and Lucia books, too.

Oh, the Provincial Lady, I'd forgotten her and she's so wonderful. Specially good when the day's being disheartening but busy, because the diary-form makes it work in bite-sized portions.

Emma

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Daisy, I've just managed to read Middlemarch for the first time, at my fourth attempt. I can't wait for a suitable gap till I can re-read it - it was so wonderful!

Emma

It's my absolute favourite classic novel, Emma. But then I did George Elliott for my undergrad dissertation, so was an early convert. The language, and especially the long and convoluted sentence stucture, take some getting used to, though, don't they? I suspect this is mainly what puts modern-day readers off. Brisk and concise she is not!

I don’t normally re-read anything – although I can't give away any of my books just in case… However, I was very excited to find an old paperback copy of Devil Water by Anya Seyton at a book sale recently. I read all her books in my teens but this was the favourite. I used to cross the actual Devil’s Water on my way to and from school every day, so the main character was very much a local hero. I can't wait to read it again.

The only other ones I go back to are Silas Marner and Diary Of A Nobody.

Dee

I read Anya Seyton's books when I was a teen too. Historical fiction was all the rage then.

I've been thinking about this and the books I would really, really love to re-read are the Ruby Ferguson Jill books, which I must have read countless times during my pony-mad childhood. I wish I'd kept mine as they've become collector's items now.

The language, and especially the long and convoluted sentence stucture, take some getting used to, though, don't they?

I don't find it hard to read, it's too beautifully balanced for that - certainly no worse than Brontës or Trollope - but the tone's horribly catching: I couldn't read it over lunch if I was writing in the afternoon, or my 1995 people and my 1471 people all ended up talking like Dorothea!

Emma

I've got a shelf of books for reading when I can't get to sleep. It includes Diary of a Nobody (which I must have read ten times at least), several of P G Wodehouse's Jeeves books and some of James Herriott's vet books. I find those scenes where Herriott's standing in a chilly barn at four in the morning with his arm in the back end of a cow & various Yorkshire characters standing around in cloth caps uttering unfathomable wisdom in unfathomable accents quite restful for some reason.

Seem to re-read 'Keep the Aspidistra Flying' a lot too.

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Never felt tempted to re-read Middlemarch, however. What's that character's name - Dorothea's husband - is it Causabon or something like that? Am I the only person who thinks that he's a comic character - but unfortunately not a funny comic character? That 'universal key to all mythology' thing was never going to pan out. Any fule could see that. What was he playing at?

I've been thinking about this and the books I would really, really love to re-read are the Ruby Ferguson Jill books, which I must have read countless times during my pony-mad childhood.

Ooh, yes, they were brilliant - I loved Jill's ironic humour. I think mine are still in the attic, but they're way too battered and stuck together with sellotape to be collectable.

Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock is another one I keep going back to.

Ahh - I envy you all.

I have tried to re-read a few of my favourite books on a number of occassions; Stephen Donaldson, Michael Moorcock, Edgar Rice Burroughs! Unfortunately I always fail! There are so many books that I want to read that I simply don't enjoy them so much. I just can't seem to go back to them.

Oh to be able to re-capture the wonder of discovering the fantasy world of Rice Burroughs Mars as I did in my early teens, or walk hand in hand with Thomas Covenant as he battles Lord Foul for survival of The Land!

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