Novels you like to re-read every few years

Tales of the City. And I know I’ll be reading “Call me by your name “ for the rest of my life.Those two books really make me joyous.

Moby Dick

A Prayer for Owen Meany: funny and completely heart-breaking

Gosh, what intellectual people we have here. My choices are a little lighter.

- E.F. Benson's "Lucia" books (or the last four of them, at least, starting with "Miss Mapp")

- Mazo de la Roche's "Jalna" books (now conveniently published, in chronological batches, in Kindle and EPUB formats)

- A handful of Agatha Christie's mysteries

Hugo’s Les Miserables. Best novel ever.

Twilight Series, especially Breaking Dawn.

Fifty Shades of Grey Series.

All 7 Harry Potter books.

TV Guide: Fall Preview 1979

Dear God, from Mansfield Park to Shades Of Grey in less than ten posts.

The Two Mrs. Greenvilles

The Great Gatsby

Every few years I like to visit California in the late 60’s early 70’s by reading all my books by groupies who hung around rock bands during that time.

Whenever I think my life sucks, I pull out Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt - holy shit!

One Hundred Years of Solitude

[quote] The Two Mrs. Greenvilles

You keep re-reading it, and yet you can't get the title right!

I was about to make a book recommendations thread! I'm going on a long flight this week and I've been in a very weird emotional slump lately. Does anyone have a (fiction) novel that truly changed their life or gave them a new perspective on things? Open to any genre.

Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole - always hysterical

The City abs The Pillar by Gore Vidal - I can’t believe it was written in 1948 - incredibly groundbreaking

^and

Prince of Tides

The Biggest One I Ever Saw

I've never reread novels, but if I start, Deptford trilogy will be at the top of the list -- Fifth Business in particular.

CMBYN

Tales of the City

Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch novels

The Count of Monte Cristo

Watchers by Dean Koontz

Cormac McCarthy: "The Road"

Tolkien: "Lord of the Rings"

A couple Kurt Vonnegut novels

And, to be honest, a book that was my absolute favorite when I was in middle school

[quote]And, to be honest, a book that was my absolute favorite when I was in middle school

Which was so long ago you forgot its name?

I find that as I get older I enjoy re-reading less. Tempus fugit!

Pickwick Papers also Martin Chuzzlewit : my two favourite Dickens novels

I've been meaning to read Martin Chuzzlewit for a long time, r25. Thanks for the recommendation. How would you say it compares to other Dickens?

I read Dombey and Son earlier this year and was surprised and pleased to see it is almost as good as his best work. Not quite up there with Copperfield, Bleak House and Great Expectations, but close.

Watership Down.

The Venice Adriana. (For opera-lovers only.)

War and Peace. (Long but worth it, especially if you think of Prince Andryey as looking like a porn star.)

History: A Novel. (World War II in Italy. I gave a copy to my mother, who couldn't put it down and then said she'd never forgive me because it was so sad.)

The first 25 Nancy Drews in the original format. These were by the original author, Mildred Witt Benson. Descriptive language, a sense of the 30s and 40s, and retro fun...takes me back to when I stayed at an aunt's and uncle's beautiful farm and found the old originals in their den...I would sit on their enclosed sun porch reading...white wicker furniture, African violets, 2 friendly dogs. Nirvana for a geeky kid.

The middle-school favorite was "The Green Futures of Tycho" by William Sleator.

The Foundation series by Isaac Asimov

Endless Love by Scott Spencer, spectacular writing about obsession and if you've seen the two movies dredged from it you'll be amazed how Hollywood could go so wrong. And like someone else said, I'll be revisiting Call Me By Your Name many times.

CMBYN, Buddenbrooks, Maurice, Brideshead Revisited, Persuasion, Querelle, Dracula.

I've read CMBYN three times. Also, Dancer from the Dance, Faggots, Eddie Sockett.

Women in Love.

American Psycho.

'Plague' Camus, 'Kindly Ones' Littel & almost everything by Vargas Llosa

GWTW

Love to read but I've never been able to reread a novel. I have tried with several of my favorites. I get no joy from it.

Any of P.D. James's wonderful novels . Or Ruth Rendell or Agatha Christie. I can never remember whodunit except in the ones that were made into movies

They Came to Baghdad. (A. Christie)

Usually I don't re-read novels, but I've made a few exeptions:

The Lord of the rings - with more than 20 years in between.

Giovannis Room by James Baldwin- especially the first half of the book.

Call me by your name: read it twice - right back to back - and right now for the third time (now for the first time in my native language). I assume this will not be the last one...

I can be tempted to reread (again, some more) Paul Scott's The Jewel in the Crown at the mere mention of its name. I've read The Lord of the Rings several times since seventh grade (the absolute perfect age to pick it up). I read Laurie Colwin's Happy All The Time every year as a spring tonic. I've read David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Black Swan Green and ...Jacob deZoet a couple of times each. I'm currently working my way through a second read of Patrick O'Brian's 21 Aubrey/Maturin novels of life in the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars.

R25 Martin Chuzzlewit is full of great characters - Sarey Gamp and Betsy Prig, Poll Sweedlepipe, Tigg Montague a.k.a. Montague Tigg, Seth Pecksniff and his daughters Cherry and Merry. Dickens was pleased with it but it didn't do well in serial form no doubt because it has a weak beginning. It's real notoriety comes from its depiction of Americans in the episodes where Martin and his servant (later friend) Mark Tapley try to homestead on the Mississippi. Let's say it's not flattering.

Thanks for that r43! I'll definitely give MC a go.

A Winkle in Time. Oh, wait...

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. I never tire of it.

The HARDy Boys

The instructions on the douche box

[quote]all my books by groupies who hung around rock bands during that time.

Could you name them, please! I love groupie books and wonder if I’ve missed some. Thanks.

On the Origin of Species

Stephen King, Rose Madder.

The Bible

I LOVE YOU R46- That is mine too!!!

Slaughterhouse Five

Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillion

Kim (Kipling)

Narcissus and Goldmund

and Patrick O'Brien's whole Aubrey/Maturin Master and Commander series

I reread GATSBY ever summer. Also frequently reread CATCHER IN THE RYE and NINE STORIES.

But my all time favorite is a William Goldman novel called BOYS AND GIRLS TOGETHER. I always mention this book in "favorite book" threads. It is this sprawling, totally compelling, cinematic, unputdownable powerhouse saga. (And it has a couple of gay subplots). Cannot recommend it highly enough.

Reaper Man - Terry Pratchett Great Expectations - Charles Dickens The Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy Thirteen Moons - Charles Frazier The ASOIF series - GRRM (still waiting for Winds of Winter, so I re-read every year in case it comes out)

Sorry about not double spacing.

R55, I will check that out!

For me, it’s

“The Witches of Eastwick” by John Updike “The Robber Bride” by Margaret Atwood “Ada” by Vladimir Nabokov

Most of Kate Atkinson's books. They're so rich and complex, even the lighter weight Jackson Brodie mysteries, I'm not sure I wouldn't discover many new things on a second or even third reading.

I've already read Human Croquet twice. It's my favorite.

I'm also looking forward to eventually rereading all of my favorite Barbara Pym novels. I read them all in the 1980s when she was rediscovered and new paperbacks were issued. I kept all of those paperbacks for my old age.

And Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex. Definitely looking forward to rereading that one.

The Great Gatsby, The Last Tycoon, and while not a novel I love rereading Joan Didion’s essays about California.

"Nabokov - Collected Stories" and Nabokov's "Ada" -

The complexities of the sentence structures; the complexities of the characters' dreams (hope, desire, torment); and the complexities of the metaphors: exquisite, yet heartbreaking -

Brideshead Revisited - re-read this every few years

Of Human Bondage- love love love it

It- Stephen King.

The Way We Live Now

West With The Night - Aviator's Beryl Markham's 1942 memoir of Kenya, Baron Bror von Blixen ("Blix"), Denys Flinch Hatton . . . before "Isak Dinesen" stole her story -

Recommendation: Read the authors' books . . . You'll agree -

Late Evelyn Waugh (A Handful of Dust, Black Mischief, Vile Bodies, Put Out More Flags)

Christian McGlaughlin's Sex Toys of the Gods.

Pride And Prejudice

Random Carl Hiaasen ( I own them all) and Elmore Leonard (I own many)

Poppy Z Brite's Lost Souls and Drawing Blood.

R12 Heartburn NY Nora Ephron. About how you can be comfortable in the day to dayness of a marriage, then it falls apart. The harshness of a divorce is you miss the little things. I read book after a saw the movie. I liked the glam of living in NYC, and traveling back and forth to DC, that the books conveys.

** by, not NY

I'm also re-reading Barbara Pym's novels (when I can find them in used bookstores), R59. Like you, I hadn't read them since the '80s. They are still insightful and funny/sad.

The secret history (Donna Tartt).

Laura Kasischke novels.

Jackie O!

Joyce's ULYSSES, Benson's Mapp and Lucia books, all of Austen, the Dorothy Sayers' Peter Wimsey mysteries with Harriet Vane, with GAUDY NIGHT being the breathtaking best, THE LORD OF THE RINGS and HUCKLEBERRY FINN. Pretty conventional.

I also am always cycling through Shakespeare, moving from one play to another and starting them over when done, in whatever order feels right at the time. They and ULYSSES keep my head and my tongue in working order.

What's Bred In the Bone The Noel Coward Diaries Noel Coward Collected Stories The Old Wives Tale Anything by Paul Torday

E. F. Benson's Lucia novels

Edward St. Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels

Harriet the Spy

Freddy the pig, a renaissance pig look him up.

Dancer from the Dance when I get extremely depressed and want to escape into my youth.

Cider House Rules by John Irving. Forget the movie, the book is a gem and I read it every summer.

It makes me happy to know that there are fellow John Irving and Pat Conroy fans out there.

"The Swimming Pool Library" by Alan Hollinghurst

Sadly, Hollighurst's latest book The Sharpsholt Affair is a bit of a dud.

INFINITE JEST - David Foster Wallace MY NAME IS ASHER LEV - Chaim Potok POETICS OF SPACE - Gaston Bachelard BOYS BOOBS AND HIGH HEELS - Dianne Brill

Great choice, R78.

I love Robertson Davies, OP. Shame he isn't read that much anymore.

Agreed about Robertson Davies -- the Deptford Trilogy, especially Fifth Business, is magnificent. He opened a path that the novel, certainly in North America and England, did not follow. Shame about that.

The OP's choice of novels to reread is excellent, although I would place Persuasion about Mansfield Park.

I return to Zola's Germinal (its time has come again) and Mann's Magic Mountain, because I am gay. Arenas's Before Night Falls is for me the great gay autobiography and I reread it when I feel lazy. Oscar Wilde's fairy tales, one of the most profound moral/ethical stories I've ever read. I give them as gifts to friends who, of course, hardly ever read a thing.

I can't get enough of Vonnegut- Breakfast Of Champions and Deadeye Dick....I've read both books loads of times. Steinbeck- Tortilla Flat, Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday- I always like to read Steinbeck when Autumn changes into Winter. Great reading for when the nights are drawing in. Although I'm a Brit I just love the great American writers. We had to read Shakespeare at school and it often felt like a chore. However, his mouthwatering soliliquies keep me and millions of other readers as fans of his writing.

[quote]Sadly, Hollighurst's latest book The Sharpsholt Affair is a bit of a dud.

sorry to hear that. reviews i read were great. just ordered it

Agreed about Robertson Davies, the Deptford Trilogy is superb, especially the first novel, Fifth Business.

OP's selection of novels to reread is excellent, though I would rank Persuasion above Mansfield Park.

Zola's Germinal is one of the novels I reread, also Mann's Magic Mountain, for me one of the greatest "gay" novels. Arenas's autobiography "Before Night Falls" is magnificent, and Wilde's Fairy Tales for Children (especially "The Happy Prince" and "The Selfish Giant" are some of the greatest moral and ethical imaginative works. I give them as gifts to friends who, mostly, have stopped reading.

“Strange Sisters.”

The Crying Snowflakes:The story of Hilary losing an election and blaming everyone else The Idiots: American liberal colleges in 2018 America--where you get arrested for not having a fishing license, but not for being an illegal

My favorites Frankenstein - Mary Shelley 1818] Dracula - Bram Stoker 1897 Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf 1925 The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell 1936 The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand 1943 The Once and Future King - T. H. White 1958 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 1960 The World According to Garp - John Irving 1978

And R55, YES! R77, YES as well … I read him a slow read after Garp, Setting Free the Bears (1968), The Water-Method Man (1972), The 158-Pound Marriage (1974), The World According to Garp (1978), The Hotel New Hampshire (1981), The Cider House Rules (1985). In '86 I was afraid to meet him, feeling I'd fall at his wet, kissing the hem of his garment.

R89 I'd like to meet Irving, or go and listen to him lecture. I have all of those in dog-eared paperbacks. Used to read Garp every summer.

I don't re-read books much, but I did read The Picture of Dorian Gray again. Love that book.

Loving this thread but wondering why it's so much more energetic than the usual "what are you reading?" threads.

Can this just morph into that ?

I'd love to know what all of you smart people are reading NOW. Please some back and tell us.

TIA!

No, you fucking twat. It's about books we REread.

Stephen R Donaldson's entire body of work (I am in the middle of this right now) The Handmaid's Tale and the Maddaddam Trilogy - Margaret Atwood The Dark Tower series - Stephen King The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut The Doomsday Book - Connie Willis Ghost Story - Peter Straub Imajica - Clive Barker Wool (Complete series) Hugh Howie World War Z - Max Brooks - so much better than the terrible movie Harry Potter Series Pounded in the Butt By My Own Butt - Chuck Tingle (I kid, I kid)

Fucking formatting:

Stephen R Donaldson's entire body of work (I am in the middle of this right now)

The Handmaid's Tale and the Maddaddam Trilogy - Margaret Atwood

The Dark Tower series - Stephen King

The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson

Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut

The Doomsday Book - Connie Willis

Ghost Story - Peter Straub

Imajica - Clive Barker

Wool (Complete series) Hugh Howie

World War Z - Max Brooks - so much better than the terrible movie

Harry Potter Series

Pounded in the Butt By My Own Butt - Chuck Tingle (I kid, I kid)

[quote] Loving this thread but wondering why it's so much more energetic than the usual "what are you reading?" threads. Can this just morph into that ?

No.

In Cold Blood. When I read it i can hear Truman in my head.

The Telling of Lies by Timothy Findlay

The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis, The Shining by Steven King, Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, and Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving.

The Art of the Deal

"Watership Down"

I wish I could trim DL so I only saw posts by everyone in this thread...

...Except R88, who's a racist shit-eating Trumpian cuntlicker.

Once every five years or so I re-read the Alice books : Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and I discover something new each time. I bought The Annotated Alice to enhance my enjoyment.

Italo Calvino, Baron In The Trees - one of the best books from my youth about a guy who lived on his own terms. Also recommend If On A Winters Day for any English majors out there. Or Invisible Cities for fine artists/photographers.

Knut Hamsen, Pan - a favorite, especially the beautiful imagery in the beginning.

Machado De Assis, Philosopher Or Dog - read the first translation, from the 70's I think. The translation from the 90's is more literal, but looses much because of this.

Arturo Perez Reverte, The Fencing Master & the whole Captain Alatriste series - great for a mystery/adventure series.

All Sherlock Holmes stories, Persuasion by Jane Austin, Harry Potter books 3-7b, Maurice by RM Foster, any Jim Butcher, Bernard Cornwall's Sharpe series, most works by Mario Vargas Llosa, and more if interested in a larger list.

My apologies, the second Calvino book is If On A Winters Night a Traveler.

The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain

I often reread erotic, passionate poetry. EE Cummings is my favorite, with Bukowski, Auden, and Ginsberg as close seconds depending on mood.

My favorite poems of all the - EE Cummings, I like my body when it's with you body - a great place to start for hs work.

And Charles Bukowski, Quiet clean girls in gingham dresses - a poem of longing so strong it is palpable. I just change the pronouns to male.

[quote] Also recommend If On A Winters Day for any English majors out there.

[quote] The translation from the 90's is more literal, but [bold]looses[/bold] much because of this.

I think you should have worked harder at that English major...

1984 is the only one I re-read every few years. And it has obviously never been more relevant than now. And no, I haven’t cared for either film version.

Speaking of Garp, I HOOVED it down when it first came out and praised it to everyone I knew. I haven't read it since because I'm afraid it won't be the same. (Of course, neither am I.) Post-Garp, I think I liked Irving's A Widow for One Year the best. (I wanted to strangle Owen Meany for talking in ALL CAPS, but I liked the novel itself.)

[quote] Speaking of Garp, I HOOVED it down

Neigh!!!

The only 2 books of John Irving's I would read again are Cider House Rules and, oddly enough, my favorite A Son of the Circus, which doesn't ever seem to be high on anyone's lists.

Blood Meridian

Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

Loved both of those R112 - need to read Cider House again. Someone mentioned Watership Down - hadn't thought of that in a long time. May need to did it out.

Any of Jane Austen’s novels. The Railway Children is comfort reading for me. I have also reread Our Mutual Friend which is a monster of a book but it is one of my favourites. There are quite a few books I have relistened to on audio as I enjoy them in the background when working on something practical.

I've loved all of the Dickens novels I've read but Our Mutual Friend eluded me. I tried 3 times but never reached even 100 pages.

I love and reread a lot of these same books. I'm due to reread Proust again, though I don't know why you'd stop at Swann's Way. I often reread Austen, and agree with someone else that Persuasion is her deepest work.

My comfort rereads include Benson's Lucia series, which are unbeatable, along with Nancy Mitford and some of Waugh, and Monica Dickens' One Pair of Hands. I also go back to Ada Leverson's Little Ottleys books and Emily Eden's Semi-Attached books.

For a more modern dry wit, from a Belgian plunked down in Japan, I love Amelie Nothomb's Fear and Trembling.

When I was young, I used to reread Maupassant, Colette, and Sybille Bedford.

For exquisite words and worlds, I reread the Gormenghast trilogies and Giraudoux's Suzanne and the Pacific.

R113: I've read every one of McCarthy's novels and Blood Meridian was the only one I couldn't finish because of its graphic violence. Apparently it's considered his greatest novel, but I haven't been able to get through it. Should I try again?

This thread is making me feel very inadequate. I'm lucky to read two books a year. Never realized how learned the Datalounge really is.

Henry James is my comfort reading. There is always something of his that I have not read. For re-reading I love "Washington Square" and "The Wings of the Dove." So passionate!

I'm halfway through Hollinghurst's "The Sparsholt Affair." I may have to re-read his "The Swimming-Pool Library" and "The Line of Beauty" again soon.

Another novel I like to re-read is Jamie O'Neill's "At Swim Two Boys." I SO wish someone would make a good six-part TV adaptation of it. (Speaking of such things, I can't believe someone reduced Edward St. Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels to a mere five episodes [starting on Showtime next month with the perfectly cast BCumberbatch as Patrick].)

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - so unique

And two wildly hilarious, laugh out loud short novels: MY SEARCH FOR WARREN HARDING by Robert Plunket, and BUDDING PROSPECTS by the great TC Boyle. Comic masterpieces, both of them.

"Hangover Square" - Patrick Hamilton

"The Bell" - Irish Murdoch

"Death in Venice" - Thomas Mann

Oh my god, R124, so happy to see My Search for Warren Harding mentioned! That is such an underrated gem and yes, truly laugh out loud. Thanks for reminding me to reread it.

it's a memoir: Eight Years In Another World

r125, I'm a new Patrick Hamilton fan! Just read Hangover Square after reading the brilliant Slaves of Solitude.

Have you read any of his earlier worjk?

R124 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - so unique

You should try Terry Pratchetts Long Earth novels. Lobsang, sort-of tibetian motorcycle repairman, is an integral part of this series.

Whining in India by bitter Hilaree Exploiting children with my latest stupid kid's book by Howdy Doody aka Chelsee How to hide being a muslim by the last President Great dicks we have enjoyed by the two Andees Plastic surgery made easy by Nancee Peloso

Smila's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg. Amazing book...shit movie.

R128, I highly recommend The Gorse Trilogy (another would-be re-read!), about a shady, deeply unlikeable young English sociopath who cheats gullible women out of their money. Ripley-esque, minus the ambiguous sexuality.

Cherry Ames....Dude Ranch Nurse

The only novel I can recall rereading has been Bleak House.

Eureka Street, Robert McLiam Wilson

Like Barbara Pym also . ! London after the war,in one of her books .

My all time favorites, gone with the wind and wuthering heights. Still haven't recovered from when I learned that Scarlertt actually married Heathcliff

... Nancy Mitford and some of Waugh, and Monica Dickens' One Pair of Hands.

Snap R119. I've reread Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate quite a few times, along with Waugh (especially Brideshead and Handful of Dust) and Monica Dickens, both OPOH and also One Pair of Feet.

I've reread my favourites of Saki's and Somerset Maugham's short stories more times than I could count. If anyone wants to try some Saki check out The Storyteller and The Open Window which I think you could fine online for free. He's like a cynical PG Wodehouse and his best can be very funny or quite creepy. Cold Comfort Farm is another I like to revisit, always in the hope that this time I'll find out just what that something nasty in the woodshed was.

R136 - - you just like her character Ever Hard Bone

Dream of the Red Chamber.

I have to agree,

The Road by Cormac MCCarthy is one of the greatest novels ever written. You will want to own a copy or two.

Hand's Maids Tale by Atwood

Dr. Seuss

r135, what is Eureka Street about? Tell us more about its attraction to you, please.

I'm finally reading The Handmaid's Tale. OMG!!! Everyone kept telling me to watch the mini-series but I thought I'd just start out with the original source.

My favorite Atwood book is The Robber Bride. I'm going to reread it soon.

Has anyone read Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate?

Fabulous portrait of British society in the early 1930s with a jaw-droppingly hilarious (yet affectionate) portrait of a flaming young queen among The Bright Young Things. Clearly, Julian Fellowes borrowed heavily from Mitford, yet left out some of her best creations.

The Handmaid's Tale makes a profound impact on your live. Did mine.

Next, read The Road by Cormack McCarthy.

Ooh, so many fellow Luciaphiles! E.F. Benson is my go-to comfort read. It's been too long since I re-read any Robertson Davies -- I hope I still like him as much as on the first couple of reads. Again, another vote here for the Nancy Mitford "Pursuit of Love" and "Love in a Cold Climate."

r146 I was just in the library this afternoon and borrowed [italic]Fine Feathers[/italic], a Benson short story collection.

I've read the first couple of Lucia "sequels" (post-Benson); they've been good for a fix.

Dear god I love that book R117.

"My soul grazes like a lamb on the beauty of an indrawn tide." I think I was fourteen when I first read that line and it still affects me to this day.

September by Rosamunde Pilcher. I even had a calico cat named Pandora in honor of a character in this book.

I love to re-read the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice, especially the Vampire Lestat, Blackwood Farm and Queen of the Damned.

Another really funny Nancy Mitford novel is "Christmas Pudding."

[quote] though I don't know why you'd stop at Swann's Way.

I've read the whole thing twice, once in graduate school and once as an adult. I don't like all the books in it--I find "The Captive" and "The Fugitive" pretty interminable, and I don't really want to read them again. I'm very fond of "Cities of the Plain" and "Time Regained," but it's "Swann's Way" I love the best.

r152 Agreed. The young tot in [italic]Christmas Pudding[/italic] who read the obituaries and circled them in red is the greatest. Some of it reminded me of Evelyn Waugh's [italic]Decline and Fall[/italic].

Goodbye, Columbus

Anyone read Angela Thirkell? She's similar to Mitford and Waugh but without the bite.

I've read some of the circle books set in Barsetshire, where Trollope's Victorian characters are within living memory of her1930s people.

My Antonia

Am such a Mitford fan, I've tried saying, "Brush" as I entered rooms to see if it gave me a fascinating expression, as the fabulous cousin Cedric advised.

Im almost ashamed, but I love both The Witching Hour and The Mummy by Anne Rice......TWH by itself, not the ridiculous sequels.

"The City abs The Pillar by Gore Vidal "

I thought you were referring to the Instagram version.

Friend of mine once had one of those Freudian slips and said "Sitting on the Pillar?" when a professor at Princeton first told him about the novel.

[quote][R135], what is Eureka Street about? Tell us more about its attraction to you, please.

It’s set in Belfast before the ceasefire, about two friends and their lives (“All stories are love stories.”) It’s funny, angry, generous and evokes the city with great love. A couple of minor characters are obviously and hilariously based on real people. The violence is mostly in the background except for one brutal chapter. Far better than Ripley Bogle which just seemed to wallow in suffering for its own sake. There’s even a surprising, very sweet lesbian subplot.

Read it, you won’t regret it!

More, please!

A PASSAGE TO INDIA

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

Dystopian much? I've re-read 1984, Animal Farm, It Can't Happen Here, The Time Machine and Lord of the Flies. In Trumpmerica, these aren't novels. Not anymore.

I'm re-reading and loving Howards End right now in preparation for the new mini-series on STARZ, though I can't imagine it will be as great as the star-studded 1992 film or....the book!

The Book of Ebenezer Le Page. He won' t admit it but I think John Fowles wrote it.

Not to derail the thread, but what did you think of the first episode of Howards End, R167? Have to say, I didn't think Howards End needed to be remade -- the movie is pretty much perfect -- but I thought the new adaptation can stand on its own. I was pleasantly surprised.

On topic: I read Edmund De Waal's "The Hare With Amber Eyes" every couple of years. Now there's a story just waiting to be filmed (by someone with lots and lots of money).

Haven't had a chance to tune in to the new Howards End yet, r169. Maybe this weekend.