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Comment by gregpilling | Hacker News Reader

I call it 'comfort reading' like comfort food. It is one of the books I pick up when I am lying in bed sick for the day. Usually something by Heinlein/Clarke or maybe Asimov.

Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Tunnel in the sky, Friday, Rama, have all been read 5 to 10 times.

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Exactly.

I read the entire original Dune series a couple of few times a year, always in bed at night - I imagine, much like people read their Bibles.

Having done it so many times, it's become "low impact" reading - appropriate for situations where reading something new is "too much."

All 6 books, a few times a year? I'm reading through the series for the first time, and while I'm sure a reread goes faster, it still must take quite a few nights. It is really good though, I'm sure I'll want to do it again once I'm finished.

If you read 20 pages a night, you can cover the whole series twice in 250-ish days. Once you've read it a few times, you can get through 20 pages in like 15 minutes.

When I was in the military, I reread the book that convinced me to pick the Marine Corps, Starship Troopers. When I reread it after having been active for a couple years, I realized how off it was from my experience[0] and thought it odd to be the book that made me make the earlier decision.

I actually finished the reading in the field and since I didn't bring another book, I flipped back to the first chapter.

[0] - Or what I thought my experience would be. Granted, it is future-y and I realized that I wouldn't have cool exoskeleton armor but, being that Heinlein was a Navy man, there are some things that never change no matter what time period people serve in and Starship Troopers is colored by that.

I go back and re-read the Foundation books (usually just the first three) every three or so years, have done since 1985. They're an excellent example comfort reading for me and I never get bored with them. I even bought two new sets just for this purpose because I love the covers of the early 1980's copies I have that were published in the UK, and just so as not to wear them out.

I know it's not "high-literature" by any stretch of the imagination, but they scratch an itch.

For much of grad school, "The Hitchhikers Guide" served that purpose. Same with some of the later Harry Potter books. And Bill Bryson's "A Brief History of Nearly Everything".

I also re-read the comics "Kingdom Come" and "The Dark Knight Returns" on a regular basis.

Yes! I have read that book HHG with towel at hand at least 5-10 times also, and all the other books at least twice. Only saw the movie once .

I always tell myself I'm going to skip the last one, because it's such a downer. (He wrote it during his divorce.) But I keep reading it because despite being such a downer, it's still eminently readable.

I remember reading Rama the first time as a kid. How that hasn't been turned into a movie yet is beyond me.

yep. wodehouse is actually particularly good for that; every now and then i just reread 20 or so of his books in a row.

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