Books That I Reread and Reread and Reread

July 11, 2026

Cool set-up, but this is a German science library, so I probably won’t be reading or rereading any of these books.

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This is a great time to reread books that I have enjoyed in the past. Because I’m getting older (as in… ahem… ‘older’… the type of older where people pause a little when they say it), I don’t want to waste the time that I have left. I mean, I think I still have plenty of time, but you never know, and I sometimes feel the urge to reread some of the books that I’ve previously enjoyed. Yeah, there’s a bunch of stuff out there that I want to try, but I don’t always connect to the new stuff, so sometimes I simply want something that I know that I’ll like and jumpstart my brain a bit.

I generally don’t reread these books fully from beginning to end when I pick them up again. There’s usually a specific scene that I’m thinking about, and just thinking about it simply isn’t good enough, so I reread it. All of the books I reread have flaws that keep me from outright recommending them unless you’re looking for specific qualities that one of these novels has.

Most of these books have been adapted into movies, and the good movies just leave out the parts that readers didn’t care for. In some cases, the movies are nothing like the books, so much so that I wonder why the film makers even… bah, that’s for another blog post.

Enough explaining! Here are six books that I like to reread and reread over and over and over again!

THE GODFATHER by Mario Puzo

$3 at a used book store is a good deal. I didn’t even have to make an offer they couldn’t refuse.

Most people talk about the cinematic version of The Godfather, and many of those fans aren’t even aware of the novel that the movie was based on. A common reaction that I hear is, “The Godfather is a book?” I can almost lip sync it as they say it. My only minor complaint about the movie is that the pacing sometimes is too fast. The book, on the other hand, takes its time but gets bogged down in a few stupid subplots. I’m familiar enough with the novel to avoid those questionable sections and stick to random scenes that I enjoy.

THE THIN MAN by Dashiell Hammett

**The Maltese Falcon** gets the general acclaim, but Nick and Asta from **The Thin Man** get the cover, and **The Thin Man** gets the movie sequels.

Again, the movie version of The Thin Man might be more popular than the book, but who cares? Much of the dialogue in the movie was taken directly from the novel, so if you like the movie, you automatically like the book. At least, you like the abridged version of the book since the movie keeps a lot of the good stuff and ignores the sections where the story gets bogged down. When I reread The Thin Man, I skip those sections too. In case you haven’t noticed yet, that’s a good thing to do when you reread books: skip the sections you don’t like.

THE SUNSET RISES; A 1990s ROMANTIC COMEDY by James C. Schoech

Nobody cares what the guy in a romantic comedy thinks, but I wrote a novel from the guy’s point of view anyway.

Yes, that’s my book, and maybe it’s self-indulgent to put it on this list, but it’s true. I actually do enjoy rereading sections of my one and only novel. Sometimes I’ll read a few pages and think, “Man, I can’t believe that I wrote this!” And I mean it in a good way. The Sunset Rises has flaws, I admit, but it’s also great in a lot of places. The pacing is good. The dialogue is good, in some places it’s borderline great, and I enjoy rereading a bunch of different parts. Some sections are better than others, but there aren’t any places that I outright dislike.

THE PALE HORSEMAN by Bernard Cornwell

You don’t need to read every single novel in **The Last Kingdom** series when you can just read **The Pale Horseman**.

Bernard Cornwell has a formula that he has used for every novel of his that I have read. I don’t blame him for sticking with this formula because it’s a good formula, and I know that a lot of fans of fast-paced violent historical fiction agree with me because a lot of them buy his books. Out of all his books that have the same formula, I think that The Pale Horseman is the best.

It’s the second book of The Last Kingdom series, but it’s pretty much self-contained with a quick recap of the first book at the beginning and an ending that feels somewhat conclusive. Despite its flaws, The Pale Horseman has plenty of scenes that I enjoy rereading, especially in the second half. I have no desire to reread the entire series of The Last Kingdom, but I enjoy rereading portions of this one book.

THE BEST OF ROBERT E. HOWARD Volume 2: GRIM LANDS

VOLUME 1 OR VOLUME 2? Tough choice, but I’ll go with **Volume 2- Grim Lands**.

Back in the 1920s and 1930s, pulp magazine storyteller Robert E. Howard thought he was writing junk that would be instantly forgotten, but almost 100 years after his death, his characters and stories live on, possibly more popular than ever. His stories aren’t for everybody and I don’t care for everything he’s written, but the stories of his that I like, I really like, and they have great rereadworthiness (if that’s a thing).

Grim Lands has my favorite Conan story, “Red Nails”; my favorite Solomon Kane story, “Wings in the Night”; my favorite Kull story, “By This Axe I Rule”; my favorite historical fiction short story, “The Shadow of the Vulture”; my favorite El Borak story(who?), “The Sons of the White Wolf”; and my favorite Howard horror story, “Pigeons from Hell” (maybe a goofy title but still a good story in a genre that I usually don’t like). It has some other cool stuff too, but I can’t list them all. I just want to reread them.

DIFFERENT SEASONS by Stephen King

I’ve lent out five or six different beat up copies of this book, and this is the only one that has ever been returned to me.

Even though this book has four novellas, I reread only two of them, but those two by themselves make Different Seasons by Stephen King worth getting. Of course, the two best novellas, “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” and “The Body” were adapted into very successful movies, maybe the two best movies based on Stephen King’s fiction. Even people who claim to hate reading for entertainment end up being riveted by these two stories. Even though I got burned out on Stephen King books in the late 1980s, I’ll still come back to these two stories every once in a while. Thank You, Stephen King!

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These aren’t the only books that I occasionally reread, but I have to stop somewhere. What about you? What books do you like to reread and reread and reread? Or do you think rereading books is a waste of time? Or what audiobooks do you listen to over and over and over again? Do people even ever relisten to audiobooks? Leave a comment below!