There were some interesting patterns in people's answers to a thread in the BGS Readers' Group to the question: "Is there a book or an author you like to re-read regularly?" My thoughts:
Interesting to see the way the fav books shake out. There was a single novel by Stephen King I enjoyed. It was a fantasy, not a horror... from the 1980s. LOTR I read under the covers for three days straight in junior high. Have to get the bad (CG) taste of the movies out of my mouth to conceive of ever reading them again. Never got into the Harry Potter thing - first movie was good, as I recall... LeCarre's The Honorable Schoolboy, well above any other spy novel I have attempted. Melville's Typee above the ponderous philosophical meanderings of Moby Dick (similarly Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49 above Gravity's Rainbow). And Steinbeck's Cannery Row above all the others I can think of, except maybe Hemingway's short stories (A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, etc.). Hammiett's Maltese Falcon for good measure - SF noir before it got taken up by everyone from Garrison Keiller to Calvin & Hobbes, codified.
#endurancewriter