From Way, Way Back in Your Reading Life

Done -- my 3rd reading of The Worm Ouroboros, which I've wanted to do for years. Entertaining and a real work of literary art; and, unlike The Lord of the Rings, with which it's often compared, almost wholly lacking in wisdom. The picture below shows the Unicorn's Head design, which was not used on early printings.
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Extollager said:
Herewith, a thread where people can write about books that they are rereading, many years after having first read them.

How about others here? Have you recently reread something that goes back a long way for you?
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Yes, to address the exact original question - I'm now reading Three Men in a Boat, and I think it is probably (only) 36 years since I last read it. I wonder if it would be fun to see who can 'win' this thread - has anyone re-read a book more than 50 years since they last read it?
 
has anyone re-read a book more than 50 years since they last read it?

Easy. I'm gradually re-reading a pile of childhood/adolescent stuff that I picked up when clearing my parents' house. As I'm currently seventy one that makes it easy to meet the fifty year mark, and sixty just possible. Books that come to mind of the more adult range - two Rider Haggard's two or three years back, Ayesha and She and Allan.
Currently I'm reading King Arthur's Knights by Henry Gilbert. This has my name in it claiming ownership in 1961, and I'm certain I wouldn't have reread it later than 1964, assuming I read it more than once. What's always interesting is the small passages I remember (and how they happened to stick in my memory) compared with the vast amount forgotten,
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Hugh said:
has anyone re-read a book more than 50 years since they last read it?

Easy. I'm gradually re-reading a pile of childhood/adolescent stuff that I picked up when clearing my parents' house. As I'm currently seventy one that makes it easy to meet the fifty year mark, and sixty just possible. Books that come to mind of the more adult range - two Rider Haggard's two or three years back, Ayesha and She and Allan.
Currently I'm reading King Arthur's Knights by Henry Gilbert. This has my name in it claiming ownership in 1961, and I'm certain I wouldn't have reread it later than 1964, assuming I read it more than once. What's always interesting is the small passages I remember (and how they happened to stick in my memory) compared with the vast amount forgotten,
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Okay, nice one Hugh - so you are currently in first place with 59 years.
Who can beat 59 years?
 
Bick said:
Okay, nice one Hugh - so you are currently in first place with 59 years.
Who can beat 59 years?
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Not me, not yet, I think, but I can reach almost that far back. Here's

“The 1968 List: A Coos Bay Kid’s SF and Fantasy Reading.” Fadeaway #64 (July 2020): 11-24.


I reread a bunch of stuff from a list I drew up in mid-1968 in order to write this article.

The article is illustrated with the cover of the home-made magazine in which I drew up my annotated list. I'd have been 12 at the time, and the books described had been read within the past couple of years. But that doesn't quite surpass 59 years.
 
Extollager said:
Done -- my 3rd reading of The Worm Ouroboros, which I've wanted to do for years. Entertaining and a real work of literary art; and, unlike The Lord of the Rings, with which it's often compared, almost wholly lacking in wisdom. The picture below shows the Unicorn's Head design, which was not used on early printings.
View attachment 99197
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I have that edition.:)
 
The farthest back I could go would be if I re-read Willard Price's Underwater Adventure, which was the first book I ever read by myself cover-to-cover. This would have been early 1977 I think, so I can't come close to winning, myself - that's 'only' 46 years ago. I'm reasonably tempted to re-read to be honest!
 
I've reread The Lord of the Rings, Watership Down and 1984 several times. A non-SFF novel I've read on a few occasions is Regeneration by Pat Barker.
 
Hugh said:
has anyone re-read a book more than 50 years since they last read it?

Easy. I'm gradually re-reading a pile of childhood/adolescent stuff that I picked up when clearing my parents' house. As I'm currently seventy one that makes it easy to meet the fifty year mark, and sixty just possible. Books that come to mind of the more adult range - two Rider Haggard's two or three years back, Ayesha and She and Allan.

snip
What's always interesting is the small passages I remember (and how they happened to stick in my memory) compared with the vast amount forgotten,
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Huh. I read She about 48 years ago. I don't think I am going to re-read it but there are some very, vivid memorable scenes in it.
 
I began listening to audiobooks a few years ago, when my eyesight went downhill. I began with the older novels available on Librivox and the first one I listened to was A Princess of Mars, by E. R. Burroughs. My dad had it on his shelves from this own boyhood and one day when I was down in the dumps he said "I think you might enjoy this". I loved the book (though I did have to whiz through the battle scenes!). And I still have this original copy that belonged to Dad.

So, on the re-read, it had been 53 years since I first read APoM. I found I remembered the names of all the main characters, and much of the storyline. (Even Dad had remembered Tars Tarkas!) Of course I noticed many things that hadn't struck me as odd, as a child! The impossibility of humans laying eggs; atmosphere & vegetation on Mars; the strange 'extra rays' in sunlight that make impossible things possible. But I did enjoy the book - and it helped me to fall asleep.
 
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