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Re:Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by weavie on Tuesday February 10, 2015 @11:00AM (#9027950)
So, what books do people here think are worth reading 100 times?
Re:Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by cableshaft on Tuesday February 10, 2015 @11:35AM (#9028187)
Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson. I've reread it at least five times now, and it's so dense with historical and literary references and parodies interweaved into its plot that I notice new things every time I reread it that I previously thought were things the author made up, were actually subtle (or not so subtle) references.

Plus the plot bounces around constantly, sometimes mid sentence, between characters and times and realities, that you get a better feel for the plot when you reread it anyway.

Re:Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by lozf on Tuesday February 10, 2015 @06:23PM (#9030588)
Indeed do many things come to pass.
Re:Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by rokhayakebe on Tuesday February 10, 2015 @11:21AM (#9028098)
Book worth opening everyday for the rest of one's life: Discourses (Epictetus)

Books worth reading 10 times: Social Contract (Rousseau), Republic (of Plato), Apology (Socrates), As a Man Think, Inquiry into the Wealth of Nation (if you can muster the energy)

Books worth reading 3 times: Lucretius (on the nature of things)

And pretty much most books in the Great Books of the Western World list

Re:Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by aidenn0 on Tuesday February 10, 2015 @12:18PM (#9028477)
From the original article, notice that the advocate of reading books 100 times has personal reasons for reading both books as much as he did. In one case it was to achieve a superior level of familiarity for the text, in the other it was because he derived an unusual amount of comfort from it.
Re:Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by bmelton on Tuesday February 10, 2015 @11:09AM (#9028017)
I've read "The Princess Bride" about as many times as I've seen the movie, which, while I haven't kept a close count, is a lot. I don't know that it's something I'd recommend to everyone, but the book has its own sort of whimsy that is distinct from the movie, though both are enjoyable.

Kerouac's "On the Road" is another that I read often. Somewhere in the once-a-year phase.

"Slaughterhouse Five" is another I read with some regularity, and I find it different every time I read it, as I have a new set of personal beliefs with which to apply to it approximately every time.

Re:Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by ashark on Tuesday February 10, 2015 @12:15PM (#9028455)
PRINCESS BRIDE (THE BOOK) SPOILERS

The great thing about it, IMO, is that the novel's not about the story from the movie, really, but nevertheless you can do to it what the protagonist is doing to the fictional Princess Bride book and tell it to your kids as if it were the movie, by skipping the "boring parts", i.e. the important parts if you're reading it as an adult. It's a great and funny adventure story for kids, wrapped in a melancholy meditation on relationships with children and recapturing lost time and experiences for adults[1], which is (rightly) absent from the movie. The story itself tells you how to adapt it for reading to kids. It's its own instruction manual.

I absolutely love the notion of a kid picking up the book as an adult, expecting the story their parents read to them, and being surprised by the discovery of the real story, hidden from them in exactly the same way the bits about economics and such were from the protagonist. It's simply brilliant, and a scenario I fully intend to set up for my kids :-)

[1] This is from memory—I read it several years ago, and if I revisit it I'm sure my take would have more nuance now, and would find this to be an embarrassing misreading or oversimplification.

Re:Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by Tenhundfeld on Tuesday February 10, 2015 @11:42AM (#9028241)
WRT "The Princess Bride", I've read it a few times as well. My perspective is slightly different, reading it after watching the movie many times. I agree that it "has its own sort of whimsy", especially in the context or meta-story, but when I first read it, I was struck by how similar the humor is to the movie.

If memory serves me, almost all of the memorable lines and jokes from the movie come word-for-word from the book. I'd assumed some of the jokes, e.g., those by Miracle Max (Billy Crystal) or Fezzik (Andre the Giant), were adapted to suit the actors. But they weren't. I don't know if that speaks to the quality of the writing or the casting or what.

Re:Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by wernercd on Tuesday February 10, 2015 @11:14AM (#9028047)
Ender's Game.

I haven't read it recently (I have audio-booked it though), but I've probably read it ~25 times. (Often to refresh as new books come out, still often to just refresh).

It amazes me how, even in a book as simple, it still speaks to me.

Re:Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by kirse on Tuesday February 10, 2015 @12:23PM (#9028511)
The Bible, worth reading daily.
Re:Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by tomcam on Tuesday February 10, 2015 @01:59PM (#9029118)
Reading it 100 times deeply informed many of the greatest minds of the age, and naturally created an educated citizenry for generations.
Re:Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by krelian on Tuesday February 10, 2015 @11:44AM (#9028249)
I haven't reached 100 but If ever will it will probably be one of these two:

One hundred years of solitude Blood Meridian

Re:Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by pagnotta on Tuesday February 10, 2015 @02:50PM (#9029439)
One hundred years of solitude is the only one I ever re-read, first the original Spanish, then in Portuguese, then in English.
Re:Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by laichzeit0 on Tuesday February 10, 2015 @12:18PM (#9028476)
Anything by Schoppenhauer.
Re:Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by mswift42 on Tuesday February 10, 2015 @11:37AM (#9028208)
Pride & Prejudice.
Re:Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by jerven on Tuesday February 10, 2015 @12:10PM (#9028416)
I also love this novel!

Read it a lot of times probably more than 20 but not yet close to 100.

Re:Why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by qachaos on Tuesday February 10, 2015 @11:32AM (#9028161)
american gods