Ask HN: Which books have you read more than once? For those into reading books, I think it is common practice to pick a new interesting book most of the time. However I want to know if there are books you found so valuable, you went back to it multiple times. Which book(s) was it, and how many times did you read it? What compelled you to reread it? |
The Hitchhiker
The Idiot
The Wealth of Nations
and sadly Concrete Mathematics... not because it is a bad book but because I suck at math.
and
The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development
Even rereading the same chapter sometimes makes me discover something a wasn't aware of when reading the text before.
I'm not kidding either. Best book ever.
Harry Potter - JK Rowling (re-read it all when the last book came out)
- The Lord of the Rings
- Siddhartha
- Chaos: Making a New Science
- The Death Gate cycle books
- Neuromancer
- Head First Design Patterns
- Valis
- Dune
- The name of the rose
I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones off the top of my head.
"Principles" - Ray Dalio.
"On the shortness of life" - Seneca.
Non-fiction: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
Read it every year from 3rd grade to 8th.
Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
The Hobbit - Tolkien
Skunk Works
Intelligent Investor
Man Who Was Thursday
For me:
Lonesome Dove
100 Years of Solitude
Catch-22
The Sellout (very relevant again)
East of Eden
Kafka on the Shore (and all the stories in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman)
"The abolition of man" by "C.S. Lewis" 3 times.
"The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times" by René Guénon. 3 times, and planning to set a weekend for another re-read soon.
I'm now taking a second pass through Unsong [1], simply because I enjoyed the first read so much.
Harry Potter (comfort series)
Charlie Wilson’s War (it’s hilarious and informative),
Game Change (a sobering reminder of the 2008 election and how we got to today),
Lincoln’s Melancholy (on his depression).
I’ve read lots of books twice, but the above are the only I can find in my library I’ve read 3 or more times. Outside of Harry Potter, I view the figures in those books most responsible for turning points in our nations history.
I read most of the tomes a few times and some parts as well.
I do not like everything but the overall atmosphere (especially in the first few books) is amazing.
_timshel_
I'm looking to read Asimov's Foundation series again. Maybe spend more time with Hyperion.
The excellent series on Lyndon Johnson by the same author as The Power Broker
The Three Body Problem series
In the ongoing protests etc. I’ve realised how much the stories about Vimes have shaped my ideas of what a policeman should be.
The Dog Stars held up well on my second reading. Neuromancer did not.
The Cat In The Hat - 200 times
The Very Hungry Caterpillar - 85 times
But seriously, im on my third re-read of Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, In my opinion its the best book about leadership ever written.
For slightly older children, try "The Bravest Ever Bear".
These guys had the benefit of being leaders in an organization that is set up to rapidly show you the door if you under-perform. Furthermore, everyone that's on a SEAL team desperately wants to be there. To some extent, extreme ownership falls apart in a regular, non-combat focused military unit and also in many civilian organizations.
If you're a Soldier, the military's authority is an illusion. Don't assume that my next statement means that punishment is my first tool for attempting to remedy under-performance, but at some point with some people it becomes necessary. In those extreme cases, even that's not effective because of the way the military operates. Half of the punishments for being lazy/ineffective at your job only work if you voluntarily participate in being a part of the military. Examples: exercise as punishment only works when people choose to exercise. Putting people on punitive details like picking cigarettes up and raking lines in sand for 12 hours a day only work if the people voluntarily do the work. Some people don't show up at all and some only show up to laugh in your face and tell you to go fuck yourself in front of your superiors.
Even the punishments that don't require participation still do require voluntary participation in a way. In the military if you give someone nonjudicial punishment, typically they lose half of their pay for a month or so, and in extreme cases they'll get permanently demoted in addition to that. So you take their money away. However, for the kind of people that aren't doing their job and don't intend to, that doesn't really matter much. You are giving them 3 meals a day and a place to stay. You don't have the power to take that away from them without kicking them out of the military, which in a regular unit often takes well over a year and always requires leadership support, which may not exist given the fact that most units are operating with less people than they need.
It may be hard to see where I'm going, but my point is this. There are people in the military that don't intend to do their jobs. All of us have run into the same type of people in a civilian workplace. You can't inspire them because they don't want to be inspired. You can't lead them to do what they are supposed to do because not doing it is the only control they feel they have over their lives. The only viable option for some people is to remove them or ignore them and spend your precious time on the people that are getting the mission accomplished. In many cases, the latter is your only option.
I'm no Jocko Willink or Leif Babin in terms of being a Soldier or a leader. However, I spent almost 2 decades in the military and helped numerous Soldiers go from under-performing to be very successful. I learned that in some cases, usually when someone regrets joining the military, that you just have to move on. Sometimes, in spite of what extreme ownership claims, things really aren't your fault. As a leader, most things are your fault though, so I do agree with the overall message even if extreme ownership isn't a magic bullet.
Similar people exist in a civilian context.
Hopefully people won't read the above and assume that I avoid responsibility for my mistakes. On the contrary, I was known in the military and in my civilian job as a person that was honest and forthcoming almost to a fault.
Your points on the lessons he mention are very valid. The particular part of the book that matched your description of "this might not work for non SEALs" was when Jocko described how he took full responsibility for a near friendly fire incident. He goes on to say that he earned a lot of respect for being the type of leader that would take accountability. He points out, IIRC, that this respect was gained from both the enlisted men and the officers.
I remember reading that passage and thinking "I've been in plenty of orgs where if someone did that, sure, the 'enlisted' aka line employees might respect that but the 'officers' aka middle managers would immediately think: 'Ah ha! Here is some noble minded fool we can dump our problems on!' "
I'm exaggerating somewhat but only to reinforce the point that I think the book is excellent and agree with you that the lessons taught don't ALWAYS apply.
Maybe I missed something big, but that's just the way it felt to me.
add Gruffalo, Room on the broom and Snail and the wale for me
Do you try to find the mouse on every page in goodnight moon?
All of Kafka's novels, but especially "The Castle".
Several of PKD's novels: "The Man in the High Castle", "Through a Scanner Darkly", "Ubiq"
"The Silmarillion" (when I was a young adult)
Douglas Adams' "Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency" (when I was a teenager)
It's like Kafka said. If you try to make a river too large, it will overflow and you'll end up with mud. There's a certain size at which a river is just right, and any more just detracts from it.
I listen to or read Snow Crash at least once a year. I just enjoy most everything about it. Anathem required a couple listens, and a third listen was just for comfort food.
The Altered Carbon trilogy has depth and sublime world-building that I have now enjoyed at least a half dozen times.
I second mentions of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (and will mention The Long, Dark Tea Time of the Soul as well).
Ender’s Game is also comfort food for me.
Breaking from the speculative fiction reco’s above... The Power of Vulnerability (Brené Brown) is more lecture series than audiobook, but as for non fiction I’ve recently given multiple listens to, that tops the list.
I borrowed “Landline” from the local library, read it twice and then bought it so I could continue to read it when I want to. I think I was in just the right age group and life situation for this novel to hit home for me. Your mileage may vary, but IMO read it without knowing anything about it in advance if you’re going to read it. That means don’t read the back cover etc.
(Blind borrowing of books from the library is fun and can be eye opening, try it sometime! Most places, you can borrow eBooks and even digital audiobooks without even leaving your home as long as you have a library card.)
A fellow traveler in a Guatemalan hostel broke it down to me like this: - let's say as an avid reader, you're able to read 12 books a year. - let's say you have 50 years of reading left in you, that means you have 600 books left to read in your lifetime
That back-of-the-napkin-math put things into perspective for me. So many great books to read, so little time. It's also for that reason that I have no qualms about putting a book down that I'm not into.
But sure, everyone is different and does things their own way. If it works for you, that’s great!
(Totally agree with putting down a book that isn’t working for you. You have no obligation, in most cases, to any book. It can be freeing to realize this if it’s not something that’s already obvious!)
Several that come to mind are
Heart of Darkness
Moby Dick
Robinson Crusoe
Pretty much any Chekhov story
Cathedral by Raymond Carver
Another book I've read many times is Eco's Foucault's Pendulum.
I've read Asimov's cycle of Foundation many times. Don't know how many, actually.
I've also read several times some philosophy classics, particularly Plato's Symposium, Phaedrus, Apology and Republic.
Then there are many books that I've read at least twice, almost all considered classics (from 1984 to LoTR, Great expectations to Tom Sawyer, Crime and punishment to Twenty thousand leagues under the sea, etc).
Probably the finest work of fiction ever written, and my favorite book of all time. You kind of have to read it twice, the end completely changes the interpretation of the entire rest of the book. It's great.
Avoid spoilers, and also avoid the TV versions - not even the same story, and quite disappointing. The audiobook version, read by Douglas Adams himself, is sublime.
The 2 1/2 Dirk Gently books are Adams' finest in my opinion. HHGTTG is fun, but it doesn't hold together as a cohesive narrative in the same way. It's such a shame that we'll never know how the third book would have resolved.
Mark Twain's "Life on the Mississippi" and "Roughing It" as well as many short stories, esp. "My Watch", "Political Economy", "Journalism in Tennessee"
Also short stories from others: J.S. Perelman's "Strictly From Hunger", Alex Atkinson's "The Eyes of Texas are Upon You"
The content of a book isn't static. The content is a collaboration between the words on the page and the churning and whirring in the reader's head which isn't just churning and whirring because of the book and so varies from moment to moment and varies a lot from decade to decade.
Which is why children want to hear the same story every night and why young readers often read Harry Potter several times rather than always seeking novelty in new books. Which was how I was as an early reader of science fiction.
Then for several decades I sought the novelty of new books mostly. Largely because that's how I thought of myself as an adult reader...and then one day I read The Hobbit for the umpteenth time, but the first time since I was a child and out loud because my child was a child. It reads aloud very well and that inspired me to start rereading LoTR (for the O(n * umpteen)th time and it's the literary equivalent of a 200 slide slide deck...but I digress.
The big thing is rereading is not reading the same book because of how much I've changed. I'm a much more experienced reader. Even excluding children's books I've probably read close to a hundred books through more than once.
I read Blood Meridian cover to cover and then immediately reread the whole thing on two separate occasions about twenty years apart.
All four times it was different.
To me that's a good proxy for importance.
DO IT!: Scenarios of the Revolution, by Jerry Rubin.
The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking A Spy Through The Maze Of Computer Espionage, by Cliff Stoll.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.
Logicomix, by Apóstolos K. Doxiàdis and Christos Papadimitriou.
Other books that I strongly recommend can be found here (some of them are in French): https://pablo.rauzy.name/miscellaneous.html#books
Update: Pirates de tous les pays, by Marcus Rediker is a translation of Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age which you can thus read in English :). It really is an awesome read! After I finished it I immidiately ordered 5 more copies to give them to friends.
1. The Mysterious Island - Jules Verne - read 6 or 7 times if not more, dating back to when I was in about 6th grade
2. False Memory - Dean Koontz - read probably 4 or 5 times
3. Neuromancer - William Gibson - read 3 or 4 times, at least
4. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell - read at least twice
5. The Four Steps to the Epiphany - Steve Blank - read 2 or 3 times, skimmed parts many other times
6. Mastering The Complex Sale - Jeff Thull - read 2 or 3 times
7. Crossing the Chasm - Geoffrey Moore - read 2 or 3 times
8. Wellsprings of Knowledge - Dorothy Leonard-Barton - read 2 or 3 times
9. Common Knowledge - Nancy Dixon - read 2 or 3 times
10. Winning the Knowledge Transfer Race - Michael English & William Baker - read 2 or 3 times
Firstly, they're good books and are enjoyable to read a second time round.
Secondly, Rothfuss has laid down plot points like a Go player places stones. The second time reading through will join together disparate pieces of information that you wouldn't have connected together before, starting from very large revelations in the second reading of the first few chapters.
I know of other books that are so rich that you can appreciate new details on multiple readings, but none that re-contextualise the whole story with revelations hidden in plain sight.
Readings: (Name of the wind - 4 times, Wise Man's Fear 5 or 6 times - I like this one more for some reason).
- "Be Here Now" by Ram Dass (read once and listened to audiobook twice)
- Flatland by Edwin Abbot Abbot --> read multiple times to understand whats going on in different levels
- Some PG Wodehouse stuff because it ages well (specifically the bibilical references)
- Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie which is absolute verbal wizardry
- Treasure Island by RLS which is a kids favorite for adventurism
Finite and Infinite Games, by James P. Carse is another philosophical favourite when it comes to getting something new each read through.
Book of Mirdad, which is like a modern take on the Abramelin, don’t recall the author’s name, but it’s very much into the symbolic/mystic/esoteric ways and very revealing to that side without explicitly stating any “secrets”
First Law trilogy, by Abercrombie. This is what Gritty Fantasy should read like. It’s got scenes in them that I want to reread the books just to get to. Really hope these would be made into a series or films, as the cinematography in them is already perfect. Without spoiling the first book as it’s revealed early on; Logan Ninefingers is essentially a Barbarian, but throughout you get the feeling he’s deeply afraid of that side. (If you’ve watched how Mike Tyson talked about his fear of that side in him on his podcast, this is essentially it...)
There’s been other books as well, but these are the biggest reread-able ones for me.
it's covertly a book about statistical reasoning, but with no dry statistical language, subversive in a way. we need more statistical reasoning in the world, particularly around risk assessment, to subdue fear and panic.
edit: as for fiction,
james clavell's asian saga[0] series is entertaining historical fiction, which i've read twice.
pat conroy's southern portraits, particularly the lords of discipline and the prince of tides, both wrenching, haunting, and beautiful.
also in the historical/cultural fiction realm: anna karenina, crime and punishment, a tale of two cities, les miserables.
Every single time I've reread either I've found some part of the book that resonates precisely with a situation I'm going through in my life. Even parts I thought didn't apply to me at the time, upon rereading struck a chord.
For example, when I was younger, I identified with Ender but as I've gotten older, I identify more with the adults in the book. Especially now that I have children.
On a side note, the 25th anniversary edition has an introduction that has some gems all of it's own. Notably, there is a line where Card mentions something along the lines of: when I was a child, I never thought of myself as being less of a person than an adult. I just thought of myself as a smaller adult person.
That has always stayed with me since I read it and have always tried to apply that mental model of childhood to any interaction I have with children. It has been particularly impactful now that I have my own children.
Book of Mormon
The Stormlight Archive series (Way of Kings, Words of Radience, Oathbringer) - Brandon Sanderson, I've heard it compared to the Kingkiller Chronicles in terms of depth, intricacies and overall masterfully executed plot but Sanderson is also one of the best authors at making characters real and captivating that I've ever met.
Mistborn Series (The Final Empire, Well of Ascension, Hero of Ages) by the same author as The Stormlight Archives and for the same reasons.
The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis, even if you aren't religious it has helped me see so much clearly the tactics and obstacles that prevent me from being the person I want to be.
I've read quite a few more books more often but these are the books that I have reread multiple times because they have changed who I am and helped me recognize that each time I fall I can rise again a better man.
On the business side I read Deming’s Out of the Crisis several times. The ideas are profound but the writing is mediocre so it took a few times for it to stick.
I need to go back to it. Unfortunately my much loved copy (with highlights and underlines) was given to a family member so now I am left with my Kindle version.
I've also listened to the millennium version twice.
"Neuromancer" and sequels by William Gibson
"Slaughterhouse 5" by Kurt Vonnegut
I've read all of them dozens of times over. Hard to explain why, they speak my language, and help me understand myself and the world around me, kind of like my favorite bands do. Hard to put into words.
I don't want a full universe explaining every point; just a compelling story to drive the Man in the High Castle.