For me, they are … The Great Gatsby x3 The Catcher in The Rye x4 American Psycho x2 A Confederacy of Dunces x2 Diary and Fight Club x2 both by Chuck Palanhiuk A Clockwork Orange x2 Whether it’s a book, a movie, or a video game, replay-ability is key.
1984 is worthy of another read, for sure. Not just for the story, either. The prose is superior to most well written books.
I've gone through Brothers Karamazov a few times. I suspect I'll sit down one day and go back through the Harry Potter books. I do plan on huddling up in a cabin up north one winter and reading Winter's Tale again, mostly to wash the taste of the horrible movie adaptation out of my mouth. I'm sure some non-fiction will work its way onto that list as well, especially things like the various habit books (Duhigg, Clear, Fogg), Cal Newport's books, and a few practical theology works as well.
I am willing to re-read any book I put on my bookshelf at home after finishing it. Anything I doubt I will re-read goes right to the used bookstore. My work bookshelf is different, as I will consult most of those books at some point but actually re-read few of them.
I'm struggling with this, because I failed in a doctoral program and have pretty much accepted that I'll probably never teach college again, even as an adjunct (the history field is NOT in a good place; PhDs now fighting for scraps, leaving MAs like me out in the cold completely for the duration). So I've got a couple bookshelves which were supposed to be the core of my teaching-reference collection, and...I'll likely never need them. They're good books (American history, heavy emphasis on the 19th century) and I'm sure there's a few I'll reread someday, but...it's kind of a reminder of what didn't work out. Not sure what to do with all them.
Your experience isn't that different from mine. Basically, when I bailed, I jettisoned books that only exist to convince about 12 other professors of the brilliance of the author, and I kept books that are interesting to me (I think about 12 works of scholarship made the cut, as well as bits of "critical theory" that are actually solid philosophically (which is like 3 books). As to rereading: I've been planning to reread books that meant a lot to me in college... 40 years ago . . . to see what holds up and what strikes me as borderline delusional, or just plain crap. Luckily, some of the 20th century poetry I've been teaching over the decades I've read dozens of times at least... that's holding up really well. With a couple of exceptions. One of these days I might make a run through classics of American history... like Parkman and Bancroft and those guys... just to see how it stands up. I'll be getting those out of a library, though... not going to risk the cash on something that might strike me as really bad.
One upside--I have a LOT of books I bought for comps and only skimmed, so if nothing else I can still get my money's worth and read them cover to cover IF they look interesting, and ditch the ones that look like nothing but a chore.
On that note, am currently a bit over a third of the way through: Thanks to having read the intro and skimmed the first few chapters, I already know the basic argument but this is definitely worth reading all the way through. Hamalainen argues that "Comancheria" was not merely a Lakota-style borderland adaptation to Euro-American expansion via adapting to the newish nomadic Plains culture, but a truly imperialistic polity that was the hegemonic power in what became the American southwest for over a century.
There's one very close to us. I just can't quite bring myself to pick which ones go. Not yet, anyway.
Well, I'll add The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy because I just decided to re-read it. Have a copy with all five novels, not sure if I will re-read all five. Things start getting really weird during Life, the Universe, and Everything.
I am doing so now. I had a 10 hour drive over the weekend and listened to the last three radio episodes and half of Mostly Harmless, the one book I do not remember if I read.
I don’t know if I could handle that. Last time I read the Brothers I felt I should lay in a bath of warm water and slit my wrists.
I am having trouble finishing new books. Have since the pandemic started. I am a little more antsy than usual, I procrasinate more, I'm not over my depression. Which is why I pretty much stopped posting in the What are You Reading threads the past two years. I just read Lear. That may be the first new book I've finished in three years. So, I have been re-reading lots of things among them: Dune Watership Down A Christmas Carol 101 Dalmations (I read these last two every year) Guests of the Sheik Macbeth It The Stand (oh so appropriate during an pandemic) Gatsby Life in the Year 1000 The People's History of the United States Suds in Your Eye (the best bad book ever) Confessions of a Fish Keeper With the exception of Zinn, I am pretty sure I will read all of the above two or three more times in my life. I have long failed in my plan to make sense of my "history" book case as well. I kept every single book that I ever had in college (and I bought every book assigned because literally, I could not read my notes on books.) I struggle to get rid of books. Oh sure, I could get rid of my wife's books... We're about ready for another bookshelf. But when we downsize in about 8 years, it's going to be a bloodbath. Pretty sure it will be the hardest part of moving.
Last year, I re-read Faulkner's "big four" (The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom, Absolam!). Summer is coming up, and Summer is the best time of the year to read Faulkner. So I think I'll reread the Snopes Trilogy for the first time in over 30 years.