Which Book Have You Read the Most?

[editec]

Catch-22 three times...(or was it four?).

HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy. (three times, once with my son -- read out loud).

 

[WillowTree]

i rarely read a book twice...i read it and pass it along...book hoarding can lead to thousands of books..

the one i read most..fanny farmers cookbook

the one i read for pleasure..."a separate peace" john knowles

"to kill a mockingbird" harper lee



i enjoy plays more..

who is afraid of virginia wolf
cat on a hot tin roof
pumpboys and dinenettes (msp)

Yeah on that,, I've read very few books twice. To Kill A Mockingbird. Gone With The Wind, In Cold Blood, and the Stand. I bought my second copy of The Bridges of Madison County..but haven't started the re read yet.Tight now I'm reading a little book about "Christian The Lion."

 

[strollingbones]

i just dont get everyone reading the stand...i havent...most likely wont

in cold blood....gives me the creeps...now i read everything i can get my hands on about jeffery mcdonald and him killing his preggie wife and two young daughters...theme readng...

also best book in the world.."lonesome dove" movie doesnt do it justice

 

[midcan5]

The Bothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky - three times.

"This poor child of five was subjected to every possible torture by those cultivated parents. They beat her, thrashed her, kicked her for no reason till her body was one bruise. Then, they went to greater refinements of cruelty -- shut her up all night in the cold and frost in a privy, and because she didn't ask to be taken up at night (as though a child of five sleeping its angelic, sound sleep could be trained to wake and ask), they smeared her face and filled her mouth with excrement, and it was her mother, her mother did this. And that mother could sleep, hearing the poor child's groans! Can you understand why a little creature, who can't even understand what's done to her, should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind God to protect her? Do you understand that, friend and brother, you pious and humble novice? Do you understand why this infamy must be and is permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to dear, kind God'! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones! I am making you suffer, Alyosha, you are not yourself. I'll leave off if you like."

"Nevermind. I want to suffer too," muttered Alyosha.

"One picture, only one more, because it's so curious, so characteristic, and I have only just read it in some collection of Russian antiquities. I've forgotten the name. I must look it up. It was in the darkest days of serfdom at the beginning of the century, and long live the Liberator of the People! There was in those days a general of aristocratic connections, the owner of great estates, one of those men -- somewhat exceptional, I believe, even then -- who, retiring from the service into a life of leisure, are convinced that they've earned absolute power over the lives of their subjects. There were such men then. So our general, settled on his property of two thousand souls, lives in pomp, and domineers over his poor neighbours as though they were dependents and buffoons. He has kennels of hundreds of hounds and nearly a hundred dog-boys -- all mounted, and in uniform. One day a serf-boy, a little child of eight, threw a stone in play and hurt the paw of the general's favourite hound. 'Why is my favourite dog lame?' He is told that the boy threw a stone that hurt the dog's paw. 'So you did it.' The general looked the child up and down. 'Take him.' He was taken -- taken from his mother and kept shut up all night. Early that morning the general comes out on horseback, with the hounds, his dependents, dog-boys, and huntsmen, all mounted around him in full hunting parade. The servants are summoned for their edification, and in front of them all stands the mother of the child. The child is brought from the lock-up. It's a gloomy, cold, foggy, autumn day, a capital day for hunting. The general orders the child to be undressed; the child is stripped naked. He shivers, numb with terror, not daring to cry.... 'Make him run,' commands the general. 'Run! run!' shout the dog-boys. The boy runs.... 'At him!' yells the general, and he sets the whole pack of hounds on the child. The hounds catch him, and tear him to pieces before his mother's eyes!... I believe the general was afterwards declared incapable of administering his estates. Well -- what did he deserve? To be shot? To be shot for the satisfaction of our moral feelings? Speak, Alyosha!

"To be shot," murmured Alyosha, lifting his eyes to Ivan with a pale, twisted smile.

"Bravo!" cried Ivan delighted. "If even you say so... You're a pretty monk! So there is a little devil sitting in your heart, Alyosha Karamazov!"

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky: Chapter 35

 

[xotoxi]

Dante's Inferno

 

[Oddball]

I've re-read various chapters of The Road to Serfdom uncounted times.

The Law (Bastiat) and The Virtue of Selfishness (Rand/Branden) are easy re-reads when you have an hour to spare.

I re-read any one of a number of P.J. O'Rourke's books, for no better reason than he cracks me up.

 

[manifold]

Dante's Inferno

What, no time for Purgatorio and Paradiso?

 

[Phoenix]

Dante's Inferno

That's on my to-read list.


You might find a book titled The Gargoyle (Andrew Davidson) interesting if you've read Inferno. Inferno is central to Davidson's novel.

 

[HUGGY]

And how many times have you read it?

Why that book?

Which Book Have You Read the Most?


My own. Tentatively called "The Pilot"

I read it maybe 20 or more times before I sent it to my agent.

 

[007]

And how many times have you read it?

Why that book?

Sacajawea, by Anna Lee Waldo. Three times, because each time I pick up something I missed the time before.

 

[Sarah G]

I don't read books over and over but I have moods. Last year, I read The Di Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, Dan Brown books.

Then I got into David McCullough and read John Adams and Truman.

Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now and A New Earth.

I was just telling EZ that I love Pat Conroy novels, so beautifully written. I don't keep the books forever either, they do pile up.

I read a good one White Oleander a couple of years ago.

 

[Xenophon]

And how many times have you read it?

Why that book?

Which Book Have You Read the Most?


My own. Tentatively called "The Pilot"

I read it maybe 20 or more times before I sent it to my agent.

Bullshit.

I bet the real answer is 'Green eggs and Ham' but you just can't reach the ending.

 

[AllieBaba]

How's that? Why is it undeserving of its literary reputation?

Because it's a piece of shit.

A go nowhere story about the angst of a socially awkward high school pussy! Wow, fucking brilliant.

Your understanding of the book seems superficial. The story itself is okay... the style in which is was written is unique, its social commentary is incisive, and it describes the socially awkward teenage male psyche incredibly accurately. Did you think it was intended to be meaningless narrative about a bunch of random shit some dropout kid did for a few days?

Yes. THe author was a kook, and the kid in the book is a kook.

I liked it when I read it at 13 but I think adults who are addicted to it and think it has some sort of wisdom to bestow probably need to grow up.

I re-read history books...historical tomes about Queen Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots, I'm wading through the four (three?) Georges which is VERY cumbersome, though it's not a big book. The georges weren't very interesting.

I read Gone With the Wind about once a year, and The Far Pavillions every few years....and there's a book by M.M.Kaye about pirating that's very good....I read the bible all the time, and the concordance....

I re-read Poe when I come across it, and all of Victoria Holt's novels, or her pseudonym's historical novels (about real people)...I'll read those over and over, over time.

I read certain Shakespeare plays every few years.

The Black Stallion, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Earthsea trilogy, the chronicles of narnia....also The Stand, The SHining and Salem's Lot are all good re-reads.

 

[HUGGY]

And how many times have you read it?

Why that book?

Which Book Have You Read the Most?


My own. Tentatively called "The Pilot"

I read it maybe 20 or more times before I sent it to my agent.

Bullshit.

I bet the real answer is 'Green eggs and Ham' but you just can't reach the ending.

'Green eggs and Ham'

Never read about it ....but I've seen it.

 

[random3434]