What do you reread?

Here are a couple of quotes to start us off...

" 'Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are' is true enough, but I'd know you better if you told me what you reread." Francois Mauriac

" Lists of books we reread and books we can't finish tell more about us than about the relative value of the books themselves." Russell Banks

Ok, so what books do YOU reread? Can't finish? Hated in spite of it? Loved in spite of it? Here's mine:

Books I reread: (I'm not counting the Bible here, simply because that's something I read often , but not in one sitting or even from cover to cover. Bits and pieces as the Lord calls.)

Every so often I go on a Narnia kick and sit down and read the entire Chronicles of Narnia from start to finish, and then I drag out those awful old videos and watch them too. I can hardly WAIT until the movie comes out next month!

Anne of Green Gables, again start to finish, and polishing it off with whatever videos I happen to have on hand.

Ditto The Lord of the Rings, starting with The Hobbit of course.

The Peaceable Kingdom, by Jan de Hartog. This fictionalized account of how the Quakers got started never fails to stir my soul. I recently told a friend that if I could only take two books to a desert island, this would be the second one (The Bible being the first, of course.) I identify greatly with Margaret Fell, who turned out to be another "kindred spirit," and "Champion of the Underdog." And once I've finished that book I will probably go on to the other two books in the trilogy: The Lamb's War and The Peculiar People.

Bram Stoker's Dracula. Honest!

Margaret Frazer's Sister Frivesse mysteries.

Desiree' by Annemarie Selinko. Think France, Napoleon, and a silk merchant's daughter of Marseilles. I inherited this book from my Aunt Della.

Poetry: Edna St. Vincent Millay (My candle burns at both ends...) - Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Laugh and the world laughs with you) - Billy Collins (Picnic, Lightning)

Children of the Twilight by Emma-Lindsay Squier. Native American stories from the Puget Sound area, written about 1924.

St. Elmo by Augusta J. Evans. Copyright 1866 "Ah! the true rule is - a true wife in her husband's house is his servant; it is in his heart that she is queen. Whatever of the best he can conceive, it is her part to be; whatever of the highest he can hope, it is hers to promise; all this is dark in him she must purge into purity; all that is failing in him she must strengthen into truth; from her, through all the world's clamor, he must win his praise; in her, through all the world's warfare, he must find his peace." John Ruskin

Silent Guests by A. E. Forrest. Copyright 1927. "A mysterious thing, the human mind. Can it keep a secret indefinitely? Here I find myself committing to paper things which I had determined never to divulge - sacred things long hidden; intimate privacies having their roots in the soul."

Julian's Cat by Mary E. Little, being an imaginary history of the cat belonging to Julian of Norwich.

A Modern Magi by Carol Pearson. This is one of those books that after you've read it you want everybody you know to read it. Bring Kleenex.

And from time to time I peruse anew books by Thomas Merton, Julian of Norwich, Henri Nouwen, C. S. Lewis, Rudyard Kipling, Agatha Christie. And every so often, I even reread my own stories, though I'm too close to them to really appreciate them. I rarely pick up my published works, (been there, done that, don't need to relive it, thank you), but I do enjoy my short stories - a couple even make me cry, and I wrote them!

Books I hated: True Grit (I finished it, but only because I just didn't believe a book could be that awful.) * In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. I just didn't want that stuff in my head - too graphic for my tastes. * I just stopped a book in the middle because I didn't care about the characters by then, The Last Days of Dogtown, but Anita Diamant. It was disappointing because I LOVED The Red Tent. Oh well, you win a few, you lose a few.

Well, that about does it for now. So, tell me, what do YOU read? What do you REREAD? And why?

Movies I watch again and again:

Miracle in the Rain, with Jane Wyman and Van Johnson
Anne of Green Gables, as above
Narnia, as above
Lord of the Rings, as above
Shirley Valentine, with Pauline Collins
The Snake Pit
Brother Sun, Sister Moon (about St. Francis of Assisi)
Fiddler on the Roof
Red Dawn (probably the only war movies I've ever liked)
Fantasia
The Green Mile
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Exodus
Little Women ( the old version)
Arsenic and Old Lace
Lassie Come Home
Madame X
Showboat (either old version is fine)
Song of the South (remember Zippidee do dah?)
Singing in the Rain
South Pacific
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Black & White, silent, 1920's I believe. Renee Falconetti gives such a performance that I literally sat and watched with my mouth hanging open in amazement.)
And last, but certainly not least, The bookworm, a Twilight Zone episide.

Well, I guess that's about it for me. How about YOU?

Love and Blessings, Phoenix