Books that take more than one read to enjoy

Neuromancer and Dune are two books that need to be reread to enhance the reader's enjoyment, although they are enjoyable first time. I think your initial impressions of a book will stick regardless, and although some are enhanced upon rereading I doubt it will make you like a book you disliked before.
 
Terry Pratchett Wyrd Sisters

Seriously, the amount of foreshadowing is phenomenal :awesome

Sweet irony...And sweet, sweet humour.
 
The Odyssey
The Iliad
The Aeneid
Metamorphoses
Plato's "Apology," "Symposium," or "Republic"
Paradise Lost
The vast majority of Shakespeare
Divine Comedy
Moby-Dick

These are all absolutely inexhaustible. Not only do they require more than one reading, but they will sustain as many readings as you're willing to give them.
 
Mine was The Owl's Service by Alan Garner.

It was confusing at first; everything moved so fast and suddenly it ended. With that said, I enjoyed it, and was curious enough to make sense of it with trying for a second round. It definitely wasn't a waste of time and I appreciated the story more.

It centers around two boys, a girl, and a recurring Welsh myth from generation to generation.
 
grendel, a clockwork orange

both have a lot of little details that are fascinating but also overall big themes that are subtle and also entertaining dialogues and actions that tend to be dominant on first read
 
AmatorPlatonisCatullique said:
The Odyssey
The Iliad
The Aeneid
Metamorphoses
Plato's "Apology," "Symposium," or "Republic"
Paradise Lost
The vast majority of Shakespeare
Divine Comedy
Moby-Dick

These are all absolutely inexhaustible. Not only do they require more than one reading, but they will sustain as many readings as you're willing to give them.
Click to expand...

Good list, there. Another one is A Tale of Two Cities, and then all of J.R.R. Tolkien's books deserve to be reread.
 
well, I agree with Alia that long books should be reread.

A lot of books in Epic fantasy are big and probably get better when reread. I am rereading a book called Memories of Ice from the series called "A Tale of the Malazan book of the Fallen" ^_^
 
AmatorPlatonisCatullique said:
The Odyssey
The Iliad
The Aeneid
Metamorphoses
Plato's "Apology," "Symposium," or "Republic"
Paradise Lost
The vast majority of Shakespeare
Divine Comedy
Moby-Dick

These are all absolutely inexhaustible. Not only do they require more than one reading, but they will sustain as many readings as you're willing to give them.
Click to expand...
Quoted for truth, I read most of them more than once. I'll have to add.

Aristotle - The Politics
Karl Marx - Kapital
Che Guevara - Guerilla Warfare
Paul Hawkins - Ecology of Commerce
Cornelius Agrippa - Three Books of Occult Philosophy
 
AbnormallyNormal said:
grendel, a clockwork orange

both have a lot of little details that are fascinating but also overall big themes that are subtle and also entertaining dialogues and actions that tend to be dominant on first read
Click to expand...

Definitely with you on Grendel. It's so full of references and subtle hints I reread it ten times already and am still looking for more things that I undoubtably missed.
 
Although this may sound strange, the Discworld series. With great characters, funny writing and brilliant plots its easy to miss the themes ideas and references crammed in there. Pratchett isn't recognised enough for how sophisticated a writer he actually is.
 
Chief among the books I've read that I truly didn't enjoy until the second time was The Lord of Rings, but I don't know if it had as much to do with where I was in my life the first time I read it, or if it was just the aftertaste of that cheezy animated version I was subjected to as a kid. All I know is that after watching The Fellowship in theaters, I re-read the whole trilogy a second time, and found a lot more depth and excitement in it than I did the first time.

It was the same way with WoT. The first time I tried to read The Eye of the World, I just couldn't get past the first chapter. I tried again a few years later, and once I got past the first chapter, I was hooked, and spent an entire year reading the rest of the series, all the way up to Winter's Heart (which was the most current volume at the time).

Who knows? Maybe someday I should go back to other books I "just couldn't get into" at the time, or ones I never finished reading, like Desperation or Dune.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom