A Harry Potter fan-fiction where Harry is a master of rational thinking and decision making. The plot is incredibly clever and exciting, and at the same time you learn a lot about how to think properly, but also a bit about science in general.
In the first chapters, I find Harry a bit annoying sometimes, but I beg you to ignore that and continue a bit, it gets so good!
LOTR - By the time I finished it I already forgot details of the beginning, probably have read it 4 or 5 times over 3 decades.
Hyperion series. I got it in an uneven way, first the 3rd Book (Endymion), many years later Hyperion (I still think that by itself is one of the best books that I've ever read, and read it many times), and after more years, finally found locally the other 2 books, and read the whole series 2 or 3 times.
Dune (the first 5 books), Ringworld, The end of Eternity, The name of the wind, Small Gods, Ender's Game, Foundation trilogy, Flowers for Algernon are others that I remember now to have read at least twice, probably more.
There are books that are good, but small hints make me remember all/most of the plot. Probably can't read twice any of the Agatha Christie books because of that.
And there are books that I have the intention to read at least once more, maybe taking notes while doing that, but never gave it the time. The Incerto series by Nassim Taleb is one of them.
I don't remember the names of the books, but I loved the one where Bean started out as a city kid (Amsterdam maybe it was?)
I enjoyed the whole series. The first book is the best IMO, and the piggy world was the worst, but had some interesting ideas in it. I still think a lot about the sub-vocalization technology.
Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose by Noel and Turner.
I read it when I was trying to find a writing tone that I was comfortable with. Should it be casual, cool, and excited! with lots of exclamations? or detached, clinical, and precise? or, flowery, fluffy, and inserting difficult words, especially "dichotomy" everywhere I could?
One ideal I enjoyed was the 90s hacker writing aesthetic. PG's essays for example. It is easy to say "edit, edit, rewrite", but the tone was not easily pinned down.
Clear and Simple as the Truth is the best writing book that I've read - it answered these questions for me thoroughly, and the writing is delightful. I've read it cover to cover twice, and find myself enjoying a few quotes on occasion.
A quick takeaway among many - it is the sophistication and clarity of thought that matters, not one's facility with the language.
"Great painters are often less skillful than mediocre painters; it is their concept of painting—not their skills—that defines their activity. Similarly, a foreigner may be less skillful than a native speaker at manipulating tenses or using subjunctives, but nonetheless be an incomparably better writer. Intellectual activities generate skills, but skills do not generate intellectual activities."
I’ve read Hop on Pop, Green Eggs and Ham and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish at least 50 times each. As a kid, I really enjoyed the rhyming, the zany drawings and some of the fantastic creatures like the wump (a 7+ hump camel) and the yink (that likes to wink and drink pink ink).
I read The Wizard of Oz at least 5 times and the whole 12 books series three times. I read several Choose your own adventure books dozens of times (I particularly liked, Journey to the Year 3000), and the full set of Death Gate Cycle three times plus parts of a fourth in the Chinese translation. There were probably several Zelazny books and some of Anne Rice’s vampire books I made it through three times as well. All of these books were world-expanding or exploring ideas that were new to me in some way.
I definitely tended to do a lot more rereading as a kid and even as a teenager than as an adult.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. In my mind it was really Heinlein’s peak. He explored the dangers of single points of failure in computing systems, explored sociology-economic implications of a moon-warren society beholden to Earth to survive, basic physics (“we’ll throw rocks at them!”), and a lot of raw political maneuvering, all involving vivid, memorable characters.
"Dune" by Frank Herbert - translated and original. A few times in primary school, then in high school and again several years ago. It's also one of the very few books I've listened to. I simply love this book.
“Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance” — Robert Pirsig
“Siddhartha” — Herman Hesse
“Stranger in a Strange Land" - Robert Heinlein
"Wind Up Bird Chronicle" - Haruki Murakami
The first two were handed to me by my father when I dropped out of high school. Zen was a slog the first time I read through it, I came back to it my late twenties and have read it at leaset two more times since then.
I was not a fan of "Zen" as it tried hard to sound intelligent without saying much. Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Murakami was a disappointment as well. Mystical realism is an often imitated genre done well by only a few.
It changed the way I think about "thinking". I also see myself in the father and son story. I am sorry to be so general but if I jump into the specifics I fear I would ruin them. Not because somebody else couldn't but I know myself to be a horrible teacher.
Being an extravert, the book inspired me on how to get energy from my inner world of thoughts, ideas, and images during quarantine. Beautiful metaphors and philosophical inquiries into values.
J. R. R. Tolkien's Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings,
Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe,
Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island,
Most of the Jules Verne's books,
The Iliad and The Odyssey from Homer,
The Godfather from Mario Puzo,
Hermit in Paris, Under the Jaguar Sun, The Complete Cosmicomics from Italo Calvino,
The Name of the Rose from Umberto Eco,
In the World from Maxim Gorky,
...
First works coming to mind but there should be more... Also I probably re-read many times basic printed materials related Abrahamic religions like Torah, Quran and Bible.
Hannibal and me. I love the way it combines selfhelp/strategy with history. It uses Hannibal, Scipio, and Flavius as kind of architypes on how we can act at different points in our life, etc... It's fasinating.
Probably will re-read Foreigner series again, but it's quite a few books. I find Cherryh's worlds a bit terrifying, but the characters are so much fun, and remind me of countless people I've known in my 6+ decades.
2001: A Space Odyssey. I first read it when I was 12, in 1968, the year that both the movie and book came out. I was already a fan of Arthur C. Clarke by that point. I somehow knew that the book and movie were both coming, and was really excited. Then the book appeared, and finally the film did. I read the book between those events, so, when I saw the movie, I was among the few who were not confused by the ending.
I loved both. They got into my book- and film- appreciating soul and never left. 2001 is still my favorite movie. It's partly because it infiltrated my being at such a young, impressionable age. There is nothing like the receptiveness of a 12-year-old. But it's also because it's legitimately superb.
I may have seen the movie 20 times now. Most recently, with it projected on a screen at Lincoln Center in NYC with the NY Philharmonic playing the score live.
DEFINITELY SEE IT ON THE LARGEST SCREEN YOU CAN, PREFERABLY IN A THEATER. SCREEN SIZE IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL.
Getting back to the book...
The book was co-written with the film and certain plot elements were created on the film set rather than by Clarke, which work very well and add to the momentum of the plot. Probably read it 4 or 5 times. Loved it every time. In those days, Clarke had a way of combining hard science with a poetic sensibility that has never been equalled. I feel that his writing declined at some point, and that the books he co-wrote with other authors in his later years actually sucked. But 2001 and pretty much all of his books through Rendezvous With Rama shared the same sensibilities and were uniformly excellent.
The Discworld books by Terry Pratchett. I love the humour and social commentary in them, and how the characters develop throughout.
I also really enjoy how the writing changed - raw and somewhat hard to read but so much chaotic energy with the first books. Each following novel had increasing refinement. Then they went downhill in my opinion, with too much polish and a lack of that original energy. (I don't think that was a reflection of the author's health, just how the books were planned and written)
War and peace, Leo Tolstoy — first mandated by school, the two or three times after university. Because it gives understanding of society, honesty, glory seeking, live and death.
Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson — first time during boring meetings on one of my jobs, then again, just for fun of it. The story is fake but plausible.
I am going to reread Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance again after this post, good memories.
Only a little over a hundred pages, and quite accessible—straightforward, even—but like other books in this thread full of profundities that take on different meaning as the reader passes through different seasons of life.
I've read the Dune and LOTR and Foundation trilogies multiple times, like many others on this list. I'll try to list some less obvious ones.
Huygens and Barrow, Newton and Hooke by VI Arnold: neither a popular science book nor a technical treatise, it discusses mathematical ideas from Newton's times and their modern mannifestations. I learn something new each time I read it.
Chaos by James Gleick. Mostly I read and re-read this before university. It's clear and presents the science and its personalities in an engaging way. Now that I actually work in dynamics and have met a number of these people, I'm not sure I like it as much. But still a good general science book IMO.
Cannery Row by Steinbeck. I grew up in the Bay Area and visited Monterey fairly often, and though the Cannery Row in the book hasn't existed (and perhaps never has?) for a very long time, somehow it evokes a certain nostalgia for me. (We don't live in CA anymore.)
Glenn Gould Reader. Actually an collection of his writing, and I don't re-read every piece. But something new each time.
Pulling a small thread of trivial inconsistent accounting value to in the end exposing an international spy ring.
I grew up in the cold war, so I have always been interested in what went on. First recommended by a lecturer at Uni. The book reads like a techno-thriller but happened. Full of technical detail, I learnt a lot about UNIX system when I first read the book.
I would still say the book offers a great primer on computer security concepts and the logical processes people use to understand a systems. Always good to be reminded of that from time to time.
There are some great insights and reminders about how life is. I also like the perspective on humans over time, and how little has changed within our minds in millennia. We still face the same problems, the same temptations, the same expectations. I find some comfort in that.
There are several books I've read at least once a decade since my teens, if not a bit more often. They are:
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham,
Farmer in the Sky by Robert Heinlein, and
Dune by Frank Herbert. Just the first book though. I really disliked the rest of the series.
Honourable mention must also go to The Tripod Trilogy by John Christopher: The White Mountains, The City of Gold and Lead, and The Pool of Fire. I did read these a few times in my teens but lost track of them. Stumbled across a boxed set not too long ago and read again and they're still just as good.
More recent fare that I've read and/or listened on audiobook to at least three times are:
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North, and the
Bobiverse Series by Dennis E. Taylor which I'm about to start listening to again.
Essentially, the book contains 100 short lessons about running a business.
Running a business can be extremely lonely and a solo fight against your own mental health. I often re-read the book in difficult times and realise it'll all be okay in the long run.
The reason I come back to it is the writing style. It's from the perspective of a young man. It's a short, simple story, but the style & inner dialogue is just great. I've never read anything else quite like it.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid -- I keep finding some new ideas for me explore every time I read it (especially given that I re-read it every 7 years or so).
The Hobbit -- it was a gift from a friend in my second or third grade and I'm still drawn to read it from time to time many years later.
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement -- a well described process improvement progression in the format of a novel. It keeps reminding me that focusing on local optimizations can (and likely will) lower the overall performance of the system.
Illusions by Richard Bach. I notice something new everytime - a far cry from when my mom told me to read it, and I read the back and cringed. I've given away so many copies now.
Tao Te Ching is a guide to living your life in a skillful way. The cryptic format is timeless; it's lasted for millenia, and I can understand something new every time I read it
The Giver. It was the first fictional novel I read as a kid that made me think "books are cool". So I've read it a few times out of nostalgia (it's also good!).
Isadora Duncan's autobiography. Not sure why. It speaks to me. She led one helluva life. Revolutionizing dance. Whenever possible, subsisting on oysters & champagne.
Bhagavad Gita : Various translations and commentaries by many authors. Fascinating to see a fairly small text (roughly 700 verses @ ~1400 lines) that lends itself to so many interpretations and thoughts.
In every reading, there is always something new that I learn, a new perspective and new lessons that I can apply to daily life.
1984 - I've probably read this 20 times. Each time it seems more relevant, but also more quaint. It feels more and more like we're heading to that society, but in quite a different way.
The Hobbit - Quite an enjoyable story.
Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep? - Pure madness. What is real?
Call of Cthulhu, Dunwich Horror - HP Lovecraft
Quite a few of the Philip K Dick shorts.
I think I've probably read most of my books twice. I always feel that the second reading really seals it in my mind!
Adrift by Steven Callahan. It’s an account of a sailor whose ship sank and left him adrift for 76 days. I find it it both grounding and life-affirming. It has also taught me some lessons that I have never forgotten since. For instance that one never gives 100% as long as there is still hope that someone else is going to come and save you.
Franny and Zooey by Salinger. I love the conversations and the attitude of the characters. There is not much in the way of plot or story, but reading this book makes me feel like I'm participating in their conversations... the whole overly-educated and apologetic about it Glass family.
"Real time relationships: the logic of love" (https://amzn.to/3eEwMqj) the best self-knowledge book that I've read so far. Helped me with better communication with my loved ones.
I didn't read it twice, but I loved it enough to recommend it to my wife, who also loved it, and then we recommended it to our college age kids, one of whom now loves it and one of whom is still reading it, having started very recently, telling us he's really enjoying it.
A blog post I happened to run across begins:
"""
I have a problem: I’ve already read Lonesome Dove.
And Lonesome Dove is the most totally absorbing wonderfully awesome novel on the planet.
> it ain’t dying I’m talking about. It’s living. I doubt it matters where you die. But it matters where you live.
We named our youngest Augustus after Augustus McCrae. It’s amazing how a novel that really shows the randomness and absurdity of life in the west ended up being such a beautiful and meaningful story. But, maybe that’s kind of how all of life is at any time period.
My Side of the Mountain - this was basically my ideal personality as a kid - independent and self sufficient, able to build anything I need and live off the land. My point of view is significantly different now, but I still dream of a life like this.
I never heard of this book as a kid, or I would have devoured it. Hatchet and Where the Red Fern Grows were my favorite books. And The Forest Runners series.
I still bought it when I heard about it as an adult. I'll read it soon.
But I followed through. I bought a 40-acre homestead I'm working on. I'm the last place on a long dirt road, up a mountain in the Ozarks.
It's a great time to chase that dream; you can WFH in remote areas, and not have to rely on savings or trying to make the place profitable. "Enough" isn't that much, depending on your comfort zone.
I read this one at least 5 times. I was totally pulled away by it. I’d take my fishing rod to the lake and fantasize about what I’d read and imagine adventures just like it.
Dickens' great expectations. Dreams of a small boy, like every one of using childhood, dreams shattered, how he faced manfully, the cherishing of Estella's girlish grace and charm, even at advanced age--Alltouched my boyish heart.
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. Love the massive epic fantasy with focus on cool hard magic and character growth, mental health, and clash of different philosophies.
Feels like the Lord of the Rings of my generation!
The Witcher Saga by Andrzej Sapkowski. I'm Polish so I've read the original. This was the best fiction book I've ever read. Also Neil Gaiman's American Gods and Neverwhere.
Another one greatly impressed me was Three Men in A Boat by Jerome. How he squeezed out stomack-aching laughter out of real events, which every one of us face vexatious,at various times
The Wheel of Time series (Robert Jordan + Brandon Sanderson).
I started it when I was !4 - re-read as each new book came out. Did a final read through a few years ago.
So I grew up in a(n at that time) socialist country, and boy we had poor TV shows in the eighties. But then Shogun arrived at first in TV form. It was magical compared to those (mostly) Czech TV soaps. Then one day I went to the local bookshop (I was a small town boy, small bookshop, and as you may guess the books that were allowed to be published were not covering the whole sci-fi/fantasy/literature spectrum...). And there was this beauty both in hard- and soft cover.
Luckily, my parents allowed me to buy the softcover version, which soon looked like a really worn out phone-book. I read it like 3-4 times at that time. Then re-bought it later, and re-read. I love it so much.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy isn't just a humorous sci-fi novel, it's a roadmap to the future and has been my go-to book for 30+ years. The entire series is a gold mine of predictions, analysis, and commentary about every facet of society from tech to religion, quantum physics to philosophy, genetics, mathematics, politics, space travel, and the very nature of reality and our place in it. It uses a core plot device where the more improbable something is, the more likely it is to happen, as a writer's ultimate Deus ex machina which springboards the reader into a thousand different ideas. I've been reading it and listening to Adam's personal narration of it for years and I still discover gems of insight I had missed.
Sadly, like all authors who write about the future, as what they describe becomes reality, later readers start to dismiss their work - think Jules Verne as an example. So now the idea of a portable handheld device containing all the information you can imagine connected via invisible communications system doesn't seem as amazing as it did in the 80s and 90s.
But now that we're entering the age of Artificial Intelligence, Adams insights are yet again showing his astounding prescience. Every time Alexa responds to me with some overlong response spoken in some pseudo-hip manner, I can't help but think of Adam's Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's Genuine People Personality™.
Just in the last several weeks alone, as the various AI image and text services have gained popularity and people started exchanging elaborate prompts which produce the best results, I've been amazed at how much they resemble Arthur trying to describe to the Nutri-Matic Drinks Dispenser exactly how to make a cup of tea.
> “No,” Arthur said, “look, it’s very, very simple…. All I want… is a cup of tea. You are going to make one for me. Now keep quiet and listen.”
> And he sat. He told the Nutri-Matic about India, he told it about China, he told it about Ceylon. He told it about broad leaves drying in the sun. He told it about silver teapots. He told it about summer afternoons on the lawn. He told it about putting the milk in before the tea so it wouldn’t get scalded. He even told it (briefly) about the East India Trading Company.
> “So that’s it, is it?” said the Nutri-Matic when he had finished.
> “Yes,” said Arthur. “That is what I want.”
> “You want the taste of dried leaves boiled in water?”
> “Er, yes. With milk.”
Think of the detailed prompts given to GPT-3, DALL-E or Stable Diffusion to help guide it to create the right output. If you're not amazed at a book written in the late 1970s predicting with such clarity our interaction with artificial intelligence decades later, then I can't convince you. Adams was truly a prophet.
Also, of course, his humor and mastery of English turns of phrase makes it all the more better.
By that definition, "The Lord of the Rings" isn't a book, either :P
But we can be gracious and understand what people mean. When asking a question like which books have you read multiple times, you would expect a lot of answers like "The Bible", it's certainly the book I've read most often, far more than any other book.
Unfortunately there just isn't too much of a reason to re-read books other than absolute classics, for example Shakespeare also falls into the category of "should re-read", or perhaps favorite collections of poems, but again these would typically be classics (modern poetry, like modern literature, tends not to have a broad audience, or even bother with trying to reach a broad audience).
With the rise of alt-texts such as social media, blogs, online information sources - books have definitely taken a beating, as have the institutions that produce books. It only takes 10,000 book sales in one week to make a NYTimes best seller. There are 385,000 Bibles sold each week - and many more given away, 100 million Bibles are printed each year.
I wonder if, in the future, there will be bible-based video games and other entertainment that will take up the time people spend reading the Bible as there have been things like television and video games that have replaced many people reading things like detective stories or adventure/romance stories.
Was obsessed with this book while in high school. Don't think I've given it another look for the past 30 years.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid - Douglas Hofstadter
Fantastic book on the limits of computation.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig
A very reflective autobiography told as part of a hero's journey into their own madness and how they overcame.
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind - Shunryu Suzuki
Love this simple approach to Zen
Another Roadside Attraction - Tom Robbins
Kicked off my love of Tom Robbins' books! I don't read much fiction, but Robbins is sublime and this is the book that started it all. If you're not familiar with Tom Robbins then you need to fix that!
Plus one, scrolled through waiting for someone to mention this one.
I don’t typically reread fiction but the poetic style of writing, combined with great scenes and characters makes almost any page worth a reread from time to time.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever find a book as good across so many dimensions…
The Vlad Taltos series by Brust
Starts out as a detective series, and then turns into a reflections on marriage, capitalism, etc.
The Honor Harrington series by Weber
Up to book 10. It is a horatio hornblower in space and just good entertainment.
The Lt Cleary series by Drake
This one is Aubrey/Maturin in space. Entertainment.
LoTR, Hobbit by whatshisname(as a teenager)
Of course, I wish I could say that I have read the cyropedia more than once, or bridge of birds ...
Don't think I need to explain what it's about at this point. As to what drew me to read it multiple times, that's due to it still being the greatest high fantasy story ever created. And it's a very balanced story. Every character, even the most powerful ones, has their flaws and weaknesses. Every choice has consequences, and could be the undoing of everything that the heroes are working towards.
I read it in my late teens/early 20's and was planning to reread it when I'd forgotten enough of the plot that I could fully enjoy it again. Then, unfortunately, the movies came out! Maybe read it again anyway? Not sure.
I read it at age 11, again at age 28. The difference in personal experience was remarkable. The best parts of the story were very different between those ages.
A Harry Potter fan-fiction where Harry is a master of rational thinking and decision making. The plot is incredibly clever and exciting, and at the same time you learn a lot about how to think properly, but also a bit about science in general.
In the first chapters, I find Harry a bit annoying sometimes, but I beg you to ignore that and continue a bit, it gets so good!