From Way, Way Back in Your Reading Life

[AE35Unit]

I should re read Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth. I have it as a big illustrated book which I received as a birthday or Christmas present when I was a kid, and still have it!

 

[dask]

Here’s the edition I still have from my school days (not my copy though, which is more beat up):

And here’s the edition I wish I had:

 

[Extollager]

Here (starting on page 11) is a fanzine with my article (about 10,000 words!) that revisits about a dozen books I read by around 1968. Happily and uncharacteristically, I'd recorded their authors and titles and rated them. I added remarks on a few other books I read as a youngster.

https://efanzines.com/Fadeaway/Fadeway-64.pdf

 

[Vince W]

Here (starting on page 11) is a fanzine with my article (about 10,000 words!) that revisits about a dozen books I read by around 1968. Happily and uncharacteristically, I'd recorded their authors and titles and rated them. I added remarks on a few other books I read as a youngster.

https://efanzines.com/Fadeaway/Fadeway-64.pdf

Nice article. I love Fanzines. They have a charm all their own.

 

[BAYLOR]

Here’s the edition I still have from my school days (not my copy though, which is more beat up):
View attachment 66386
And here’s the edition I wish I had:
View attachment 66388

I like the top cover alot , cool . As for second one , It has itscharm too. I don't need to see the name Airmont .Id know their cover artwork anywhere .

 

[Extollager]

Nice article. I love Fanzines. They have a charm all their own.

Have you visited this thread, Vince?

PAPER Fanzines: What Have We Read?

Bick's intriguing thread https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/576832/#post-2398768 inspires another inquiry. Throughout much of the history of the modern science fiction and fantasy genres, amateur magazines devoted to them, with commentary, gossip, art, news, awards, letter columns...

www.sffchronicles.com

 

[Extollager]

I don't need to see the name Airmont .Id know their cover artwork anywhere .

Airmont was to paperbacks what Cragmont was to soda pop -- agreed?

 

[Vince W]

Have you visited this thread, Vince?

PAPER Fanzines: What Have We Read?

Bick's intriguing thread https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/576832/#post-2398768 inspires another inquiry. Throughout much of the history of the modern science fiction and fantasy genres, amateur magazines devoted to them, with commentary, gossip, art, news, awards, letter columns...

www.sffchronicles.com

Yes, I had seen that thread, but thanks for the reminder.

 

[Extollager]

Herewith, a thread where people can write about books that they are rereading, many years after having first read them.

I expect to be posting about Robert Silverberg's Conquerors from the Darkness and Raymond F. Jones's Son of the Stars before too long ... books I read in the late Sixties, and not since.

How about others here? Have you recently reread something that goes back a long way for you?

I first read Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan 11-28 May 1974 as an undergraduate taking a college course on fantasy literature from my favorite professor. I next read it (in its entirety, not counting partial rereading) as a college teacher myself, 14 Feb.-3 March 2001. Now I'm reading it for the third time.

I'd draw everyone's attention to the first posting for this thread. The first thread invites postings regarding books first read a long time ago in your reading life. If you are 30, something you read at 20 might be appropriate to mention, but if you are 70, you'd want to reach back a lot farther than to books read 10 years ago. The thread doesn't specify clearly whether we're talking about rereading a book first read a long time ago and not reread since, which is what I had in mind, or books first read a long time ago and perhaps reread at intervals ever since, as might be the case for many of us with regard to, say, The Lord of the Rings. I'll just request that you say something to make it clear whether your present rereading belongs to the first categoryor the second.

I expect to reread Gormenghast before long, which I read in 1974 and have never read through for a second time. I tend to bog down with the Prunesquallor material, it seems, but I mean to persist, even so, the next time I try.

 

[nixie]

Recently re-read Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out and The Ka of Gifford Hillary.
I must be due a reread of Feist's Magican.

 

[Bick]

I just re-read Harry Harrison's The Stainless Steel Rat - first read in 1985. So, 37 years between readings.

I also re-read the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Dune books by Frank Herbert, recently. Again, I would think 36 years elapsed since my fist read.

 

[Rodders]

I've been finishing off the Gaunts Ghosts series and i think i'll go back and reread them.

I think a re-read of Iain M. Banks's work is also in order. (I read Surface Detail and the Hydrogen Sonata last year and it reiterated just how good he was. Perhaps a reading goal for 2023.)

 

[Vertigo]

I've been finishing off the Gaunts Ghosts series and i think i'll go back and reread them.

I think a re-read of Iain M. Banks's work is also in order. (I read Surface Detail and the Hydrogen Sonata last year and it reiterated just how good he was. Perhaps a reading goal for 2023.)

I recently completed my Culture reread, and, if anything, I loved all the books even more the second time round.

Quite poignant in a way, regardless of Banks's sad fate, as I had almost completely stopped reading for many years (probably around 20 years) and it was these books that kick started my reading again.

 

[Rodders]

He was (is) simply brilliant and my favouritest author ever.

 

[Extollager]

I was thinking in terms of time relative to how old a commenter was. If I were 25, a book I read ten years ago would have been from way, way back in my reading life. If I were 65, a book would need to be from perhaps 35 years or more ago. In each case, odds are good that one's experience of the book will be different than with the former reading. Often, that may be largely a matter of nostalgia in at least a loose and mild sense. The book might also prove to have more to offer than one perceived when one first read it. Other types of reflections too are possible.

Reviving this thread in hopes of news from others here at Chrons. Above is one way of determining if a given rereading is from way, way back in your reading life.

Lately I read Gormenghast for the second time after a first reading in 1974, and I'm now reading The Worm Ouroboros for the third time after having last read it in that same year of 1974.

How about you? Have you recently reread something that you last read what for you is a long time ago?

 

[dask]

Yes but I don‘t think you’re gonna like it:

 

[Extollager]

Joe Kubert!

 

[AE35Unit]

In 2010 I read and enjoyed Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks. I recently went for a re read and couldn't get into it. It was a DNF

 

[Vince W]

In 2010 I read and enjoyed Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks. I recently went for a re read and couldn't get into it. It was a DNF

That's funny. I had the opposite opinion. I read Consider Phlebas initially after it came out and thought it was good. I read it again a few years ago and thought it was great. I felt my increased enjoyment came because I understood the Culture better than I had before.

 

[AE35Unit]

That's funny. I had the opposite opinion. I read Consider Phlebas initially after it came out and thought it was good. I read it again a few years ago and thought it was great. I felt my increased enjoyment came because I understood the Culture better than I had before.

Its now in the charity shop