Every week, I'll be making a pinned post inviting you to share your favorite books with the slop-hungry hogs of Hexbear 
. Each week will be loosely structured around a particular genre, time period or other theme .
For the opening week's theme: Books you have read at least three times
Optional nerd discussion questions
What keeps or kept you coming back to them? How did your relationship to the text change across multiple readings?
If you have suggestions for future themes, DM me!
If you want to be pinged when I post the thread in the future, respond to this comment in the thread
Respond to this post if you want to to be pinged for future Hexbear Reads posts
I've probably read Catch-22 twelve times. Each new time I read it I rediscover a line that I accidentally stole that became part of my main phrasebook. Like calling people "shameful unscrupulous opportunists."
In recent years Thomas Bernhard is my most frequent reread. The Loser, Woodcutters, Old Masters, Concrete, Wittgenstein's Nephew. I need to get my shit together and actually read him in German.
The serieseses I've reread the most are Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Raymond Chandler's novels.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 used to be frequent rereads, but now I only tend to go back to parts of them. '72 used to be a quadrennial tradition.
I'm always rereading the Greeks, which is helped by the ease of finding pocket-sized editions.
I used to read so much as a kid that I definitely reread some things that much but nothing sticks out in my now-addled brain. Probably LOTR, Dune, some harry potter, etc. But I was never much for rereading past twice.... OH and in high school I read most of John Green's books several times. Some are better than others
more recently, I know I read Psychopolitics by Byung-Chul Han at least twice to make sure it wasn't going over my head but it's short. And I'll probably have to revisit some parenti/losurdo books more than once I suspect. OH also The Gentrification of the Mind by Sarah Schulman and Trans Liberation by
got rereads for this siteI've found over the years that save for a few rarities I have zero desire to reread or rewatch something, I see it the first time and afterwards I don't find as much enjoyment retreading old steps. I absolutely love to discuss stuff and will go back to reread parts as part of a discussion, but going from cover to cover more than once is rather rare.
I think there's a variety of books on the Titanic I read a few dozen times as a kid until I was the most obnoxious 12 year old reciting weird obscure knowledge and then promptly forgot most of it by 20.
To continue on the series of "I forget" while I was locked on a psych ward with nothing to do other than study anatomy and physiology or read my English textbook/collection of short stories, I read that book cover to cover a fair few times since I had literally nothing left. While I don't particularly remember much of the contents at this point, I found far more satisfaction in the read than I ever anticipated after developing a deep hatred of reading literature through high school and the countless "this is the best book ever class, so you better like it and write pages upon pages plastering praise upon it." (Or having to read 13 Reasons Why shortly before this hospitalization) It was a chance for me to sorta rekindle an appreciation for stuff, I wasn't "forced" to read it and by just going through it, I found some stuff I surprisingly liked. While this didn't fundamentally change my relationship with reading, it did help me overcome some of that baggage from high school.
Finally there's The Hobbit, never reread LOTR, rewatched the movies a ton as a kid, but the Hobbit was just a really fun book to read as a kid. It was accessible, the story was exciting, and the only somewhat good adaptation was the Rankin Bass TV movie which while nostalgia bait for me now, really doesn't hold a candle to just how much more vibrant the book is. The first time through it was interesting seeing a far wider setting and deeper story from the movie. After that it was more just a quick run through a story I just enjoyed. Rereading it never added much to the experience for me. Nowadays I'll usually just throw on the movie in the background since the music is fun and sticks in your head far too well and I'm pretty sure my attention span has been thoroughly burned out over the years.
a lifelong bookworm I have read a lot of books but the most reread ones are embarrassing like the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis (the christian allegory stuff flew over my head as a child), the Xanth series by Piers Anthony (the misogyny flew over my head as a child) and Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein (this guy, don't get me started). I can't say I recommend these even though they really formed some of my core identity. I like to think i took the good and left the bad.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Pirsig qualifies though as well as Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. Those I do recommend, two of the few books i retain physical copies of!
Very cool comm delighted to be a part of it and see what you all like!
I LOVED Piers Anthony as a kid. Tried to reread my favorite of his as an adult (On a Pale Horse). Big mistake, that shit is not good (and yes wildly misogynistic in the old school way)
yeahhhhh loved Incarnations as a kid too. He's just awful though. There's a woman in Xanth whose talent is that over the course of a month she goes from ugly and smart to beautiful and dumb then back again. His characters aren't even two-dimensional bro was raised in point-land.
I think the thing is that he has genuinely fun ideas and writes so many books that there are always more to read. When you're young the poor execution doesn't matter so much, lol. There are 47 books in the Xanth series. He's still writing them apparently!
good lord, i think i stopped at like 13! Agree about the fun ideas 100%.
I think the only books I’ve read three times is unironically Harry Potter
Same, it turns out I really am a lib
Maybe the first 5 Wheel of Time books too, but I’m not sure if that’s any better
Patrick O'Brian - Aubrey-Maturin Series (beginning with Master and Commander)
Stefan Zweig - The World of Yesterday
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse 5
Gore Vidal - Burr (honorable mention: Lincoln)
Michael Parenti - Blackshirts and Reds
Tim O'Brien - The Things They Carried (honorable mention: Going After Cacciato)
Victor Hugo - Les Miserables (OK, I've only read this one twice)
Joseph Heller - Catch-22 (the best catch there is)
Ooh I've been meaning to ruin my life (get into the Aubrey-Maturin books), and check out Stefan Zweig
You've hit some good shit on here. Sadly I've only read Catch-22 twice (fake fan)
A warning about the Aubrey-Maturin books: once you start them, you will have to force yourself to read other books (my strategy is to read something else between every book but it is not easy). And every circumnavigation of the series reveals depths you had missed on prior readings. If you like audiobooks, the versions narrated by Patrick Tull are perfect, in my opinion. Because he understands the jargon (and the jokes) his narration helps you get the feel for what's happening before you fully absorb the language.
On Zweig (you may already know this), but The Grand Budapest Hotel was based on a long-short-story of his and the Kirsten Dunst Marie Antoinette movie was based on his biography of her (Marie Antoinette, not KD). The World of Yesterday is a really special book though. Zweig was a collector of original manuscripts and an art critic more than an artist himself. He lived in Austria before, during and after WWI. However, he had to escape from Austria and then from Europe fleeing the Nazis. He wrote this book, his memoirs, in Rio de Janeiro without any of his collections or note or anything and all from memory. He and his lady friend committed suicide shortly after he finished the book and before WWII had ended, so unlike most writers, his backwards-looking lens was not refracted through the defeat of the Nazis.
Letter from an Unknown Woman is another great Zweig adaptation. I'm pretty sure there's a Chess Story movie but I think I remember hearing that it was a disappointment. That novella is especially fascinating given your last sentence. It's been a long time since I've read it but I remember being shocked that it was written during the war.
The Lord of the Rings. It is part of the reason I talk strangely in English
The holy quran audiobook.
First time entirely in arabic recitation
Second time the english translation.
Third time with the arabic recitations first followed by the english translation
Damn I have to hit you with the nerd discussion question
How did your relationship to the text change across multiple readings?
This is going to be very rambly.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book multiple times. I just have so many books I want to read that I find it hard to justify rereading something even if I loved it.
So I have to go back quite a while to find something like that but I do have it: the last book in the original Percy Jackson series, The Last Olympian.
It was the culmination of the five book series and it was epic. It was my first time reading an urban fantasy/mythology anything (and I was never much into HP anyways). I loved the first person narrative. I absolutely loved the romance.
I wanted to put The Lightning Thief here but it felt more appropriate to put TLO because it’s the ending. And what’s sticks with me is the PercaBeth stuff, I’ll be honest. “For once I never looked back” vs “it was the best underwater kiss of all time”. It’s been a decade since I read either book and I’m sure I’ve messed the wording up but it’s still stuck with me and hey, that says something.
I did read the Heroes of Olympus series that was the sequel but it never grabbed me the same way - primarily because it wasn’t a first person pov. And after that, I grew out of it, so never got around to the rest.
But on PLO. I loved the writing. I loved Percy’s sarcasm and his wit. I loved his way of fighting. I loved all the other characters. Obviously, I loved the romance. But I loved the adventures throughout the books and the way it all built up the final one and how it paid off there.
I don’t know what else to say. It’s a great series. Give it a read if you want.
I haven’t read it since I was a teenager. I tried reading the first one again, it was very fun and nostalgic. But it was also, clearly for kids. Not to say I didn’t enjoy my time with it and I could have continued reading, but well, I didn’t. As I said earlier, there are a lot of books I want to read and I find it hard to justify rereading something.
Curse of growing old, I guess.
Yeah this is me, basically, I haven't re-read much since I was a kid but had a bunch of series I was super invested in as a kid and read all of, sometimes multiple times. I just picked back up a fiction book (relatively short, The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LeGuin) for the first time in a few years, and wow I think I've still got that voracious reader in me after all... I started it before bed and it was done the next afternoon. I used to sit and devour a huge book (600+ pages) which seem insurmountable now in a day or two... Its hard to make time now, but when I do it feels really good. Nonfiction is still my jam because I have so much to learn but I think I gotta mix in some fiction too.
Never feeling more like the normie of the site than reading these answers. You guys re-read some incredibly dense and/or challenging books on the reg.
Mine is a simple pleasurable book by Kevin Murphy of MST3K fame (he voiced Tom Servo from season 2-10). A Year at the Movies. His goal was no matter what he was doing, where he was, what day it was, he had to see a film. Film, as in celluloid, once a day for a year. This involved doing things like sneaking a Thanksgiving turkey into a film theater and taking a small film projector with him hiking. The book is a diary of sorts of him taking on this self-imposed challenge and each chapter covers roughly a week. Repeats are allowed, so he ends up seeing some films that no one should have to see more than once many times, but given his "day job", this isn't much of a problem for him.
It's a very silly book, which is why it's so easy to pick up and just re-read. Murphy is a delightful life-long midwesterner and genuinely, deeply, loves movies.
Books you have read at least 3 times
The Red Rising trilogy. Sci-fi setting with a colonized solar system and a genetically engineered caste system. The protagonist is a member of a low-born caste who joins a revolt against the high caste and eventually leads the rebellion against the entire system. Protagonist is super-competent but there are also times where he fucks up badly and pays dearly for it, series has some compelling worldbuilding and interesting future slang, the ground and space battles are tense, exciting, and brutal. The series is still finding its feet with the first book, and said book also handles a couple of sensitive subjects poorly, so while there's still plenty to like, I wouldn't blame anyone for skipping it. I can recommend the 2nd and 3rd wholeheartedly, though.
There's a sequel series that isn't complete yet (still one book to go), but it's also good. It takes place after the rebellion has won, and it does a great job of dealing with the difficulties of the post-revolution. Strategic allies start working against the protagonist when their goals begin to diverge, and the necessity of continued war against the reactionaries (who have only been kicked off a few planets and still own most of the solar system) strains both the fabric of the post-revolution society and the protagonist's relationship with his family.
The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. Fantastic space opera series.
The long walk by Stephen King.
First reading I'll admit, I liked it for more reactionary reasons, was bullied growing up and reading about athletic kids getting domed was cathartic, voyeur at the roman colosseum.
Read it a few years later with my new media literacy goggles and enjoyed all the personalities of the people running, how friendships formed by trauma and how quick that gets snuffed out. The ending feels like watching a rabid dog sputter and collapse in front of you.
The dichotomy of the drafted going through hell while the the non drafters make bets and cheer on their favorites. Valorization of the worse possible moments of your life. Being caught up in this shit especially if your not politically minded must feel like a whirlwind of confusing feelings. Terrified, Proud, Lucky, Unlucky. Shows how fucking cruel and random a draft can feel like, especially for a cause that has no point and is just for spectacle/pointless violence.
C. D. Payne - Youth in Revolt. This was made into a pretty mediocre Michael Cera vehicle some years ago, but the book is one of the most compulsively readable novels I've ever encountered. A cult classic. An alternately disgusting, funny, and sharply observed coming of age story
David Eddings - The Belgariad series. I don't think this one would hold up, and Eddings turned out to be a terrible person, but I was obsessed with these books when I was a tween. So many memories of reading these in the back seat of my parents car on road trips. I probably read the whole series (and the sequel series is, and the other books) like five times each. I wanted to live in the world and hang out with the characters, all bickering and joking with each other as they try to save the world
Nella Larsen - Passing. One of the gayest novels ever written while not explicitly gay at all. I taught this for years, and the more I read it the more I loved it and the richer its meanings became. This one has so much to say about race in America, gender, and class. The author dies totally forgotten and I'm glad her small body of work didn't die with her. They made a Netflix movie out this, but it's not nearly gay enough. Dead serious about this.
Youth in Revolt is amazing. I’ve read it way way way too many times.
