The Costa Book Awards shortlists have just been announced (they were formerly known as the Whitbreads). As part of the announcement, some new research was released to mark the launch of the Awards. Apparently 77% of UK readers have enjoyed a book so much the first time that they’ve re-read it. 29% of those surveyed admitted they have re-read a book at least twice, 27% three times and 12% four times – and 17% have re-read the same book a whopping five times.
The most revisted reads are:
- The Harry Potter Series by J.K Rowling
- Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen - The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
- The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
- Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
- Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
- To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
- Flowers in the Attic by Virginia Andrews
- Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
- Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
- The Bible
- Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
- Bridget Jones Diary by Helen Fielding
- Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Douglas Adams, the Brontes and Jane Austen are definitely on my re-readable list. I’d throw in a return visit to the swashbuckling medieval romance of knights and ladies in Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe – and anything by Mary Webb. She was a writer of compellingly depressing Hardy-esque rural emo (cruelly mocked by Stella Gibbons in the book Cold Comfort Farm) …
What books do you revisit? and what is it that draws you back into its pages?
22 November 2007 at 1:58 pm
What an intriguing mix of titles and authors. I can’t think of any other reading list that would have Dan Brown and Virginia Andrews along with Dickens and Bronte. Superb!
I very rarely re-read but as an adolescent re-read “The Changeover” by Margaret Mahy and probably the “Anne of Green Gables” books.
22 November 2007 at 3:56 pm
For me it has to be the Sherlock Holmes Stories. Give me a rainy day, a packet of chocolate digestives and a pot of tea and i’m in Paradise: rattling down Baker street in a cab or arriving at a country station to meet a group of glum faced policemen.
23 November 2007 at 3:26 pm
I never ever re read – although sometimes I’m halfway through a book and I’m thinking this seems a bit familiar? There are just too many new books to read to have the time to go over the old!
26 November 2007 at 3:10 pm
Yes, I must have read “The Changeover” once a month for at least a year of my young life, along with S. E. Hinton’s “Tex”. As an adult, the only books I re-read are children’s books which I love, and occassionally a bit of Narnia or a chapter from Thomas Moore’s “Care of the Soul”.
27 November 2007 at 8:44 am
I re-read all the time. mostly when I’m on holiday and want to be sure that I’ll enjoy something, also series books just before the next one comes out (sometimes I read through the whole thing, sometimes not.) Occasionally single titles that I just love. Most of the books I own I bought so I could pick them up at any time and read again. (at some point in time…some are still in their protective wrapping but I promise I’ll get to them.) what about books that you choose not to re-read becuase the first time was so great you don’t want to alter that experience? “The book thief” by Markus Zusak for me.
27 November 2007 at 12:23 pm
I’m not a re-reader. I do love the character of Gabriel Betteridge in The Moonstone, who reads Robinson Crusoe whenever he needs solace or inspiration.
1 December 2007 at 12:43 am
There are so many books unread; where is the time to re-read? Having said that, I have re-read one of the books on the above list (HHGTTG) and have re-read my own personal favourite book of all time (A Suitable Boy). Earlier this year, I had to re-read Tess of the D’Urbevilles for my book club. Something is added when you do find the time to re-read, even when it is a book you might already rate as a special one.
3 December 2007 at 6:44 pm
I love to reread, and have particular favourites that I reread every year! Some books are just so good that I have to pick them up again for that warm comforting reread.
Le Carre’s early spy novels I have reread most years for over 10 years now, as well as Tolkein, the Narnia series, Jane Austen’s books, some of E.M. Forster’s books, etc! A Year in Provence, by Peter Mayle has been a regular reread too.
I still read plenty of books for the 1st time, after all, one of them may become a favourite worth rereading!!