February 25th, 2011 / 3:37 am
 Snippets
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Your best guess: how many books in your personal library have you read more than once?

32 Comments

  1. February 25th, 2011 / 7:41 am Shannp—

      too many to count- poetry books do that to me.

  2. February 25th, 2011 / 7:45 am Trey—

      at least 9 (I can think of 9 off the top of my head + looking through books I have with me), probably not more than 15. the majority of it is poetry, for sure, but the few that aren’t poetry are fun to remember. actually they’re all fun to remember. this is a good question.

      oh yeah, and this isn’t counting chapbooks.

  3. February 25th, 2011 / 8:05 am Anonymous—

      I think only 1 for me, and both times it was for class. Oh wait, there’s another one. 2.

  4. February 25th, 2011 / 9:22 am shaun gannon—

      3

  5. February 25th, 2011 / 9:36 am Jake—

      also probably 15. also mostly poetry.

  6. February 25th, 2011 / 10:16 am Janey Smith—

      Andrew? I don’t read the books in my personal library. They read me.

  7. February 25th, 2011 / 12:02 pm Anonymous—

      dreamsongs at least 20 times. crush by siken, that many also. how many times did you have to read the great gatsby before you were 22?

  8. February 25th, 2011 / 12:42 pm LuLibrarianz—

      Your best guess: how many more personal library threads are there going to be?

  9. February 25th, 2011 / 12:42 pm LuLibrarianz—

      Your best guess: how many more personal library threads are there going to be?

  10. February 25th, 2011 / 12:48 pm Todd Colby—

      40%

  11. February 25th, 2011 / 1:13 pm Jack M—

      About 10 or so.

  12. February 25th, 2011 / 2:01 pm M. Kitchell—

      all of bataille’s fiction i’ve read multiple times (pretty sure I’ve read story of the eye at least 6 times, the impossible at least 4), dennis cooper’s george miles cycle + my loose thread i’ve read twice (period i’ve read 3x times), god jr i’ve read 4x times, robbe-grillet’s photobooks with david hamilton i’ve read twice, house of leaves i’ve read twice (lol), and i’ve read a number of poetry books multiple times each. also have read J. Eric Miller’s Animal Rights & Pornography, Jesus Ignacio Aldapuerta’s THE EYES, Ettore Sottsass’s METAPHORS, Thomas Ligotti’s Teatro Grottesco, a couple film books & a handful of comic books at least 2x.

  13. February 25th, 2011 / 2:56 pm Frank Tas—

      5?

      Did I reread Manhattan Transfer? I don’t remember. Someone help me remember.

  14. February 25th, 2011 / 2:56 pm Christopher Higgs—

      Hey Mike, in terms of the Robbe-Grillet/Hamilton collabs — I’m unfamiliar with those, just looked on Amazon and saw SISTERS and DREAMS OF A YOUNG GIRL — are those the ones you’re talking about, are there others, too?

  15. February 25th, 2011 / 3:04 pm M. Kitchell—

      yeah, those are the only two. The text inside is text that’s also in Topology of a Phantom City, but sort of arranged as poetry instead of prose. Hamilton’s pervy & I’m a fag anyway but my penchant for soft-focus images and the sunlight of the early 70s finds me considering them ‘dreamy’ instead of ‘exploitative’ or whatever. he also did a similar collaboration with irina ionesco called TEMPLE AUX MIROIRS which doesn’t have an english translation, but it’s just text from Recollections of the Golden Triangle so it’s easy to figure out. Both Hamilton & especially Ionesco are photographers I really dig, and I love A.R.-G. of course, so for me these texts are essential.

      I’m actually really into what Bruce Morrison groups as the “intertextual texts” of Robbe-Grillet, which is basically Topology and Recollections, but both texts are assemblages from collaborations he did with artists (Hamilton, Ironesco, Rauschenberg, Johns, & Magritte of course)

  16. February 25th, 2011 / 3:09 pm M. Kitchell—
  17. February 25th, 2011 / 3:25 pm symmetrical—

      30

  18. February 25th, 2011 / 3:31 pm adam m.—

      0.

  19. February 25th, 2011 / 3:48 pm JLE—

      Most of them in pieces. Fully revisited, cover-to-cover, maybe 50.

  20. February 25th, 2011 / 3:49 pm NLY—

      Something like 50%, maybe more.

  21. February 25th, 2011 / 3:54 pm Adam Robinson—

      Started to read Timequake the other day then got distracted by how funny that was.

  22. February 25th, 2011 / 4:16 pm math—

      how many books, not what %? eh, 25.

  23. February 25th, 2011 / 4:47 pm Another Sean—

      Three – two of them weren’t read the second time until several years had passed from the first read – one of those was for school.
      I feel overwhelmed. There are too many books staring at me already. Libraries both excite me like porn and fill me with panic. If they never threw me out, I could go into the 5 floor used book store and never come out, all the while rolling in indecisive turmoil. Books are as bad as a Chinese restaurant menu – what do you want? 23, 57, 189? !!! I don’t know, but I know it gives me anxiety when I feel like I am missing out on something better than what I’ve chosen. The Saviour of the Chinese restaurant is that a lot of the stuff tastes the same. Not the case with books. In the past, when I didn’t like a book or it didn’t immediately click, I would struggle with it until I finished it. But then I realized that I was depriving myself of all the other good ones I could have happily buzzed through during my agony. To answer the question – maybe it should be more – maybe it’s already too many.

  24. February 25th, 2011 / 5:15 pm Davo—

      Sarah Palin: All of them.

  25. February 25th, 2011 / 6:22 pm troysworktable—

      Probably about 50 or so individual books read more than once. Authors that I have read again: Herman Melville (Moby Dick multiple times, more than five times); William Gibson (various); Jeff Noon (various); Steve Erickson (various); William S. Burroughs (various, with Naked Lunch five times); William T. Vollmann (various, with The Atlas three times); Danilo Kis (A Tomb for Boris Davidovich three times); Anne Carson (various, with The Autobiography of Red about ten times).

  26. February 25th, 2011 / 6:37 pm ZZZZZIPPP—

      STORIES IN THE WORST WAY, FICCIONES, THE DOUBLE HOOK, NEUROMANCER, CRUSOE, MOBY DICK, LIFE OF PI, TINTIN AND THE SECRETS OF LITERATURE, DEAD SOULS, CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES, COLLECTED PANCAKE, FRANNY AND ZOOEY, THE FIRST 40 PAGES OF ULYSESSES, DAMN, I DON’T KNOW, SOME OTHERS, SOME OF THESE WERE BY ACCIDENT, EVERY DOUGLAS COUPLAND NOVEL ZZZZIPPP HAS EVER READ FEELS LIKE ZZZZIPP IS READING IT FOR THE SECOND TIME. THIS IS THE MOST EARNEST COLLECTION.

  27. February 25th, 2011 / 8:40 pm Sean—

      Hmm..not many. Hemingway short stories (I think 64). Oh Baby, Chinquee. The Road. DFW essay book (the first one, Supposedly Fun…), Wild Sheep Chase, some poker guides, Macho Nachos, what about online? I read a lot of Damian Dressick and Meg Pokrass and Amelia Gray over and over. Oh, Diane Williams, fer sure. Also I keep reading Trout Fishing in America, prob twice a year. And Chekhov recently. Shit, I don’t know.

  28. February 25th, 2011 / 8:47 pm Christopher Higgs—

      Okay, cool. Thanks. I’m putting them on my list of stuff to acquire. I, too, love R-G. Had no idea about his “I Heart Barthes” book — but count me super excited as well.

  29. February 25th, 2011 / 9:01 pm beardobees—

      Probably 30 or 40. At least 10 Faulkners read twice, and many of them 3 times. Couple of Cormac McCarthy. Lots of John Hawkes. “Crime and Punishment” 3 times (different translations, so may not count). “The Good Soldier” a lot. “Under the Volcano” ditto. Just unpacked a bunch of books after moving, and these are on the reread list: “Winesburg, Ohio,” “The Obscene Bird of Night,” “Naked Lunch,” some others I can remember. I figure why keep the effing things if you’re not going to read them again. They’re heavy. They get dusty. I live in NYC, so why give space to dead things?

  30. February 25th, 2011 / 10:37 pm Daniel Bailey—

      less than 5. more than -5.

  31. February 25th, 2011 / 11:43 pm Sean—

      Because they are like tools. That “dead thing” you might need later, to fix the thing-ma-jig or rattle the light bulb clean or un-funk the synapse tub. Lots of tools lay dormant in the box, until…

  32. February 26th, 2011 / 10:12 pm Lisa Marie Basile—

      Probably a good handful- I am definitely guilty of re-reading. I re-read poetry, of course. I re-read more fiction though: now it’s Valtat’s Aurorarama. Oooohh so good.