Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Naked in Death

I’ve been reading the series since it began — with the LONG 6 months wait between books — so I often envy the new-to-the-series readers who get to glom all the books at once.  Although I suppose with the now 30+ books and novellas it may seem an overwhelming task to start.

Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next Series. Though I love rereading them, reading them for the first time just blew my freaking mind.

Oh I wish I could discover the Outlander series again, or the time travellers wife, or Karen Marie Monings fever series the wait for her books kill me!!

Oh, so many different books.

Devil’s Cub by Georgette Heyer—all I remember is that I laughed until it hurt when I read it the first time, and that it was the perfect book for the horrible mood I’d been in.

Also The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay, one of my favourite books; in fact, I would love to relive my experiences of reading most of my favourite books, though perhaps not Wuthering Heights, since I read it when I was fairly young and was mostly confused by it (on the second reading, I fell in love).

The Time Traveler’s Wife was an amazing read for me. So beautifully written and such an interesting premise…I can’t get over how deft the writing was. Interestingly, I read recently that publishers were initially leery of the book b/c they weren’t sure how to market it - romance? too genre-y but a little literary too?

What happened to “this is a fantastic book. buy it and see!” Audrey Niffenegger got a $5M advance for her next book…not bad for something no one wanted initially.

Kalafudra and I are on the exact same wavelength, my first thought was, I want to re-read The Eyre Affair, for the first time.  It’s so insanely clever, with hidden jokes and meanings.

I also love to re-read, for the first time, The Curse of Challion - there are so many layers to this book - the mystery, the romance, the spiritual.  I devoured it too quickly when I first read it, and it is one of the few books that I routinely reread, and each time it’s like reading it for the very first.

Lita

Spam word - Common67 - It’s common for me to re-read a book I love 67 times or more.

I’m doing that right now!

A Knight in Shining Armor was my very first romance and I finally managed to find it this weekend. Reading it got me hooked on romance, so it is nice to see that it still works for me years later.

Part of what made some books so special is that I read them at exactly the right time in my life for that particular book. Books that I adored and would love to rediscover, page-by-page: Blindness by Jose Saramago & Northanger Abbey by Austen.

Thinking about some of my fave roms, I love knowing & remembering those characters more than my desire to rediscover them for the first time.

For me it would be the re-discovering the thrill of Linda Howard for the first time while being cooped up inside due to a terrible ice storm. I remember vividly reading her books tucked into bed under a mountain of quilts with my cat curled up at my feet. Her books were set in warm climates and had the first really hot love scenes I’d ever read so it was like discovering something hot and naughty that you could sneak under the covers with.

The Thorn Birds.  Or Anne Rivers Siddons’ Heartbreak Hotel.

Outlander
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Simply Love by Mary Balogh
The Romantic by Madeline Hunter
Jane Eyre
Faking It by Jennifer Crusie
A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold

That makes three of us in the Fforde column. Although he was recommended by a friend, I really had no idea what I was getting into (have lived in the woods way too long). Anything by Georgette Heyer and Dorothy Dunnett, too.

Guardian Angel by Julie Garwood.  I was only about 15 when I read it, new to the romance-novel-thing.  The twist was one I never saw coming—the moment Uncle Harry says “We like to call her Pagan” still gets me every damn time.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society, which is the best book I’ve read all year.

Bet Me and Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie (actually, pretty much anything by this author, barring Don’t Look Down)

Maria V. Snyder’s Poison Study series.

Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles

Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising

I could go on and on with this list . . .

Lord of Scoundrels was a biggie for me!

When I think of books I want to experience teh first time again, I’m usually drawn to my childhood books. Anne of Green Gables and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nihm come to mind as being at the top of that list.

The first Harry Potter did that for me: when I read it I felt I was reading a book that I had adored as a child but just hadn’t happened to read before.  Weirdest thing.

And thinking about Susan D’s remark that you read some books at exactly the right time in your life, HP is probably one of the books that came at the wrong time in my life. I wish I could have followed that series as a child. So I want to read it again for the first time, but this time be aged about 8, if that’s all right.

Katherine by Anya Seton. I doubt this title’s ever been out of print. I first read it when I was 13 or so, and I would love to first-read it as an adult. Le sigh.

The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

An Exchange of Hostages by Susan R. Matthews

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase

The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer

Nora’s Sacred Sins (aka the first rom-susp I ever read) and Outlander.

In both cases, I can remember where I was as I devoured them, and how it annoyed the people around me that they couldn’t drag me away from those books.

A Suitable Boy

Wouldn’t The Dark is Rising make a great movie? Especially the 2nd (still my fave, altho the first great too).

When I was an intern at Pocket, one of the editors took me into the Book Room and gave me Flowers From the Storm. “You need to read this,” she said emphatically, “to understand why it is I do what I do.” After I finished, I remember I wanted to run around the English building at my college, book in my hand, shouting, “Look at this, look at this!”  I remember laughing at almost every page. Not because the story is funny, in fact, it’s really not, but because I felt like I was reading the Rosetta Stone for my future. This book somehow was able to translate all my frustration from those indulgent smiles my family and teachers gave me into a secret smugness that to this day, I still feel whenever someone rolls their eyes over a book I’m reading.  So in a way, that “first” feeling is always with me.

The first several of Pern and the Talent series by Anne McCaffery

The Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey

Both great series that I’ve read so much that each time I reach for them again, the entire series flashes through my mind and feels like spoilers.

What books do you wish you could rediscover or read again for the first time?

I take this to mean, read again and still feel as you felt the first.  (Because it could mean, “read again now that you have the life experience to really get it”, which would be a completely different list.)  I do re-read a lot of the books that I’ve really loved, but you never quite capture the magic of the first time you read something that just pulls you into that world and makes you feel like you can actually reach out and touch the characters, do you?  For me, the first two books I think of—that instantly come to mind, in fact—are completely different from each other.  The first is The Outsiders, by S. E. Hinton.  I was 13 when I read that book and it was the first one I’d ever read that made me laugh aloud and cry over the death of a character.  I so desperately didn’t want it to end that I tried to start over and re-read it immediately after finishing the last page, but it didn’t work.  I still loved the characters and the story, but that extra little magical fizzle of discovery was gone. 

The second book was The Princess Bride, by William Goldman.  It didn’t have quite the same dramatic impact as the first book, but it had a great, goofy charm that just made me happy when I read it.  Maybe I’ve gotten too old and cynical to feel that now.  I read it the first time when I was 16.  When I re-read it a few years ago, I still liked it, but it just didn’t dazzle quite as much.

I second Shancara on the first couple Pern books and the first couple Valdemar series. Also “The Hero’s Crown” and “The Blue Sword” by Robin McKinley.

The more I thought about this question, the more books popped into my mind.  As previous comments have noted, most of them are linked to specific periods in my life, and their impact may have been driven by circumstances.  I wouldn’t necessarily want to go back to those times, but I’d love to be blown away by these books once again.  So, in no particular order, here’s the short list. (Stop me before I think again!)

Wyrd Sisters / Terry Pratchett
These Old Shades / Georgette Heyer
One for the Money / Janet Evanovich
Dead until Dark / Charlaine Harris
Auntie Mame / Patrick Dennis
Mr. Blue / Myles Connolly
The entire Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny series / Dorothy Dunnett

Mame and Blue were favorites when I was very young, and I loved both of them and reread them many times.  Except for Dunnett’s Crawford series, most of these books served as a gateway to the author’s entire body of work.  It is the sense of surprise and delight that I experienced with the first book that I’d like to relive.  However, Dunnett’s series demands to be read in its entirety.  It is too rich and layered and amazing to read piecemeal.  I think if I picked it up today, it would be like reading it for the first time.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Prince Ombra by Roderick Macleish
the fabulous Dark series by Christine Feehan
The Stupidest Angel
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

The books I *really* wish I could read for the first time are the ones I’ve written.  Everything else, I did at least get to read for the first time once, but my own I never do.  I’d love so much to be able to see it all fresh, not to know what’s going to happen next, to get the full impact of a plot twist, to be surprised when a favourite character comes back.  I envy the readers a lot sometimes for getting that chance.

The two books that absolutely blew me away in college were Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire and Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake.  I often think of them as the best books I’ll never read again because I know they wouldn’t have nearly the same impact now as they did then and I’ll never re-capture the feeling of experiencing them for the first time.

Someone mentioned The Dark Is Rising; that one I’ve been re-reading every Christmas since the age of eleven and it still captures my imagination.  (FYI, it was filmed a few years ago, but it sounded as though it was changed almost beyond recognition; it was re-titled The Seeker and Susan Cooper was so unhappy she had her name taken off it.  I haven’t seen it and don’t intend to.)

Another vote for Dunnett’s Lymond Series, also Fforde’s The Fourth Bear which has to be one of the funniest and cleverest books I have ever read—but I wasn’t quite prepared for its weirdness.  How great it would be to read it again without knowing the conclusory scenes.  In fact I’m grinning as I am writing this.

I wouldn’t mind having a chance to experience all of Georgette Heyer again for the first time—especially The Grand Sophy and An Unknown Ajax.

Lois McMaster Bujold’s Shards of Honor, followed by everything else she’s written.  I loaned my entire collection to a friend who was a Bujold virgin, and waited with bated breath for the semi-daily updates of OMG! This is SO GOOD!  I re-read everything regularly, and love it every time, but that fresh, first read when you just have to pause in awe is such a nice feeling.

Also, McCaffrey’s Dragonflight, Robin McKinley’s everything, Joan D. Vinge’s Catspaw, and Annette Curtis Klause’s Blood & Chocolate.

Anything by Carla Kelly. I love her books. They’re so warm and comfortable.

Like many others…Outlander.

Also Kinsale’s Flowers From the Storm…it just wasn’t what I was expecting.

As for the Harry Potter series - that is one of the delights of having children, by reading the books to my girls - I do get to relive that first time experience!

This is so funny.  This is EXACTLY the hook I always use to sell John Myers Myers’ SILVERLOCK :  “I envy you the opportunity to read this for the first time!”

Fans of Megan Whalen Turnes THIEF series (A CONSPIRACY OF KINGS due out next spring, squeee!) often argue whether it is more fun to read the books for the first time, not knowing the astonishing curveballs the plot will throw, or to re-read them, and discover all the hints and clues and allusions.

@Elizabeth Wadsworth: absolutely Interview with a Vampire, as well as The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned. Those three, together, were some of the best reading experiences. I haven’t read them in a really long time, and knowing what I know about Anne Rice now, as well as how…flowery…her language is, I don’t think I would enjoy the experience as much as I did when I was 11. But those three, for sure, hold a special place in my heart.

I will also say Jasper Fforde’s The Jayne Eyre Affair. In my review on Amazon for this book, I said that I thought Jasper Fforde was right up there with Shakespeare, in his grasp of the English Language. The man is freaking brilliant and funny as hell.

A couple of others I would love to read again for the first time: Lord of Scoundrals (chase), Welcome to Temptation (crusie), Northeren Lights (NR), Kushiel’s Dart (Carey), The Price of the Stars (Debra Doyle & James MacDonald).

Oh, there are more…so many many more…;)

Wouldn’t The Dark is Rising make a great movie? Especially the 2nd (still my fave, altho the first great too).

Janet, did you know they made a film of the second book? It’s truly, truly terrible. (And so true to the books - like the bit we all remember where Will’s twin returns…)

Actually, probably better not to know the film exists, so you’re never tempted to watch it.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  Amazingly good.

Little Women
The Color Purple
Eat,Pray Love,
Bridget Jones Diary
The Poisonwood Bible

Immortal Highlander by Karen Marie Moning.  You know that feeling you get when the emotion of a book overwhelms your body and feels like your chest will burst?  that was The Immortal Highlander for me.

there are others too, but that’s the one I’m thinking of right now.

No wait!

An Offer from a Gentleman by Julia Quinn.  The first time I read that book I felt so connected to the heroine. every emotion she felt I felt as well.  In fact, I was on the bus when something particularly terrible happened to (I think it was) the heroine’s sister and i gasped “Oh no!” out loud.

That’s how you know you’re a good writer.

I’m one of those shameless JR Ward addicts and I’d love to read Lover Awakened for the first time again. It was the first of that series that I had to wait for and even now, after four more books, Zsadist is still my favorite Brother. I remember how horrified I was at his treatment as a slave and how beautiful it was to see him discover sexual pleasure for the first time and fall in love. I just love the rush I got when I saw him go from one extreme to the other. That rush just hasn’t been the same in subsequent rereads.

I’ll jump into the line for The Time Traveler’s Wife. I remember sitting down to read it and not getting up for the next several hours—I just couldn’t stop, and didn’t want to. They’d better not ruin the movie!

The Last Unicorn, by Peter Beagle, the first book to really get me into fantasy as a genre, and my first experience with an ending that, even though it was technically unhappy, was still exactly how it had to end. The follow-up novella Two Hearts is the same way.

Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay.

Oh, and the dizzying time-travel/historical/trippy thing that is Lisa Mason’s Summer of Love.

Wouldn’t The Dark is Rising make a great movie? Especially the 2nd (still my fave, altho the first great too).

Yes, as Elizabeth Wadsworth mentioned, they made a movie called The Seeker: The Dark is Rising a couple of years ago.  I haven’t seen it, but I’ve read about it.  It’s set in America and Will apparently even gets one of the signs at a mall.

This is a great shame, because The Dark is Rising would make a wonderful film or miniseries, and they even had the inspiration to cast Christopher Eccleston as the Rider. *sigh*

As for books that I would love to experience again as a first-time reader, the Dark is Rising series makes the top of the list, as does the Harry Potter series.  Both were major staples of my childhood—Cooper even more than Rowling, because I grew up along with Harry, as the HP books came out, whereas Susan Cooper’s complete works were all waiting for me at the local library.

My first Agatha Christie should make this list, too.  It was The Mysterious Affair at Styles (and so also Dame Agatha’s first!).  We found it in a house we rented in Gloucestershire when I was 12 and my mother read it to my little brother and me.  I’ve been reading Christie ever since, but there’s nothing like the first one, and my knowing nothing of her, or the murder-mystery genre—puzzling along, hanging on every word because it might be a clue, debating who had dunnit every time my mother stopped reading for the night.  I was so proud to be the only one who picked up on one character having not been guilty, but rather shielding another character with whom he was in love.

I’m getting rather nostalgic, but I’ll add I Capture the Castle.  I’m glad that I read it as a young girl, but I’d like to know what I would have gotten from it if I’d been an adult the first time I read it.  It’s still speaks strongly to me.

Jane Austen’s works should also make this list.  I can’t imagine my life without having read them, but I’m jealous every time I recommend them to a friend, because my friend gets to read them for the very first time.

Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
‘Salem’s Lot - Stephen King

I don’t do many re-reads, but these are 2 that are worth the effort.

I am firmly in the Jasper Fforde camp, for both his Thursday Next series and his Nursery Crimes series.  All of Fforde’s books delight me with his wild inventiveness and sly literary genius, but I have to agree that The Fourth Bear, in particular, is one of the funniest books I’ve read in ages.

Patricia Veryan’s Georgian romance series, The Golden Chronicles, is an all time favorite.  I remember reading them for the very first time as an impressionable 17 year old.  They are full of romantic adventure, duels, conspiracy and danger and just enough passion for a young girl.  Still love ‘em today!  They are on my “keeper” shelf.  Of all Veryan’s books, The Golden Chronicles are my hands down favorite and I’d put them up there with some Georgette Heyer novels. 

I’m currently rereading the Anita Mills “Fire” series of medieval romances.  I had forgotten how wonderful these books are.  The writing is so vivid and the heroes are swoon worthy.  In fact, I swoon over the villian Robert of Belesme too!  I picked them up from a used bookseller because I recall loving them in college.  Yep, they were just as good the second time around.

Gone With The Wind is one I read over and over and which that each time was the first time.  I still cry every single time Gerald O’Hara dies.

I’ll join the Harry Potter group, and the Kushiel’s Dart group.  I’ll also add Ruins of Ambrai, Ender’s Game, Glittering Images, Assassin’s Apprentice, Cade and Holly’s Story (I can’t remember the real title, Kresley Cole’s book) and Little Children (I wish I hadn’t seen the movie before I read the book).

Spamword: Own92—I own waaayyy more than 92 books.

Darlene Marshall reminded me:

Any Terry Pratchett Discworld novel—-I love the anticipation whenever I pick up one of his new books, and I often wish they wouldn’t end.

Rereading them is almost as good, though!

Can a person jump into Veryan’s Golden Chronicles? The Tyrant just got a great review (here, I think?) ... and it’s been off the charts reviewed on AAR too. It’s a plot a like (fake betrothral) but will I be lost if I start midway?

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Great article! Thanks for the more gloves off recounting of the event. Among all the great fun and meeting up with everyone, there’s a real serious underpinning of business. And in this economy, well, as they used to say on Hill Street Blues, “Be careful out there!”.

Glad to know I should avoid at all costs the Dark is Rising movie. Thanks everyone.

Sunshine by Robin McKinney; and also The Blue Sword
For My Lady’ Heart and Shadowheart By Kinsale; and the rest of her entire backlist, really.
The Kushiel Series by Carey; I also really loved her subversive fantasy duo, although they aren’t as popular.
Son of the Morning by Linda Howard—for some reason THIS book I will reread at any time.
Demon Moon by Meljean Brook; I love the rest of her series too, but Colin was my fave so far.  I love emoty men.
The Immortals After Dark Series by Kresley Cole; this series is just so much FUN! 

There’s others I can’t think of at the moment.

Add me to the Harry Potter, Lord of Scoundrels, and Kushiel’s Dart category.  I’m reading Kushiel’s Mercy right now, but there’s nothing like reading the first book for the first time.

I’d also like to reread Greenwood, which someone posted on the boards here earlier in the year.  I inhaled that thing, and had the eye strain and sleeplessness to prove it.  I wish I could reread it in book form, sitting comfortably in bed.  Don’t think it’ll ever happen, though.

The Belgariad & Mallorean quintologies by David & Leigh Eddings.  High fantasy, with a fully formed, logical world, plus half a dozen romantic relationships whose outcomes are written in the stars.

The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  It isn’t a romance…or is it?

I’m now listening, via Audible, to the Vorkosigan series from Lois McMaster Bujold. Listening to them is the closest I can get to that “first time” experience. I laugh all over again.

These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer
Cyteen by C. J. Cherryh

The Windflower - the first genuinely well written, literate, funny, moving romance I ever read - prior to that I’d read the bodice ripping Old Skool stuff, for which I still have lingering affection, but Windflower was the first romance where I thought - holy crap, this stuff is really, really good.  Couldn’t put it down, told all my friends about it.

I still love Cat.  One of my favorite characters of all time, and he needs his own book, dammit.

Oh man, so, so many.

Most recently: Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas

From the Way Distant Reading Past: The Heralds of Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey

From the Mid Range Wacky Years: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by the dude, Douglas Adams

From the So This is What Science Fiction Is Like Years: the entire Pern collection (not including anything written within last few years, I’m talking the old school stuff)

Despite loving many, many books over the years, these and a few others are the ones that really dipped me in and submerged me in their awesomeness.

JD Robb-Naked in Death.

SL Viehl-Stardoc

Susan Elizabeth Phillips-Kiss an Angel

Angela Knight/Diane Whiteside-Captive Dreams

i could go on, but I’d be here all day instead of writing…

Many of the ones I’d love to read again for the first time have been mentioned.
I’d add Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George
Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
and my very first Sandra Hill “The Very Virile Viking” I had never laughed so hard reading a book in my LIFE when I read that book.

1. Diana Gabaldon’s - Outlander series—Ok Well anything by Diana-Wonderful
2. Anne Rice - Interview with a vampire
3. Stephanie Meyers - Twilight -  Loved the story
4. Sarah Gruen - Water for Elephants
5. Stephen King’s - The Stand
6. Geraldine Brooks -  People of the Book
7. Anything by Julia Quinn

Sharyn McCrumb. Any Sharyn McCrumb, but mostly The Ballad of Frankie Silver and Bimbos of the Death Sun.

also most of Louisa May Alcott. Right now I’m loving that I have a daughter who’s the right age to start discovering my childhood favorites—I’m supplying her with Alcott, Mongomery, L’Engle, E. Nesbitt, Laura Engalls Wilder…Plus, her favorite babysitter is a fifteen-year-old neighbor girl who I’m introducing to favorites like Georgette Heyer and Patricia Wrede, Jane Austen and Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

Re: Lois Bujold’s Vorkosigan series: I have never read Bujold and she’s recommended all over this site (among others). I’m confused about which book to start with. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks!!

Lots of books already mentioned—Georgette Heyer, particularly The Grand Sophy, which was the first Heyer book I read (actually my mom read it to me when I was ten). The Lymond Chronicles.  Also Dorothy Sayers’ Peter & Harriet books, particularly Have HIs Carcase, which was the first of the four I read (I have a tendency to read and write series out of order).  I was dazzled by the complicated magic of Peter and Harriet’s relationship. Also Laurie King’s Russell & Holmes series and Freedom & Necessity by Steven Brust Emma Bull (speaking in both cases of being dazzled by complicated relationships).

“Classic” Pern, definitely and Fforde and Heyer and McKinley (The Blue Sword and Beauty are habitual rereads) and Bujold.

Joanna Bourne’s The Spymaster’s Lady
Elizabeth Peters’ Crocodile on the Sandbank

Soon I want to reread the Angelique series, and it will have been such a long time since I read them for the first time that it will probably feel like the first time all over again.

Great question.  There are so many!

From childhood:  Black Beauty, The Princess Bride, Madeleine L’Engle books (esp. A Swiftly Tilting Planet), the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe (yes, I was an extremely morbid child)

From adulthood:  Julia Quinn’s The Duke and I (I absolutely adored that book), Jumping the Fence by Stephanie Vaughan, Eclipse of the Heart by Emily Veinglory, Possession by AS Byatt, Dance with the Devil by Sherrilyn Kenyon (I’ve stopped reading her books, unfortunately, but that one really hit me when I read it)

This is making me think about a lot of great books I’d like to reread.  Reading them for the first time was amazing, but rereading them has its own special pleasure too.

Marian Keyes.
The first book I read by her was “Last Chance Saloon” and it made me love her. I bought that book 10 years ago, and I can still remember buying it, and tearing through it like a bag of M&Ms; on my worst PMS day.  Since then I have read all of her books, and recommended them to everyone I know. I am always amazed at how, even when she is tackling some hard subjects (alcoholism, spousal abuse, the death/abandonment of a spouse) she still finds ways to make me laugh.

Randi: I’m kind of compulsive, and I like to do stuff in order, but I think the Vorkosigan books really should be read in order.  Start with Shards of Honor, then Barrayar, then Warrior’s Apprentice.

Miles Vorkosigan is, to me, the point of the whole series, so I didn’t really get into it, into it, until Warrior’s Apparentice.  The first two tell the story of his parents and his birth - very good in their own right, but the rip roaring adventuring starts when Miles grows up and starts getting into trouble on his own.

Read them.  You won’t be sorry.

A Wrinkle in Time series by Madeleine L’Engle and The Neverending Story by Michael Ende.  Those were the books that made me fall in love with reading when I was a kid.

Add me to the Kushiel’s Dart list—-it would be so amazing to discover that wonderful world for the first time.  And Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody books, although I still have some books in the series I need to read for the first time (it’s a long series).  Sharon Shinn’s Archangel series.  And I’d love to be reading Sheri Tepper’s The Family Tree: I was working at a bookstore when it came out, and we all kept passing the ARC around in awe. 
It’s fun to read what other people have to say on this subject!

Thanks, Kinsey! I had asked, because her site lists the books in timeline chronology, rather than when the books were written. I wasn’t sure if I should start with when the books were written, or the story’s timeline. Very confusing (Asaro does this too-has books written later that actually take place prior to other books already written. Makes it very difficult to follow and start.)

The Harry Potter series. Definitely. I’m one of the lucky kids that got to grow up with the series (the last book came out on my sixteenth birthday), but I would love to reread them again, to know that magic for the first time.

Definitely agree with the Jasper Fforde fans, as well as with the Belgariad/Malloreon by David Eddings—those are my favorite ten books of all time. And I would love to reread The Hobbit for the first time. I loved that book as a kid.

I’m currently rereading the Anita Mills “Fire” series of medieval romances.  I had forgotten how wonderful these books are.  The writing is so vivid and the heroes are swoon worthy.  In fact, I swoon over the villian Robert of Belesme too!

I just read Lady of Fire over 4th of July. Incredible! I’ve been getting Anita Mills’ books on PaperbackSwap. She is my new favorite author. I couldn’t believe she pulled off the growing up as brother and sister romance.

Crocodile on the Sandbank (Elizabeth Peters)...Amelia is such a great character, feisty, determined, annoying, just like me and I remember reading it fast, too fast. I’d like another chance to savor it.

Dune (Frank Herbert)...dang I love this book. I’d wish they’d stop trying to make movies of it. It’s art, man, not chop suy! Also read too fast and I cherish the first run hardback copy I found (with the groovy dust sleeve) in Merlin’s Books!

Kushiel’s Dart (Carey)...recommended by a co-worker (a freak girl in the nicest sense), waited to read it like a fool, and when I did, I had the matching luggage to show how much I was enjoying it. Took my time reading it and I’ve reread it many many times, but I’d love to feel the shock, love, and thrill again.

Harry Potters (Rowling)...I’ve reread most of them, but it’s nothing like the first time.

Hell House (Matheson)...scar-e. Love it, shared it, and wish I could do it all over again.

Jane Eyre (Bronte)...this book absorbed me, I was there with her, feeling her pain, and not getting any sleep till I was done. Tried to listen to the audio book recently, it’s not the same.

Sorry to not have more romance titles and this being a romance loving site. Everyone has given some great titles and I’ve booked marked them for future purchase. Thanks for sharing.

try48…okay

Don’t know if the re-read “for the first time” is meant to include any book that I love rediscovering, and I do rediscover on a regular basis.

Probably my number one, desert island, never get tired of re-reading is The Riddle-Master Trilogy by Patricia McKillip.  At least twice a year I have to read it, and I will often just read parts of it out loud to myself.

I loved Outlander and even though I have re-read it over and over, I would love to read again for the first time.

@Randi:  I second the suggestion of following Bujold’s timeline rather than the publication date.  I know people who’ve started with A Civil Campaign, but if you do you lose tidbits like why it’s significant that Miles doesn’t get to say, “Ivan, you idiot!”, or why the couch from the attic matters, or why Aral wears tacky tropical print shirts.

But you’ll love them.  You can start directly with Miles’ story in The Warrior’s Apprentice, but I would start with his parents’ story in Shards of Honor.  Shards is, stand alone, one of the best romance novels I’ve ever read.

I read Garth Nix’s Sabriel for the first time in eighth grade.  And while I can read it over and over, I miss the wonder I felt the first time I immersed myself in Nix’s world.  Still a fabulous book though.

Though Jennifer Crusie’s Bet Me never fails to please either.  Definitely the perfect rainy day read.

For me it would have to be Natsuo Kirino’s women’s crime novel Out. I was absolutely mesmerized the whole time I first read it, and I’m afraid the magic may either not be there or in much smaller doses during any subsequent read-throughs. It’s a phenomenal novel, and I own the tattered used paperback I initially read, the US hardcover and the original Japanese-language two-book set. Once I finish my TBR pile, I’m going to have to go back and read it again.

@ Darlene and Kinsey:

Bujold’s site suggests the following for reading:

Dreamweaver’s Dilemma in Dreamweaver’s Dilemma (1996) [DD]
Falling Free (1988) [FF]
Shards of Honor (1986) [SoH]
Barrayar (1991)
The Warrior’s Apprentice (1986) [TWA]
The Mountains of Mourning in Borders of Infinity (1989) [tMoM]
The Vor Game (1990) [TVG]
Cetaganda (1995)
Ethan of Athos (1986) [EoA]
Labyrinth in Borders of Infinity (1989)
The Borders of Infinity in Borders of Infinity (1987)
Brothers in Arms (1989) [BiA]
Linking sections of Borders of Infinity (1989) [BoI]
Mirror Dance (1994) [MD]
Memory (1996)
Komarr (1998)
A Civil Campaign (1999) [ACC]
Winterfair Gifts (2004) [WG]
Diplomatic Immunity (2002) [DI]

Should I still start with Shards of Honor? Or with Dreamweaver’s Dilemma?

For anyone who is a Catherine Asaro fan, and is in the PA/NJ/NY/Delaware area, she’s apparently going to be at Robin’s Books this Friday, July 24th, at 7:30. Here is the link should you be interested:

http://www.moonstoneartscenter.org/events/724-catherine-asaro/

Love, Love, Love THEM!!!  I am in love with the Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series and Mary Balogh is fantastic as well.  Eloise James, Julia Quinn…I could go on and on.

Oh, Jacqueline Carey, yes. I remember flying through Kushiel’s Dart in a day—it was one of those books that I literally couldn’t put down, not even to eat. Afterward, I immediately ran for the second one, and then the third, only to find it was due out in the US a month later, when I was going to be in France to study abroad. Completely by chance, I ran across a copy of it in an English-language bookshop in Zurich, and ended up reading about half before dashing off to catch my train. Those books absolutely suck me in every time I read them, but nothing is quite as thrilling as the first time I read them.

I’m torn because as much as I enjoyed the last two Julia Spencer-Fleming novels, I was so invested in the books that the impending doom was causing some major anxiety (especially book 5 when it looked like it might be a possible end of the series!).

I think I’d have to go with Jane Eyre, as I read that one when fairly young and I’m sure there are things that went over my head.  Not that that prevented it from becoming one of my desert island books.  Pride and Prejudice, too, though I was a little older when I read that one.

Other than that one, though, I think most of the books I’d liketo reread again for the first time are the ones that also had something else to add to the experience.  Like with the last two Spencer-Fleming books or the Harry Potter books, where the anticipation of the next instalment and the joy of finally having it in my hands was part of the experience.

Robin McKinley’s Beauty, Rose Daughter, and Sunshine
Judith Tarr’s Alamut and The Dagger and the Cross
The Scarlet Pimpernel
The Once and Future King

There are more, but these are at the top of my list. Of course, part of what I miss is staying up all night with a flashlight under the covers, desperate to reach the end and at the same time not wanting to.

my very short list:

“his majesty’s dragon” by naomi novik
“sin and sensibility” bysuzanne enoch

oddly enough, i AM “reading again for the first time” “wuthering heights”, and have discovered that i don’t like it any more the second time around than i did 13 years ago.

Oh, that was a fun conversation!

I’m sure I mentioned Beagle’s The Last Unicorn (can’t wait for the sequel to Two Hearts - does anybody know when it’s coming out?) and McKinley’s Sunshine then, too.

Both fantasies, which no doubt explains what I’m writing now.

On the romance side, I’d love to come fresh to Crusie’s Welcome to Temptation and Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels.  Or start Balogh’s Slightly series again.

These books were so funny I wish I could read them again for the first time:
Patience is a Virtue and Instructing Arabella by Judith Nelson
Georgiana and On the Way to Gretna Green by Marian Devon
Devil’s Delilah by Loretta Chase
Memoirs of a Hoyden by Joan Smith

I’ve read them all so often I have to take breaks of at least a year to read them again.

I haven’t read Dreamweaver’s Delimna, but I have read Falling Free and it’s not usually what people are thinking about when the Miles books.  I would start with his parents stories as mentioned above.

Falling Free is a good, thought provoking piece of SF but it might be a bit disturbing to nonsf readers.

DS: Thanks for the tip. ;) I actually read about as much SF as I do Romance (which is to say…A LOT), so I don’t expect I’ll have any problems should I eventually get to Falling Free. But general consensus looks like starting with Shards of Honor-so that’s where I’ll start.

Windflower by Sharon and Tom Curtis (best romance novel ever)
Paradise by Judith McNaught
Gentle Rogue by Johanna Lindsey
Ransom by Julie Garwood

LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE by Laura Esquivel
Kiss an Angel and Ain’t She Sweet by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston
He Loves Lucy by Susan Donovan

**sigh**

I just read Outlander for the first time and even in the middle of reading it I had the sense that it was a book that would be on this list for me.

Harry Potter and The Time Traveller’s Wife are both firmly ensconced on that list as well. Though with subsequent re-reads of HP I find that I pick up on details I missed early on, it’ll never be quite the same as that first experience.

This question gets at why series are so appealing to me—they offer a new story set in a place & with characters I’ve already met and want to meet again, but it’s a new story—that “first time” element—and provides surprises and new experiences.

Some series that I’m so glad I can keep reading:
Maria Snyder’s Poison series
Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changling series
Kresley Cole’s—hmm, what is the name of her demons/valkyries/vampire series?
Nora Roberts In the Garden series

Beauty by Robin McKinley
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett which led me to…
Guards, Guards by Terry Pratchett
Bet Me by Jennie Crusie
Devils Cub by Georgette Heyer
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Grass by Sherri S. Tepper
Ender’s Game and the rest by Orson Scott Card
So You Want To Be A Wizard? by Diane Duane
Moomintroll Midsummer by Tove Jannson
The Sharing Knife series by Lois McMaster Bujold

Oh…I could go on and on!

I love horses, went to Williams Woods U on an equestrian scholarship, and the very first thing that popped into my head was Jilly Cooper’s Riders. It’s a bit dated at this point, since it ends at the LA Summer Olympics that took place in the 1980s. But it’s incredible. Wicked, funny, sad, and she gets the horses just exactly right each time.

Outlander is another book I got totally, heartpoundingly, cannot-put-it-down lost in.

And though it’s a bodice ripper of the first order, I still remember vividly my very first romance, The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss. I think I was 13.

Randi,

just to confure the issue further, most of the books have been compiled into omnibus editions - for instance ‘Young Miles’ contains both ‘Warrior’s Apprentice’ and ‘The Vor Game’.  You can probably get the whole series cheaper if you buy them as omnibus books.

If you’ve got an eReader, Baen’s website is fantastic - the omnibus editions are really reasonably priced and - I think - DRM free. (Not that I’d know a DRM if it hit me on the head.)

Also, if you’d like to try before you buy, there are really long excerpts available - click on the book title, then on to the ‘Next’ page, and you get 9, 10 chapters of each book to read.

Relevant page is:
http://www.baen.com/author_catalog.asp?author=lmbujold

FWIW, the first book in Shards is a first book, and reads like a first book. The series just gets better and better.

So many series I’m agreeing with here….Lackey’s first Valdemar trilogy, the early Pern novels by McCaffery, Harry Potter…..,Dark Hunter’s by Kenyon &  not forgetting Kinley MacGregor’s Brotherhood   of the Sword
But also   Beauvallet by Georgette Heyer
Mist Over Pendle by Robert Neill
Christina Skye’s Draycott books
Liz Carlyle…No True Gentleman - my joint all time fave with..
Mary Jo Putney’s ..One Perfect Rose

Randi: here’s the list of the omnibus editions, I found it on goodreads.com. (I promise I’m not paid by Baen to do this: I just love the books. It’s the only series I have complete both in dead tree-book & ebook formats.)

From goodreads.com:

* Cordelia’s Honor: contains (1) Shards of Honor and (2) Barrayar
* Young Miles: contains (3) The Warrior’s Apprentice, short story “The Mountains of Mourning”, and (4) The Vor Game
* Miles, Mystery & Mayhem: contains (5) Cetaganda, (6) Ethan of Athos, and the short story “Labyrinth”
* Miles Errant: contains short story “The Borders of Infinity”, (7) Brothers in Arms, and (8) Mirror Dance
* Miles in Love: contains (10) Komarr, (11) A Civil Campaign, and the short story “Winterfair Gifts”
* Miles, Mutants and Microbes: contains Falling Free, (12) Diplomatic Immunity, and the short story “Labyrinth”

IMPORTANT NOTE for people getting the omnibus editions: The 9th book in the series, Memory, is NOT included in any of the omnibus editions. For some reason, they just skipped it. Luckily it’s still in print as a single novel. Don’t forget to get “Memory” if you’re going with the omnibus editions - it is a vital part of the story.

Pride and Prejudice.

OK . Sorry but I can’t leave   without saying ALL of Lindsay Davis’s Falco novel’s (sarcasm & satire at it’s best…&  I lurve Falco, for the delightfully cynical informer that he is !)
Finally in the ultimate Bodice Ripper catagory the late Teresa Denys’s The Silver Devil

Oooh. This is a good one. And giving me tons of books to read. =P My number one would have to be Little Women. It’s still my fave book of all time. All of the Anne of Green Gables books, and LM Montgomery’s short stories. And Little House on the Prairie. Stephen King’s The Stand. I think those are the main ones. =) Okay, now I want to take them out and start reading again.