UKC

There are plenty of books I have read twice but books I would read 3x form a much smaller list Obvious exclusions are guide books, reference books, etc.

Here the ones on my list that I have already completed 3x or 2x where I would happily re-read:

The Dogs of War - Frederick Forsyth

The Border Trilogy (but specifically "The Crossing") - Cormack McCarthy

Blood Meridian - Cormack McCarthy

No Country for old men - Cormack McCarthy

The Blue Bear - Lynn Schooler

Once a Warrior King - David Donovan

A Rumour of War - Philip Caputo

Harry's Game - Gerald Seymour

This Game of Ghosts - Joe Simpson

Is there a “k” in McCarthy’s first name? 

Have read Lord of the Rings at least three times, at least twice in English & once in French. There are also several books such as Nan Shepherd's Living Mountain which I've probably read three times or more but often just read favourite sections rather than reading from cover to cover

All of Robert Heinlein’s early books, the so called “juveniles”.  A select few of his later books.

Tolkein - Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit

Arthur C Clark - The City and the Stars, 

Iain (M) Banks - Feersum Enjinn, The Crow Road.  

Neil Gaiman - American Gods - although my first edition paperback is succumbing to its age 

Terry Pratchett - to many to list but generally his earlier books.

R D Blackmoor - Lorna Donne 

Greg Bear - Eon and Eternity, perhaps Songs of Earth and Power but it’s a bit clunky.

Isaac Asimov - his early Foundations novels in particular.

Hopefully many more I’ve not found yet.

Longitude

Wuthering Heights

Alive| 

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte, mainly because the Eyre family of Hathersage are relatives.

Dune - Frank Herbert, I read it whenever I am feeling at a loose end.

The Brentford Trilogy - Robert Rankin, laugh out loud funny for dark times.

The Empty Mirror - Janwillem van de Wetering.

Angry White Pyjamas - Robert Twigger, along with the above these books represent what I intended to do but ended up with the happy shopper version in sheffield.

Any Doc Savage novel - Kenneth Robeson, because...Doc Savage.

Any Asterix book - Goscinny et Uderzo, read them all in English, some in French and a couple in Latin. The puns are not as good in French.

Another vote for The Lord of the Rings

The Earthsea trilogy by Ursula le Guin

The Sandman anthology by Neil Gaiman

there, that’s 16 for you...

Brentford Trilogy ( the first 3) are obvious candidates. As are pratchet, and MOST of Iain. M. Banks. Also Julian May Exiles books and the first couple of Kim Newmans Anno Dracula series, mostly for the endless nods to other authors and pop culture. 

There are other books I have read a lot, but probably wouldn't again - Larry Niven or Jerry Cornelius/ Moorcock

'Too many books not enough time' never mind reading some 3 times.

I borrowed that quote from the t-shirts that said 'too many climbs not enough time' was that back in the 80s or 90s?

How the heck did I miss that?  I’ve got copy of the recent illustrated hardback of The Antipope - Rankin illustrated it himself after a few...  At some point I’m sitting down in my shed with a pint of Large and reading it.

Also agree with your *most* on Banks...  The original Ringworld has held up well I think but the rest not so much.  At some point I’ll read the most recent ones... 

WH Murray, Mountaineering in Scotland.

Wade Davies, Into the Silence.

Nearly all of John le Carre’s work.

Heinlein, Asimov but not for a long time.

I’m sure there’s more but for me the read/re-read button is pushed by the evocation of feelings rather than a ripping yarn.

When I re-read Patrick O'Brian's long Aubrey-Maturin series (Master and Commander being part 1) it will be for the third time.

Don't know when the voyage will be coming but I can smell the sea already ...

just dipping into some of Clive Sinclair's books from the early 60s at the moment

who knows how many times I've been into them since the early 1970s

I've read "The Olympus Gambit" at least 3 times

I recently bought the first Corum trilogy for my kindle. I expected to wade in nostalgia having read them annually as a teenager. It took me about three quarters of the first book to really tune into them again but I got there. Nostalgic rereading always runs the risk of disappointment.

The Flashman novels, by George McDonald Fraser

To Kill a Mockingbird. I must be approaching double figures now.

Dracula - bram stoker, read numerous times 

1984 - George Orwell 

Also Lord of the rings series 

Ulysses - James Joyce. Started my third reading of it earlier this year in preparation for fulfilling a long-held ambition of attending Bloomsday in Dublin this June. Flights and accommodation all booked, then the pandemic struck.

Another vote for W H Murray's Mountaineering in Scotland & Undiscovered Scotland. For me, he captures better than any other writer the fleeting feelings of transcendence climbing sometimes grants you. Never get tired of getting uplifted. Probably not for the zealous humanists on here though.

On The Road - Jack Kerouac. I'm still a sucker for the whole Beat road-tripping, rail-riding vibe - to the extent of visiting the Beat Museum in North Beach, San Francisco to celebrate my 60th birthday. Once I start it I can't stop.

On top of these, I've read numerous classics numerous times in the course of teaching English Literature for 30 years: Animal Farm, Of Mice & Men, Mockingbird, Tess, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Pride & Prejudice etc etc. Never felt like a chore. Great job if you love reading.

Ed McBains 87th precinct books,  I reread those on an almost continuous loop. They almost read themselves now, the record was less than two hours for one. It's like meeting up with old friends.

Lord of the Rings

To Kill a Mockingbird

Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising 

C.S. Forester's Hornblower novels

Ooops. I was so busy making sure I spelt his surname correctly that I forgot about that.

I have read "to kill a mockingbird" once but felt that the film was such a good representation that I didn't need to re-read it.

The film is absolutely wonderful, but the book has layers of plot missed out entirely in the film - it's a much better representation of life in 30s Alabama. I have the film of dvd and that too is a favourite!

"Stand up Scout, your father's passing" always brings a lump to my throat. 

The Tales of the City series by Armistead Maupin

Miss Smillas Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

There are also books I probably should read 3x but haven't got to the 2nd reading yet. They include:

East of Eden - John Steinbeck

The 13th Valley - John M. Del Vecchio

The Road - Cormac McCarthy

These are among my favourites. I've read all of these at least 3 times:

On The Road, Jack Kerouac

Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence

Moby Dick, Herman Melville

1984, George Orwell

Lord of the Rings

I know the first 3 are not to everyone's taste, but I rate them very highly

All of William Gibson's books.

Light Trilogy & The Centaurai Device by M John Harrison

Vurt / Pollen / Nymphomation / Automated Alice by Jeff Noon

All of Ian M Banks (none of the Ian Banks)

All of Pratchett's stuff.

Tiger Tiger by Alfred Bester

And like a lot of people I've read LOTR at least 3x but I was really high back then so I probably had to just to remember it all.

I also read William Gibson's early books several times.

No other novels though. But I tend to read climbing guides until the print falls off...

The Swallows & Amazons series by Arthur Ransome

Stargazing: Memoirs of a young lighthouse keeper by Peter Hill

I keep on returning to these endlessly.

My second favourite line. I just love the quiet drama of "Take him, Mr Finch" and what that does to Jem's view of Atticus.

thinking a little further, I'm sure I read all the Swallows & Amazons series several times over although I haven't read any of them for maybe 40 years. Something to do now I'm retired

Bill Bryson At Home

Read it at least 5 or 6 times, it’s a history of everything, full of useless information. Absolutely great.

Anything by Le Carre

As others have said LOTR and the Hobbit. 

Twight's Extreme Alpinism + Kiss or Kill

Training for the Uphill Athlete

Feet in the Clouds, Askwith. 

Beside the Ocean of Time - George Mackay Brown 

Three times! that needs consideration. There’s some great recommendations already. Anyway 

Huckleberry Finn ( including the rafters passage) 

Oliver Twist.

The Code of the Woosters 

Edit...

Webbo and Bouldery Bits... I’ll give a shout for Bill Bryson and Le Carre too

I didn't think of the Brentford trilogy but reading does this reminded me. I'm going to say the first 4 books of the trilogy though. Went downhill after the sprouts of wrath.

Most of the disk world books. 

The Amtrax wars, I don't know what it is about them but something keeps drawing me back.

Also the Robin Hob books, the assassin, the live ship and the fools trilogy, they were excellent and I'm not going to say what but only one book or part of a book has brought a tear to my eye.

I'm going to chuck in the Raymond Feist books too from the Magician up to the Serpent wars saga, rather generic fantasy but enjoyable to read and a story told over multiple generations with some characters that I got very attached to. 

It was an earnest question, by the way, not snark pedantry. I can see why I got a dislike. I wondered if there were alternate spellings and maybe the US publishers used Cormack. Stranger things have happened. Thanks

Another vote for The Sandman anthology by Neil Gaiman.

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick

The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald. 

When I was younger I read and re-read Pratchett and Iain Banks endlessly.

Thanks! I was trying to remember the name of that book last night as I want to re-read it. That would only be the second time though. 

Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series too often to count and Kenneth Graham's The Wind in the Willows also innumerable times. These are my comfort reading.

On the Road three times, first time hated it then re-read it and loved it.

Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey is possibly the best novel I've ever read.

The Way of a Transgressor by Negley Farson, an amazing story of an incredible life.I've bought this at least three times and lent them out to "friends" never to see them again(the books not the "friends")

Bevis by Richard Jefferies wonderful lyrical writing.

Another for 1984 - generally gets a read every 2/3 years. So at least 10 times since I first read it.

Dune - amazing book, rest of the series is up and down.

Crow Road - one of Banks best

Fahrenheit 451 - disturbed me first time I read it

Early Pratchett bar the Witches series, never got on with them

American Gods and all of the Sandman series - Neil Gaiman

H.P. Lovecraft - personal taste prevailing - stories more than books I guess.

I read that on a trip to Hoy, shortly after he'd died, and was impressed enough to name a new route on the Old Man "GMB" in his honour.

Comfort reading. That's an interesting term. That the familiarity with the book and the story doesn't detract from the pleasure of reading the words again. 3x is certainly a commitment. As others have said, it takes away from the opportunity to read other books, and yet there is something that draws you back into the pages.

I think i've read most of Chris Brookmyres "Jack Parlabane" series twice, if not three times. 

A couple of the Jack Clancy "Jack Ryan" books were my repeat go-to books for long holidays when i knew i would have time to read them. 

That’s a lovely tribute, good on you.

I don't think I've read any books three times, but, of the ones I've read twice, the one I think I am most likely to read a third time is Unless by Carol Shields. In fact I've read a fair bit of it three times already because of those miraculous sentences which leave you wondering how she made you feel like that and so intensely with such simple words - so you read it again and still don't know. The only other writers I know with this effect on me are Tolstoy and Lawrence Durrell,  but I'm not sure I'll get around to reading War and Peace or the Alexandria Quartet three times - long spells of bad weather on a trip needed.......

Amazed at the number of people who would read Lord of The Rings three times - I excuse my one time as an adolescent aberration! 

The Snow Leopard, Peter Matthiessen.

Glad I'm not the only who gets pleasure from rereading old friends. TBH it would be easier to list the books on my shelf that I've read less than three times.

I think you get so much more out of a book the second time round, as if anything knowing the basic story let's you concentrate on the deeper layers of what's going on. 

Wuthering Heights is a book I like to re-read every couple of years . Due a visit soon actually

Later known as The Stars My Destination but I've no idea why it was renamed to some generic sci-fi phrase, marketing probably!

A few books that I don't think have been mentioned yet:

La Peste - Camus

Le Rouge et le Noir - Stendhal

His Dark Materials trilogy - Pullman

Ringworld - Larry Niven

Soul Mountain - Gao Xingjian

And I'm not ashamed to say that I've read most of the Harry Potter books at least three times!

Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man and Memoirs of an Infantry Officer -- Siegfried Sassoon

Good-bye to All That - Robert Graves

The War the Infantry Knew - Capt. Dunn

Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell

A Clergyman's Daughter - George Orwell

The Road to Wigan Pier - George Orwell

I rarely read things more than once as I find I don't get the same enjoyment second time around. I like the sound of some of the books mentioned above and so shall add some to my reading list.

For me my best reads have been:

Catch 22 - Joseph Hellier, I found this very funny and moving and loved the writing style

Captain Corelli's mandolin, Louis de Bernières, Brilliant book and easy reading. I also saw a play of this which was interesting.

Goodbye to all that - Robert Graves, amazing insight and perspective on WW1 and the trenches and effects from it

Jude the obscure - Thomas Hardy, I liked this although not the usual thing I would read.

Lord of the rings - I made sure I read these before the films came out.

Dune - Currently reading my way through this series of books and enjoying them.

I see 1984 is on a lot of peoples list. Although I thought this was excellent and unique, I found it a depressing read. It is not something I would read to cheer myself up! I think it hits too close to home these days for me!

I also see Jane Austin on many peoples lists but she is not to my taste at all. I fail to identify with the characters and find it a bit cliched.

I re-read the City and the Stars for the first time in many years recently and was struck by the overt sexism which, whilst common at the time of writing, felt disappointing on re-reading, given the arguably progressive nature of his writing.   However, I think this is something that often comes out in re-visiting books: I've read Le Carre's Smiley books many times but again the inability of the author tp portray women other than as either, stupid, unreliable/weak and/or as  a sex symbol has got increasingly tiresome

Chickenhawk - Robert Mason

Also reading the sharpe books for swashbuckling light hearted fighting.

I've read many of his books more than once but, I think, only one three times - Surface Detail.  Maybe not the most obvious, but such a sweeping story, so many intriguing and important ideas (epidemics of hegemonising swarms, civilisation envy, virtual hells and the possibility that, as soon as they had the technology, many religious civilisations would construct them...), and some great characters including the brilliant Falling Outside the Normal Moral Restraints. 

Have you read Agent Running in the Field, or Constant Gardener?  He's never exactly going to write chicklit but he can write believable female characters when he tries.  I think Smiley's world was overwhelmingly masculine, but Smiley always rated Connie for her brain, and thought she'd been mistreated by the Circus.

I must have read The City and the Stars, and Against the fall of night, many times when I was younger. It's been years now and I can still picture many scenes. But I can't read old school SF any more because of the sexism. I don't want to read it again now as it will spoil the memory.

Blimey, well done!  I've only read the first few chapters three times...

My comfort read is books about people having a much worse time than me, so Primo Levi features heavily in books I've read lots of times. Especially If not now when.

I'm slightly surprised we've gotten this far without anyone mentioning all the Song of Ice and Fire books (unless I missed it further up). 

When/if The Winds of Winter eventually arrives I'll probably have to have another go around just to remember who's doing what, which will be my third 

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace. Subsequent reads have been even richer than the first!

Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy  - a lightness of touch, humour and pathos

Under the Greenwood Tree - Hardy

Tolkien Hobbit

Any of Tom Weir or Jim Perrin's short piece collections

Murrays Scottish books

Puckoon by Spike Milligan - at least 5 times - it lifts me every read.

I agree that there is a lot of sexism in a lot of classic science fiction; some of the early Heinlein's particularly so, and his attempts to tackle racism or sexism didn't exactly succeed through a modern lens - his heart was in it, but Farnham's Freehold is a testament to how that's not enough.  It was also an all round generally crap novel all it has some excellent one liners...

This doesn't generally spoil it for me reading it,, but I'm not sure I'll be introducing Jr to them any time soon.  

Speaking of negative traits in media from its time, the little one has been watching Gummi Bears on Disney+.  I am getting ever more annyoyed at the way they causality discard their glass gummi berry juice bottles and stoppers over their shoulder after dosing up...

Yes, I think I might have read that twice but have likely lost my copy now.

LOL. I think I only got to the first 3 pages and it was BECAUSE I had to read them 3 times that I gave up.

I find this with McCarthy. Some of his concepts are so deep that you need time to reflect and consider in order to understand the point and that becomes easier if you already know the story.

About as good a selection as is possible to make. BTW, I know you know your Sausage from your Mash Valley, If you are at all active on The Great War Forum then I'm ServiceRumDiluted in case you ever wondered! 

I guess "Birdsong" might fall into this category although I have only ever read it once. Oddly it contains one of the most vivid love scenes I have ever encountered.

In reply to Jenny C:

In reply to Removed User:

Agreed guys - hard to manage a cry wank on the first or second readings.

All four books of Dan Simmons' Hyperion quadrilogy. 

Kaputt - Curzio Malaparte: embellished (or not) WW2 stories

3 Men in a boat: Jerome K Jerome, still makes me giggle

Clear Waters Rising - N. Crane: even though only written 24 years ago, the landscape and people it describes belong in a different lifetime

Neuromancer - William Gibson

Count Zero - William Gibson

John McNab - John Buchan

Winter Solstice - Rosamunde Pilcher

Holding the Zero - Gerald Seymour

The Day of the Jackal - Frederick Forsyth

Yes, that might be one I have already read 3x. 

I thought the initial chapters of Moby Dick were probably the most entertaining. Amazing book but another that probably needs a spell of poor weather on a trip to be appreciated!

Loads for me, I'm a serial re-reader.

I don't necessarily think these are the best books but I enjoy them and they've now become a part of me.

Most of George MacDonald Fraser's output.

Lord of the Rings.

The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliffe and it's sequels.

The Mortdecai Trilogy by Kyril Bonfiglioli. Dated but delightfully nasty!

The Cornish and Deptford Trilogies by Roberson Davies.

Edit: how could I forget Wendell Berry! Particularly Jayber Crow.

It was the only book I took hitching across half of Canada and that worked! I tried similar with Proust and gave up after a few days and bought some trash at a service station!

Great thread - thanks to Audible I seem to have run out of books! Not any more!

You're right re A Rumour Of War - its extraordinary...unique, infact. There can't have been many Cambridge University English Language graduates on the front line in Vietnam. 

Some I have read 3+ times

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Brave New World

Naked Lunch

1984

Fight Club

Grapes of Wrath

The Watchmen

Judge Dredd in the Cursed Earth

The Hole of Tank Girl. 

On a more trashy level, the Age of Iron Trilogy. Imagine a hybrid of Game of Thrones and Viz Comic,very engaging. 

Books I have tried to read 3+times but did not get on with, I will start a new thread. 

The Glass Bead Game, Herman Hesse

Even Cow Girls Get The Blues, Tom Robbins (and pretty much anything else by him)

Anything by James Elroy. I've read all of his novels - I love his alt-history. Once you get the hang of his terse style and period slang, they rattle along.

Happy Reading !

I can't recall whether I've read them 3 x or only 2 x - wonderful books

There's a lot of good memories on here!.

LOTR definitely read at least 3 x probably more

Stanage Definitive. 

Burbage, Millstone & Beyond

Froggatt to Black Rocks. 

😁

Clearly you failed to read the op. You are now relegated to the naughty step.

Back when I was a teenager...

White Fang - Jack London

Pride and Prejudice

Watership Down

In more recent years...

Touching the Void

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bukgakov - 1920's Moscow, Pontius Pilate and giant talking cat - cant go wrong : )

I’m one of those that will quite happily revisit favourite books, like others might with movies etc.

Favourite and most reread ones include:

Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond and Nicolo series, 14 long and complex books, keep me entertained for a month, probably had 4 complete goes.

Lions of Al Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay (and his other books less often.)

Legend by David Gemmell

Anything by Christopher Brookmyre and John Le Caré

The exiles and intervention series by Julian May was a good shout above.

A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

The better of Neal Stephenson’s output.

And lots more

TBH, I think we all find comfort our own genres. There are some truly amazing people out there writing truly amazing books and I hope that continues for a very long time.

Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells - A Wainwright

I have these to thank for nurturing my lifelong love of the mountains while growing up in a featureless city. There was a time that I could have recalled every detail of all seven volumes and I still never need to glance at a map or guidebook walking on any but the obscure fells more than 40 years later.

As for fiction, I studied literature so my tastes are a bit highbrow and I’m delighted to see there is much love for Wuthering Heights. Not a conventional tale, nor an easy puzzle to unravel, but certainly the most beautiful writing woven into a stark tale of domestic abuse on the moors where I now live. An astonishing achievement that is without peer.

Things I've read 3 times is quite demanding. 2 times would be a much longer list! But:

Beowulf
Gawain and the Green Knight (every Christmas)
The Iliad (same)
Shakespeare, the plays, generally
Christopher Priest, The Prestige / The Glamour
J. G. Ballard, everything (but particularly interviews & reviews)
Graham Greene, The Human Factor
Adam Hall, everything
Margery Allingham, everything
Barbara O'Brien, Operators & Things
Heathcote Williams, The Speakers
J. W. Dunne, An Experiment With Time
Theodore Dreiser, everything
Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
Lucian, Sketches
Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves
Arkady & Boris Strugatskii, Roadside Picnic

Exempting non-narrative poetry and philosophy, as of course one has to re-read such things multiple times just to read them at all.

LOL. When I looked down your list I thought "there's a lot of authors who chose "everything" as a title". And then I realised what you were saying.

Best book I've ever read, by far. I suppose it's my cup of tea

Do you read all of the Iliad each Xmas? If so, do you vary the translations (unless of course you're a classicist)? Or do you do a few books each time, on a sort of rolling programme? Over the last few years I've read Paradise Lost, Odyssey and Aeneid all for the second time, but I'm not sure I'll ever get to a third. 

By the way, nice to see another Danielewski fan on here. 

Grog, surely? Unless you're Starbuck, I guess.

For whom the bells tolls.

I didn't originally - I just read Lattimore again and again, and was satisfied to find more each time. And I suppose because I was so familiar with the translation, I'd read the whole thing each year. Then I got Graves, and Rieu, and started exploring a bit. I don't have ancient Greek, but do have Old English, so have never read any translations of Beowulf, or Gawain, which is part of the pleasure. Plus the Gawain poem's a brilliant Christmas story in the first place!

I suppose there's quite a difference between those books that reward second or third readings, like the above, and those that demand it, like Danielewski or Priest where the book's structured so that, on finishing, you realize you've missed an entirely different book concealed within the superficial narrative, and *have* to re-read to appreciate the counterpoint.

That is an intriguing concept. That there are books that require a second or third reading to be understood and were deliberately designed that way.

1984

Neuromancer

The Earthsea Trilogy

Dracula

A few Discworld ones too.

The Blind Assassin

Dave

A Bridge too Far, Cornelius Ryan

Used to watch the movie on a loop, back in the day, along wit Zulu and Highlander.

It's a fairly small subgenre of the postmodern, but with old enough roots - I guess the One Thousand and One Nights is a good example, if not designed by one author - then refined by writers like Borges, Barth, Saporta, Danielewski, Priest. Even Ian McEwan had a go, though in my view not a very successful one, with Atonement.

The simplest example I can think of is Barth's 'Frame-Tale'. It comprises the words "Once upon a time there / Was a story that began" printed on the recto and verso respectively of one page. There are instructions to cut the strip with the words off with scissors, then twist the strip of paper into a Moebius loop. You end - or rather, never end - with the longest short story ever written.

Can you expand a little? This might help me understand the concept a little better.

Land rover workshop manual, not by choice though. 😋 

As already stated, too many to read twice let alone three times, although I dip in to Roger Deacons Waterlog on occasion.

I think this is the paradoxical problem. At the end of my days, do I want to have a long list of books I have read or a list of books that I have a deep understanding of. Everyone needs to find their own balance.

Understandable, my focus lies in other areas. Reading for me, is to fill downtime, which I have little of. 

On a rather more epic scale, Joyce's mighty Finnegans Wake no sooner gets to the apparent last word than it starts all over again: "A way a lone a last a loved a long the......riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs."

Since my one reading of that took me almost a year I doubt it's one I'll be able to repeat. 

That's funny. TLOTR is the only book I ever read 3 times.. twice as a young adolescent.. the perfect time for me... but I still enjoyed it as an adult (a re-read due to the widespread criticism it was getting, which to me subsequently felt massively overblown, since it was written partly in homage to old epics like Beowulf).

So many good books out there.. enough to last lifetimes. My advice on finding things so good they might get re-reads would be not to get locked in a specific genre, try and read something very different every now and then and ask people you trust about their views on great books to try.

All the old Sci Fi/Fantasy makes me come over nostalgic but I doubt I will return. I might re-read Banks' Sci Fi one day as it's so good (so far only FE twice). A few that didn't get a mention yet would-be Lanark, Stand on Zanzibar, Cats Cradle, Slaughter House 5, Dancers at the End of Time, The Left Hand of Darkness,  To Your Scattered Bodies Go.

Agree completely.

Nearly fifty years on, I still find it hard to believe that I was more or less ridiculed by my undergraduate peers for choosing it as the book for my final year dissertation.  Though, to be fair, I think their mockery was borne out of ignorance and unfamiliarity beyond cinematic clips of Olivier's Heathcliff - if Kate Bush had been around then things would have been even worse!

Any of the Stormlight Archive books so far. 

I believe Brandon Sanderson is the best author writing at the minute. 

Best author writing at the minute ? Bit of a stiff call that!

Never heard of your man so, assuming we're talking about English speaking writers, I'll go for William Boyd

Well, I would vote for McCarthy, although I'm still waiting on his next book. He has written a screenplay since The Road but nothing else has hit the printers.

For me, US: Thomas Pynchon; UK: Will Self. I can't see either ever winning the Mann-Booker though: not much love for modernist masterworks there.

Sorry! Yes, of course. If I think of my best example of a novel that requires a second reading as soon as the first reading is over, it's Christopher Priest's The Prestige. Unfortunately I can't explain why without spoiling the novel - but broadly, there are (at least) two plots, only one of which you're aware of on first reading.

I'm assuming you know Atonement, as that's the novel you asked about. It seems to me that McEwan liked the idea of an ending in which it was revealed that the author of everything you've read isn't actually McEwan; instead one of the characters in the novel turns out to have been the author. It's a neat trick, and makes you think much more about deceit and (mis)presentation of events; but if you re-read the novel, it's still the same plot. It simply has a twist at the end, and much the same twist as Agatha Christie used in 1926 in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which is equally unfulfilling to re-read. On re-reading, you already know the punchline before you hear the joke.

I think it comes down to the question: how many plots does the book have? Marc Saporta's Composition No. 1 has multiple plots because it comes in a box, with all the pages unbound, and you can shuffle them like a pack of cards to create a new plot each reading. Priest's The Prestige on the other hand seems like a traditional Realist novel on first reading: you keep turning the pages to find out what happens next. When you reach the end you realize you can't un-turn the pages or un-know what you now know, but can only begin again on the plot you hadn't known about on your first reading with the knowledge gained from your first reading intact.

(These sorts of structural devices are great, but of course they're still limited. I don't want to read The Prestige for a fourth or fifth time, but I can't imagine tiring of re-reading the Iliad or the Gawain poem or The Prelude).

Yes, I feel the same way. Ulysses seems to bear more re-reading than Finnegans Wake. Flann O'Brien did some great piss-takes, and they're definitely worth re-reading. I'll be digging them out asap!

Yes, this is what I had felt which is why I asked for an explanation. Mainly because I don't think your original reference to the concept of a story requiring a second reading necessarily fits well with Atonement.

What are these threads for if you can't make outlandish claims about your favourite author. Although I should have limited it to fantasy author considering it's the genre I read most. 

No, it would be a good topic for a new thread. At least three of us have already nailed our colours to the mast.

Absolutely. I don't think Atonement was successful by that yardstick at all, though I do think it's what McEwan was aiming at, or at least experimenting with. I also suspect he became a little disillusioned with his own ambitions during the writing of it, hence the rather lazy plagiarism in Robbie's narrative, which seems utterly out of character for a novelist whose principal gifts are close observation and lyric description. 

I'll probably revisit Mma Ramotswe's Detective agency before I'm done

I never imagined reading that series at all but it's quite captivating and very funny

I have a thing about 50s novelists and re read Nevil Shute and C S Forester endlessly (Forester has much more to his bow than just Hornblower, impressive though that is. Check out the General, The Captain from Connecticut, or The Earthly Paradise.) Both of them draw characters that you can see walking in front of your eyes.

I would like to re-read Thomas Hardy and Elizabeth Gaitskell, but I've only just retired so haven't quite got into the mindset of putting life on hold for a week while I do. 

They're not novels but I dip into Pinker's books pretty often, there's always plenty there that I didn't get first - or second - time round. 

In reply to kylos8048

Maybe not a good idea after all: just read a survey by Ranker which puts McCarthy at the top, your man somewhere in the fifties and mine doesn't even make the #125 cut......   

She may or may not have written Wives and Daughters, but regardless, it is one of the greatest, most heart-warming novels I have read. Nevertheless edging it sideways a touch, for the final page alone, would be Middlemarch. A retirement in which I reread both of those and also Hardy is one I look forward to.

The truth is, though, I rarely reread a novel.

For me, Forester was a teenage thing (but you make me want to give him another look), supplanted as I got older by the more nuanced (a I recall it) pleasures of Graham Greene and by many of the fine writers that my mother liked, and has kept on her borrowable shelves ever since. So, I read a lot of Edna O'Brien, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Susan Hill, Elizabeth Bowen, and so on. Not so much a single book that I would read three times, as an author. And in that vein, Anne Tyler must get a mention.

Rudin - Ivan Turgenev X3 (a novella).

The Magic Mountain x2 - Thomas Mann (on author's recommendation).

Lotte in Weimar x2 - Thomas Mann (last 4 pages xN).

The Miseries of Young Werther X3 - Johann Goethe.

Family Matters. It's classic Rohinton Mistry (I know it's only his second novel I've read, bear with me), nobody expects him to paint happy little rainbows, but melancholia absolutely seeps through the pages of Family Matters. In some ways, it's reminiscent of A Fine Balance, in which the characters are affected by events larger than themselves, but they manage to trudge along until Mistry decides, in one fell swoop, to unleash all the horrors of hell upon them.

It has an intricate weaving of themes and among the most important is aging, and the great burden and gift that time bestows upon a family.

This is an absolutely exquisite book and it reads as though no word is wasted.

5☆ from me.

Oscar & Lucinda - Peter Carey

The Sympathiser - Viet Tranh Nguyen

Arthur & George - Julian Barnes

The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga

A.F Mummery - My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus. - hilarious.

All Le Carre.

I'm unashamedly halfway through Lee Child's Jack Reacher series for the second time. Easy page turners, but intricately clever and very entertaining.

The Count of Monte Christo.