Most re-read books

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A long time back, you did an AVQ&A on your most rewatched movies of all time . But you’ve never done the same for books. Not counting books read in childhood—when our horizons tend to be pretty small and we love to read the same picture book or junior novel over and over—or books you’ve had to read for classes or professional purposes or whatever, what books have you voluntarily gone back and re-read most often? —Patty 

Tasha Robinson I’ve talked about   Richard Adams’  Watership Down —easily my most re-read book of all time, and the only book I habitually read once every two years or so—for a couple of different AVQ&As, so I feel a little silly bringing it up yet again. So we’ll just note that it’s number-one on my list, and my only real comfort read, and move on to number two: Stephen King’s The Stand . For whatever reason, The Stand is my reading equivalent of those movies you catch a minute of on cable and then become mesmerized and wind up watching through to the end . I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve casually picked it up to re-read a favorite section—usually the chapter only found in the extended edition, where King riffs out a few short stories about a number of people who were immune to the superflu that wiped out most of the world, but who died in the weeks after the plague for entirely different reasons—and then the next thing I know, I’m on the couch and I’m 150 pages further in. There doesn’t ever seem to be any point in fighting it; that book has its own undertow for me.

Jason Heller I attended a fiction-writing workshop a couple summers ago, and I was horrified one day to find we’d be reading a scene from Frank Herbert’s science-fiction classic Dune —and it was being used as an example of bad writing. (Specifically, the gratuitously erratic use of point of view.

An Intellectual Mediocrity: Watership Down - Richard Adams

&Nbsp;Hop hop!! Ah the bunny novel to beat all bunny novels!! To all who have read it you will know why it is one the most beloved animal novels ever written. It is of course English, and the English do anthropomorphised novels like no-one else. Wind in the Willows,  C.S. Lewis' Narnia novels, Kipling's Jungle Book, Charlotte's Web, Barbar the Elephant, Paddington Bear, Puss in Boots, Rupert Bear, Winnie the Pooh, etc, etc, etc. All absolute classics and quintessentially English in character and charm. I have read them all and remember them fondly from childhood. I like the Jungle Book so much I named my cat Mowgli several years ago, and boy does it suit him!!  As a novel Watership Down has gathered the reputation of being a childrens book. Many of the titles mentioned above are unquestionably in that catogory but I dispute Watership Down's.  Many people associate animal books with children, talking animals doesn't neccessarily have to be the domain of children alone. Many such novels are, but I call Watership down more a fantasy novel, and more for adults than children. This is for several reasons. Firstly the text is extremely small and I remember as a youngster looking at my parents copy and being unable to read such small text, or even having the will too. Look at genuine kids books and you'll see they have big bold lettering so the kids can read it within their abilities. I personally doubt any child could read this novel because as a child I  myself was a more than competent reader but couldn't have tackled this.  Wikipedia also calls it a fantasy novel rather than a childrens book. Throughout Richard Adams touches on many topics kids just wouldn't be aware of let alone understand. The novel has themes of exile, survival, heroism, politics, tyranny, and the makings of community. Sound like kids stuff to you? Me neither! So much of this mis-conception is bred from Adams saying the idea for the novel came from him telling stories to his children on long trips in the family car. He improvised them off of the top of his head and obviously got enough material together in his own mind in which to write a book.  What I like most about Watership Down is how Adams has gone much furhter than any anthropomorphised novel before or since.

Watership Down

The Plague Dogs

Traveller

Novels by Richard Adams, Watership Down, Shardik, Maia, the Plague Dogs, Traveller, the Girl in a Swing

Tales from Watership Down