Like apparently everyone else during this time, I am rereading obsessively. And it occurred to me that maybe this week, I could just list my top five favorite rereads of all time, the books I am returning to obsessively for comfort and the joy of reading.
But I’m gonna cheat and count a series as one book. Because it’s my blog, that’s why.
Here in alphabetical order are my top five fave rereads:
Aaronovitch, Ben; the Rivers of London series
Heyer, Georgetts; the Regency novels and contemporary mysteries
McQuiston, Casey; Red, White, and Royal Blue
Pratchett, Terry: the Discworld novels
Wells, Martha; the Murderbot series
Anybody else want to play?
Since I’m not a big re-reader (something I have whined about before) I will mention some childhood favorites that I find re-readable.
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery (someone mentioned this lately, one of my all time favorites!)
The Fudge Series by Judy Blume
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary
A Summer to Die by Lois Lowry (another one of her less discussed favorites I love to reread is Taking Care of Terrific!)
My sons really love the Fudge series and the Mouse and the Motorcycle, so it’s now been two generations of re-readable.
They also loved A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle, but if I’m being strictly honest there’s a few things that disappointed me on re-reading it as an adult (a little bit too much “we’re so special and wonderful, that’s why everyone hates us”). It’s still a good book, but it’s fallen off the all time greats for me. That’s the risk of re-reading (to me.) It still feels very special b/c it’s a book my mother read when it came out, then she recommended it to me, then I read it to my sons and they loved it.
Oooh, and The Ghost Belonged to Me/Blossom Culp series by Richard Peck. They’re too scary for the 8-year-old, but I’m hoping he gets into them someday.
Ha! I literally just recommended those to a co-worker last week!
I love A Summer to Die too. I wonder where my copy is?
This shifts around but currently
The Discworld Series
The Goblin Emperor
Lucy Parker’s romances
Wolfsong by TJ Klune
The Penric novellas or Gentleman Jole and The Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold
Honorable mention to Murderbot
Wow, Red white and blue must be really something, to rank up there with those four great series!
It’s the only one from your list that I haven’t read & enjoyed yet – it moves up my to-be-read pile if it can stand in this company.
Pratchett and Heyer would be high in my top series/writers that I like to reread list too, with Andrea K. Höst and several others, depending on what I’m in the mood for, romance/pastoral, SF/F (or combinations of both); sometimes detective/adventure or humor, which I read a lot more when I was younger.
Aaronovich and Wells are auto-buy authors for me, but not reread as much – there are so many new-to-me books and authors to explore, I reread a bit less than I used to.
I find it impossible to distill them down to a top-five; once I start thinking about it they multiply.
PS. I recently read something where the nice, cosy, slice-of-life books I enjoy in stressful times were called pastorals, even if they were set in a SF city instead of Marie Antoinette’s sort of pastoral setting.
Maybe the Ishmael Wang books should be considered pastorals, not picaresques?
The rest of the series follow him in his career as he rises through the ranks, with some more difficulties and antagonists than in the first books, and less women interested in him (and when one is interested, he makes a mess of it), but they remain “feel good”, not romances but assured of a positive ending anyway, even if that is career-based instead of romance-based. Someone said it’s a bit like O’Brien’s Aubrey & Maturain series about their careers on historical sailing ships that way; I haven’t read those so I can’t compare them, but found them relaxing to read, maybe because I started them with that expectation.
Andrea K Host is on my list, too! I’m currently rereading the Stray series, but I’ve reread all of her books at least a few times.
Huh. I’m going to count whole shelves by the same author as one book (there’s precedent, and I recall the rules around here are more…guidelines).
Crusie, Jennifer. All of.
Heyer, Georgette. Regencies
KJ Charles. Read them all, start again. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Juliette Marillier, Son of the Shadows.
Aaand now I’m struggling. Ok, the rules are out the window, multi-way tie.
Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell
Talia Hibbert, Work for It
Murderbot (but I don’t own all of them, so I have to keep waiting for the library)
Daughter of the Empire series, Janny Wurts & Raymond Feist
I LOVED Work For It!
Anything by Jenny Crusie.
Anything by Terry Pratchett.
The Protector of The Small series, by Tamora Pierce.
The Mocklore Chronicles, by Tansy Rayner Roberts.
The Phryne Fisher series, by Kerry Greenwood, especially Dead Man’s Chest.
These are all time favourites, but throughout the pandemic I have also been re-reading Avery Flynn, Pippa Grant, and Eden Finley. I would be reading Georgette Heyer, but I only own Envious Casca and my local library is still closed.
Red, White, and Royal Blue is also wonderful, and it might be time for another re-read of that. I need all the happy endings I can get right now – my airline is about to fire six thousand employees.
Travis McGee series by John McDonald
all the books by Tony Hillerman
Nero Wolf books by Rex Stout
Lanny Budd series by upton Sinclair
and of course .. all the books by Jennifer Crusie
Great idea for a GB Thursday!
Mine would be:
Georgette Heyer Romances & occasionally mysteries
Pratchett Discworlds minus Rincewinds
Bujold’s Sharing Knife Series &/or Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance
Anne Bishop’s Others Series, esp. Lake Silence
Sharon Shinn’s Twelve Houses series
I have a couple of others that are so familiar that I can’t re-read them very often, such as most of Diana Wynne Jones’ longer novels. I love the Rivers of London series, but prefer the early ones where Peter is learning and growing — the more senior he gets, the less interesting I find his own progression and the more I’m itching for him to grow deeper as well as getting higher on the Met police rolls.
I am going to have to try Anne Bishop again, because Shinn, Bujold, and Dianna Wynde Jones are favorites of mine.
Hmm, I think auto-correct changed Wynne to Wynde. That was not actually a deliberate connection when I chose my pen name, but I like it as a random connection. Still, accidental typo!
Try Written in Red. It’s an Urban Fantasy series, but with a clear set of differences between that fantasy world and our own, so there’s not a whole lot of details to drag through just to follow what’s going on. The good characters are either innocent/ignorant good (the MC) or cranky good (mainly the wolves) but the series is mostly about building community through both sets of people coming to better understand and appreciate one another. The underlying messages are mostly about prejudice, with an ongoing set of threads about the difficulties of leadership when you’re hemmed in by responsibility.
It’s also kind of relevant, in that there are good cops and both bent and overzealous cops, among both the humans and the Others, and they are struggling with their roles too.
I think you’d enjoy them.
That sounds interesting. Who’s the author? My library has several different books with that title.
Anne Bishop. Favorite reread of mine, just finished a reread of her Others series. (Written in Red is the first.)
I adore this series! I especially reread the first book, Written in Red. The last book is difficult for me to reread and I’m sad that their story ends in that book; of course, theirs is no longer the focus and excitement. Maybe she’ll come back to them later, if only for a little look.
I like Lake Silence, too, but haven’t managed to get into Wild Country yet. I think that’s me.
I got really engrossed in the first book until 3 quarters of the way through, I noticed the background human world seemed to be set up along incredibly sexist lines with no explanation or acknowledgement(despite having modern technology and a society that seemed to have a lot of the same trappings as modern American society).
All of the background human characters with any position of authority (e.g. law enforcement,council workers etc) were men and it started to really jolt me out of the reading so I dnf’d.
I skimmed one of the spin off books and found it similar in terms of world building so this series really didn’t work for me (a lot of people seem to love it so your mileage will likely vary).
I noticed it a lot too, but while it annoyed me, it kind of made sense because while there were technological progressive items, they weren’t on a par with us right now and the whole human society seemed stunted on a societal level. They are surviving in pockets of land and cities and don’t travel much between regions, let alone countries. I found it logical.
My 11 yr old son has been reading and re-reading The Martian for the last fortnight. Maybe something to do with the isolation and coming out of isolation at the end is resonant at the moment? We’ve watched the film twice too. The soundtrack features disco tracks prominently which is always welcome.
I keep reading gardening books. Sometimes books about people, but only if they guarantee a happy ending.
I love , love The Martian (the book, the movie, the audiobook) and I say that as a person who 1) doesn’t like a lot of science fiction 2) someone who doesn’t usually like “one man survives alone” stories (I find Robinson Crusoe, Castaway, etc fairly ho hum. I want banter, dang it.)
But!
I think Mark Watney faces his challenges not just with courage, but with an ability to laugh at himself and the situation and it makes him a very engaging protagonist.
And I find it very moving in the 2nd half when so many people pull together to rescue him.
Yes, The Martian is one I’ve read/listened to/watched a lot. Mark is another highly competent character so combined with the wry humour, it’s comforting.
It’s one of those movies that I’ll stop and watch if I’m cruising through the channels. I noticed it was about to start and challenged my DH to guess the movie. He saw the warning about adult content and got it spot on. (Really? adult content?) I liked to book too.
Anything by Jenny Crusie.
Murderbot by Martha Wells (I have loved all of her books, but am in a continuous re-read loop with Murderbot).
Anything by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.
Troubleshooters series by Suzanne Brockmann
FBI Profiler series by Lisa Gardner. (I like all of her book too, just don’t really re-read them)
the bloggesss asked for book quotes for her bookstore. I found:
“If you can’t be a good example, you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.” Jennifer Crusie
wasn’t me, I remember the sense of story and conversation, seldom actual quotes
my own reading is a bit random just now having lost my ereader, in the house, but somehow still lost. Someone bought me .epubs of murderbot diaries 3 days ago and I can’t find my ereader, argh.
though for me right now the quote that sang
“I crawled into my book and pulled the pages over my head…”
― Laurie R. King
I have been re-listening to The Beekeeper’s Apprentice now I think of it. Not sure far I’ll get into the series though, I think I borrowed them from the library.
I love that series. Some of the more recent Mary Russell books have been a bit patchy for me, but it’s still a series I go back to and re-read fairly regularly.
I’m a big rereader, so my list would be long. But during the pandemic/isolation:
Andrea K Host: everything, but especially the Stray series.
Ilona Andrews’ Innkeeper series. I like Hidden Legacy, too, but the Innkeeper are cozies in a way that the Hidden Legacy books are not quite, and their other series are definitely not.
Sharon Shinn, both the Troubled Waters series and the Twelve Houses, but with Twelve Houses I had to stop the complete rereads and just read the nice parts. None of the conflict, just the happy endings.
Penric (Lois McMaster Bujold). I thought I wanted to reread the Miles books, too, but I started and they weren’t gentle enough. I do love them, though, and they are definite lifelong rereads for me, as are everything else she’s written.
Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, the Liad books. A reread of those takes weeks, because there are a lot of books. And some of the older ones aren’t really standing up to time all that well and some of the newer ones are rather lacking in plot. But it’s a lovely world to drop into when I need to escape this one.
And definitely, definitely Murderbot.
Apparently my pandemic reading is all science fiction or fantasy, which is interesting. I actually do read mysteries, romances and non-genre fiction, too, but not right now!
My rereads are Jenny Cruise, Terry Pratchett, Connie Willis, Georgette Heyer, and Diana Wynne Jones.
Anything Jenny Crusie, Georgette Heyer, Julia Quinn, and now starting on Joanna Bourne Spymaster series.
I did read Marc Levy this week, just because I wanted something new to me, A Woman Like Her. It was very good.
Joanna Bourne’s Spymaster series is mesmerizing. I started at the wrong end, and could tell that some of the minor characters were strangely important to everyone, but it was fun to later be able to read earlier ones, one at a time, and discover why.
From the childhood pile:
– Secret Garden/A Little Princess
– Chronicles of Narnia
– E Nesbit/Edward Eager series
As a grownup:
– Georgette Heyer (though I haven’t read them all, so it’s combo of new read and reread)
– Nora Roberts trilogies/Early JD Robb Eve Dallas (the first 3 or 4)
– Red White and Royal Blue, though it went back to the library and I am now 122 in line for the next round. And even though some of the technical parts are flat out wrong. I just enjoy the romance and try not to think too hard about the rest.
– Liz Fielding
– Rivers of London (I re-listen to the entire series before each new book comes out. Kobna Holdbrook-Smith is an absolute TREASURE.)
(I just assume Crusies have a place on all of our reread lists. My top two are Charlie All Night and Bet Me.)
YES to your childhood favorites, especially Edward Eager. I love Bodecker’s illustrations.
Ditto to Edward Eager. They mirrored my inner life so much and were so much fun!
I like to reread which is why i have a large library. Also why i couldn’t possibly come up witb a top 5 list. But on the topic of rereads I will mention that last week I reread The Elfin Ship and The Disappearing Dwarf, both by James Blaylock. These are light fantasy tales that feel sort of like The Hobbit only more modern and steampunk and with submarines and pirates and enchanted paperweights and exotic cheeses and genial characters all in a delightfully charming whirl. I’d be interested if anyone else has read these and feels the same way.
A Civil Campaign, Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Gentleman Jole by Bujold
Just finished a reread of Ilona Andrew’s Kate Daniels and Hidden Legacy series
Any Liaden Universe book by Lee and Miller
Jo Bourne’s books especially The Black Hawk.
Rivers of London also but on audio, because Kobna Holbrooke Smith
Crusie books on audio as well. Fast Women got me through my divorce.
Fated Mates podcast recently did a deep dive into Bet Me. That was fun!
So many favourites already listed.
Tamora Pierce (Circle of Magic)
Patricia Wrede (Dragon Series)
JD Robb (In Death series)
Janet Evanovich (Stephanie Plum Series)
Early Donna Andrews
Five is far too mean. Of my print books:
Mary Balogh’s Slightly and Simply series (especially Slightly Dangerous)
Jo Beverley’s Malloren and Rogues series (except the late ones in both)
Loretta Chase
Jenny Crusie
Georgette Heyer’s Regencies
Jayne Ann Krentz from her golden period in the nineties (all psuedonyms), especially Grand Passion and Deep Waters
Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody series, except the early melodramas after The Crocodile on the Sandbank
Most of Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Nora Roberts’ Born In trilogy and Chesapeake Bay trilogy, plus some of her standalones
Then ebooks: especially K. J. Charles, A. J. Demas, Alexis Hall, Courtney Milan
I started lockdown (in the UK) on Heyer, have worked through all Crusie & Lani Diane Rich (inc Lucy March ones), am currently on Pratchett (Light Fantastic) & would really love to move on to Dorothy Gilman Mrs Pollifax series (throwback to childhood) but can’t find them for my kindle in the UK! Amazes me how similar tastes are across borders 😀
I love the Mrs. Pollifax books! I haven’t read them in years but I do still have some in storage. I think. It’s been a while.
Crusie, Pratchett, Heyer, Austen, Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters, Bujold McMaster, Aaronovitch, and now the Weller Murderbot series.
This year I’ve been re-reading the Kate Daniels series, 1 a month and just enjoying them to bits. Can’t believe so much time has passed since the initial reads.
Standing fave re-reads:
Samantha Wayland’s hockey romances. The pairings and the found family just works for me again and again.
Stella Riley’s Georgian novels
Nero Wolfe series. Give me snappy patter any day. I want that to be my stage name.
Loretta Chase or Joan Wolf trad regencies. The MCs are always equals in some way.
And, I re-read Adams’ Watership Down and Beth Gutcheon’s The New Girls annually. Very different books but very pivotal in my earlier years – read ’em young – and kept reading them.
Five? Ha! Actually, I wrote a list to see what I remembered of faves and then selected a subset. There’s stuff I don’t remember because almost all of my books are STILL in storage in Oregon. (Someday, I will be able to support myself enough to have my own place and be able to move all my storage to wherever I am living. It will be like a hundred Christmases at once!)
* Agnes & the Hitman, Crusie & Mayer
* Many Crusies
* Mrs. Pollifax series, Dorothy Gilliam
* All Night Long, Jayne Ann Krentz (all-time favorite favorite hero; I want my own Luke)
* The Changeling Sea, Patricia McKillip
* The Forgettable Miss French, Kristen Painter
* Putting the Fun in Funereal, Diana Pharaoh Francis (first in a new series, I can’t wait for the next one, and I have no idea when it will be because she wrote another first that I also love but she still keeps writing for her other series. Makes me nuts!)
* Mairleon the Magician, Patricia C. Wrede
* The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
* Ilona Andrews, almost everything
* Julie Garwood, Buchanan/Regard/MacKenna series
Putting the Fun in Funeral was fantastic. I like almost everything Diana
Pharaoh Francis writes, but that was both quite a surprise and utterly fabulous. I really really hope she writes a sequel, and soon.
While I was floating on a reader’s high from that book, I ran across the Witchkin Murders, another awesome book. Yet another sequel to wait for.
My most frequent rereads:
Murderbot (all) (I have preordered the 4 novellas in a single volume!)
Goblin Emperor (haven’t started Addison’s second book yet that came out just this week)
Jennifer Crusie (Manhunting and Bet Me are my comfort rereads)
Patricia Briggs (especially the Anna and Charles series)
Ilona Andrews (both Kate Daniels and Nevada etc series)
Robin McKinley (especially Blue Sword and Sunshine)
And also depending on mood: Joanna Bourne, Jill Shalvis, Grace Burrows, Jo Beverley, Stephanie Laurens, Miller & Lee, Dorothy Sayers and Dorothy Dunnett.
A comfort reread needs to be reliable, with a satisfying ending that gives hope. I need to intersperse new books amid rereads because things are off-kilter enough already and I crave reliable.
Anything by Crusie, Pratchett, Bujold, Heyer. Joanna Bourne.
The Goblin Emperor
the Queens thief series
Then a notch below but still obsessively rereadable
Diana Wynne Jones
Balogh because I really feel like the day to day details are right
Joan Wolf
Mary Jo Putney
I also have some that I loved reading but can’t reread. Time Travelers Wife, the books by Laura London (husband and wife duo), and Laura Kinsale are all in that group
Rereads?
Crusie. Anything.
Wen Spencer. Elf home series.
Anne Bishop. Others series. (I love her Black Jewels series, but it’s too dark for now.)
John Sandford. Any of the Virgil Flowers books.
And now, for some reason, I’ve been thinking about Dorothy Dunnett. I may have to dig through and find my Francis books.
Kudos to those who mentioned Nero Wolfe, now I want to reread those!
Oh, and since I’ve lost the story arc, I’m going to reread several of the Jim Butcher Dresden chronicles, since Butcher is finally releasing a new one in one month (after a five year hiatus?) (Yes, his life got in the way – divorce, depression, move avross state.)
Moira and Caryn….Dunnett! Have either of you, or anyone, read the Niccolo series? Through diligent pursuit at library sales I finally got them all but have not read them…maybe 2021. If read, what do you think? Better than or different than the Lymond Chronicles?
I’ve read both Niccolo and Lymond series, and love them both. I don’t think I have a preference – just different, in that Niccolo is a young man in the process of figuring out who he is, while Lymond seems pretty much already there.
I don’t reread very much anymore, relatively speaking. Rereading used to be limited to when I ran out of new stuff, which I don’t really since the advent of eBooks, and the iPad. I would comment about how I read a *lot*, but this is one place that that does not make me unusual at all 🙂
So I’m going to limit myself to books that I already own but have bought again eBook form just so I could reread them without digging them out of the piles of books in my library. Also my eyes are going and I really struggle with the print in a paperback book nowadays.
All of Terry Pratchett.
Cost about $300 a couple of years ago, but well worth it. That was to rebuy the ones I had in paper only.
All of Jenny Crusie.
After I read a used copy of Fast Women I hunted down everything I could find via used bookstores and the internet enabled used bookstores, and then rebought everything I could find as an eBook a couple of years ago.
Many Dick Francis novels.
Not all of them, just the ones I keep rereading, Banker, Proof, Hot Money, a few others.
Lois McMaster Bujold.
The Vorkosiverse books, The Sharing Knife, The Curse of Chalion books. Penric I already have as eBooks of course.
Dorothy Gilman
A Nun in the Closet and The Clairvoyant Countess. I don’t feel that Mrs. Pollifax has aged that well, but these definitely have.
Doranna Durgin
Dun Lady’s Jess and sequels.
Caroline Stevermer
A College of Magics and A Scholar of Magics
Patricia Briggs
Dragon Bones and Dragon Blood.
C.J. Cherryh
The Paladin
Parnell Hall
The Steve Winslow mysteries
Lois Duncan
A Gift of Magic. I’m not sure this counts since I couldn’t find my paper copy and had to rebuy it if I wanted to reread it it.
P.G. Wodehouse
All the out of copyright stuff from Project Gutenberg. Yes, I already have them all in paper after a they got reissued in the 90’s and early oughts. And since the earliest P.G. Wodehouse is the best I’m sure I would have rebought them, but they were free.
Things I’m considering rebuying as eBooks but haven’t yet:
Tanya Huff
Susan McBride
Her debutante dropout mysteries, which I really enjoyed.
Lisa Lutz
The Spellman Files. I will almost certainly rebuy the first few in the series soon, as I’ve already reread the ones I only have in paper a couple of times.
Nancy Martin
The early Blackbird Sisters mytsteries. I have the later ones, and short stories as eBooks already
Things I bought originally as eBooks and have already reread:
Elliot James
Pax Arcana series (Urban Fantasy)
Merline Lovelace
The Samantha Spade mysteries (these are hilarious and I want her to write more!)
I think there may be TWO new Butchers coming out this year?
Crusie (currently rereading Fast Women – the scene in the restaurant where Nell realizes she slept with everyone at the table except Whitney is just sheer happiness for me)
Tamora Pierce
Lois McMasters Bujold, mostly the Vorkosigan (especially A Civil Campaign)
In Death series
David Eddings
Shelly Laurentson (because they make me laugh)
Susan Anderson
Catch 22
To Kill a Mockingbird
Linda Howard, especially To Die For & Drop Dead Gorgeous
Nalini Singh – everything
Patricia Briggs
Georgette Heyer
Jane Eyre
Frances Hodgsen Burnett
Louisa May Alcott
LM Montgomery
Donna Andrews
Wen Spencer
David Weber
Mercedes Lackey
Can you tell I reread a lot?
Ah, this is so hard, but very fun.
Crusie for sure. I own more of your books on audio than any other author
Ilona Andrews, Innkeeper and Hidden Legacy especially
The Amaranthine saga by Forthright. So gently magical and lovely
Patricia Briggs when the mood strikes, but sometimes she is too dark for me.
Sarah Addison Allen, also gently magical and lovely.
Meljean Brook/Milla Vane (Kraken King is fantastic)
Murderbot
Mary Stewart
Honestly I could go on for a long time. I love so many and you all hit a lot of my favorites.
I am in the middle of a Pretty Face by Lucy Parker (recommended here) and it’s my favorite yet. A really nice dynamic between the protagonists.
And I am so excited for Katherine Addison’s new book! Can’t wait.
So many of my favorites in the above comments. So here are my own, in no particular order, although it’s hard to stick to the top five. I think I’ll go with the top seven:
1. Georgette Heyer’s romances
2. Bujold – too many books to list here, but mostly later Vorkosigan novels starting with Komarr + Penric series
3. Patricia Briggs’s Alpha and Omega series
4. Anne Bishop’s The Others series
5. Wen Spencer – almost anything
6. Sharon Shinn – many, various
7. Julia Quinn – almost anything
At the moment, I’m on a binge re-read of Anne Gracie’s regency romances. Love them.
My rereads since WFH started:
The Power of Zero series by Jackie Keswick
Jenn Bennett’s YA books
Kelly Hunter books (favorites – The One That Got Away and Wife for a Week). She is excellent at banter
Martha Wells Raksura series
Sarina Bowen is a good comfort read with some substance and she has a free book at the moment!
A lot of my favourites have been included already so here are some more of my top relistens/rereads
1) Kerry Greenwood’s Corina Chapman series (there’s something very soothing about the descriptions of baking and fellow apartment dwellers)
2) Margaret Mahy…anything by her but especially The Changeover (formative early teen book)
3) Martha Wells’ Fall of Ille Rien (her gift for grumpy pop culture obsessed main characters who will grudgingly save lives while complaining bitterly doesn’t start with Murderbot)
4)Drew Hayes books (the editing could do to be better but for some reason I find his books incredibly soothing).
5)John Scalzi’s Lock In series (although since it features the aftermath of a world-changing global pandemic, it may no be everyone’s cup of tea right now)
Andrea K. Höst, all her books, but especially Medair, THE SILENCE OF MEDAIR and VOICE OF THE LOST. I wish they were still a single manuscript rather than broken into two volumes, but I am always lost in admiration at the foreshadowing.
Kerry Greenwood, the Corinna Chapman series EARTHLY DELIGHTS,
HEAVENLY PLEASURES, DEVIL’S FOOD, TRICK OR TREAT, FORBIDDEN FRUIT, COOKING THE BOOKS, THE SPOTTED DOG, she’s beginning the next installment. I also love the Phryne Fisher series: DEATH IN DAYLESFORD has just had the corrected proofs sent in. Also, FYI, the DVD of MISS FISHER AND THE CRYPT OF TEARS is available for preorder at Amazon, release date June 30; https://www.amazon.com/Fisher-Crypt-Tears-Essie-Davis/dp/B085DR9HPH/
Elizabeth Peters Amelia Peabody, especially the Quartet: SEEING A LARGE CAT,
THE APE WHO GUARDS THE BALANCE, THE FALCON AT THE PORTAL, HE SHALL THUNDER IN THE SKY. They were planned as a package, so there’s a multi-book arc and some really adept foreshadowing. I like good foreshadowing.
Helen Hooven Santmeyer, . . . AND, LADIES OF THE CLUB, which I find a complete page-turner. My grandmother read this when it was first published and said that it really caught the sense and flavor of the America of her mother’s (1863-1942) generation.
Lois McMaster Bujold, THE CURSE OF CHALION, PALADIN OF SOULS, THE HALLOWED HUNT, Penric. Also the Vorkosigan series, though I gravitate away from Miles-having-youthful-adventures books and tend to reread from KOMARR forward.
A THOUSAND WAYS TO PLEASE A HUSBAND and its sequels, A THOUSAND WAYS TO PLEASE A FAMILY and WHEN SUE BEGAN TO COOK. It was such a different universe.
So nice to see everyone’s lists! Here’s mine:
The Goblin Emperor
All of Lois Bujold’s books
Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice trilogy
Everything by Diana Wynne Jones, but especially The Power of Three
Barbara Hambly’s Sun Wolf and Starhawk trilogy
Patricia Briggs’ older fantasies, particularly The Hob’s Bargain
Elizabeth Moon
TJ Kingfisher
Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series
Robin McKinley, especially The Blue Sword, Sunshine, and The Hero and the Crown.
All of Jenny Crusie
Ann Leckie +++
Courtney Milan
Jennifer Crusie (obvs)
Laura Florand
Sonali Dev’s “A Bollywood Affair”
Lucy Parker
I would be rereading Helen Hoang but SOMEBODY hasn’t returned them. (I kid. My best friend is a nurse during a pandemic, so she can borrow all the romances she wants)
As a kid Robin McKinley was my favorite reread, especially Spindles End. Also Tamora Pierce and Narnia. I love a smart heroine I can root for + a world I want to visit.
Ooooh I just realised that no-one has mentioned Becky Chamber’s Long Way to a Small Angry Planet which is about a crew on a years long voyage, I found all the characters endearing even the terminally unpleasant Algaeist. It’s a musing on war and strife and relationships but I find it very soothing.
I definitely liked that, plus its two sequels. Didn’t care for her recent one, which is more like a lecture on the value of space science.
Sorry – I can’t come out and play, I’m too busy re-reading ‘Network Effect’. I only have the ebook loan for 21 days so am getting all I can out if it.
It is so, so good.
Yup – I’m tempted to buy it, but I have a limited budget, so the Free Library of Philadelphia saves the day.
I love to reread but what spooks me is how many of my most reread books are mentioned here!
Lois Mcmaster Bujold (especially memory, komarr, a civil campaign and Captain’s Vorpatril alliance + my favourite :Paladin of Souls)
Georgette Heyer (everything really)
KJ Charles (new favourite: Think of England)
Patricia Briggs (Alpha and Omega series especially)
Meljean Brook (the iron duke used to be my favourite but now it’s the Kraken king too!)
But also
Taylor Fitzpatrick’s thrown of the ice (I cry every time at the end, can’t help it)
Thea Harrison (Elder races series, addictive like popcorn)
Trisha Ashley (it’s the endless baking, especially twelve days of christmas, sowing secrets and a winter’s tale but usually I just end up reading all of them one after the other…)
And many many more… I like to reread!
I can’t possibly reduce my favorite rereads to five series, or ten, or twenty! If I don’t reread a book it has seriously disappointed me in some way, even if I liked it. (For example, I first read Jane Eyre when I was ten. By the time I was fifteen I had read it twenty times, after which I lost count.)
I have just finished Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee, whose Hexarchate trilogy is definitely a reread. Phoenix is clearly the first of a series, although it has a satisfying ending, and will be reread soon.
And someone recently mentioned Elizabeth Moon’s Remnant Population so I had to reread it—for the second time this year.
Top 5 annual rereads:
The School of Essential Ingredients and the Lost Art of Mixing by Erica Bauermeister
The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
(And Bet Me by you and Match Me if You Can by SEP, but I assume readers might be looking for possible new recommendations)
I go for authors, and I’ve been rereading a lot of Pratchett, Martha Wells and Hilary McKay. McKay is YA and even slightly younger but they speak to me in says I cannot quite articulate. And thank goodness Pratchett and Wells have a bunch of books out, so I can wander at will in someone else’s head.
I’m still “setting up” the new confuser, and having problems. I added a 1 Tb HDD/SSD, and it isn’t working. Also, it killed my WiFi.
No matter. First I installed Mobipocket Reader, which I like to think is superior to the Kindle reader. (Amazon bought Mobipocket to get their format for books and their inventory.) Mobi will read any .mobi or .prc files, but not the proprietary Kindle files. After I installed it, I set about transferring all my .mobi and .prc files to that library. Naturally this facilitated re-reads. At the moment, the Wearing the Cape series is open in Mobi.
Since I installed Mobi Reader, I also installed Mobi Creator. Nothing there yet.
But I also installed Calibre, so I can convert some of those proprietary Kindle files back to the Mobi from which they originated. Then I imported files from my Kindle. On that Kindle, I’m re-reading Al Steiner.
I’m also re-reading Elizabeth Moon (hi, Mary Anne in Kentucky!)
I found myself re-reading Bujold, specifically Penric and Warrior’s Apprentice.
Once upon a time, I’d have read any Heinlein I could get my hands on. Last week it was The Menace From Earth, the story where Heinlein slipped a romance past a 13 year old boy by staging it on the moon.
Other recent re-reads would include Patricia C. Wrede, Paula Goodlett, and Gorg Huff. I’m sure there were others.
Had to get a new monitor. The old one had built in speakers (very, old). Now I need speakers. Actually, it’s time for a whole new system. Argh.
Magician’s Ward (Patricia C. Wrede)
Cover of Night (Linda Howard)
Lord of Scoundrels (Loretta Chase)
Howl’s Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones)
Anne of the Island (L.M. Montgomery)