Re-Re-reading

John Wright contributed to a column of SF writers who told which books they re-read to pieces. He began his with "The primary purpose of nonfiction books is either to give us facts, give us insights based on facts, or to persuade or urge us into some course of action based on that insight. But the primary purpose of fiction is to slake the thirst we have for the magical waters which flow from worlds beyond the dry and bitter world of facts, to drink, to bathe, to be cleansed, to be refreshed, and to emerge shining from the baptism of the imagination to return to the dry wasteland of the factual world washed and prepared for battle."

This obviously oversimplifies: One book I have re-read repeatedly is Ryan’s The Longest Day, which is as factual as he could make it, and yet tells as grand a story of courage and honor as any fantasy. But the point is taken.

I looked at the list of books the authors read, and their descriptions of either why or how they were so central, and wondered about my own list and what it says about me.

I wrote out a list, and noticed a few oddities. Some books or short stories I esteem I haven’t actually re-read much. For example, "A Martian Odyssey" by Weinbaum has some of the clearest descriptions of truly alien intelligence I know of, and I recommend it frequently. I’ve read it twice. Wolfe’s The Shadow of the Torturer series I’ve only read twice, but that’s partly because I had some impressionable youngsters running about and so didn’t acquire a copy of my own.

Some books I read very many times (RM), and others merely many (M). The list is incomplete—it doesn’t include some light reading that slips my mind completely at the moment.

Let it be noted that I am typically careful with books, and the “to pieces” aspect may usually be attributed to our offspring.

	Bible	sui generis: RM
C.S. Lewis	Narnia (esp Magician’s Nephew and Last Battle), Perelandra, That Hideous Strength, Great Divorce, Screwtape Letters	RM
C.S. Lewis	Out of The Silent Planet, Mere Christianity, Pilgrim’s Regress	M
Chesterton	Man Who Was Thursday, Orthodoxy, Heretics, Father Brown	RM
Tolkien	Lord of the Rings	RM
Tolkien	Hobbit, Farmer Giles, Leaf by Niggle, first part of Silmarillion	M
Charles Williams	novels	RM
Charles Williams	plays	M
Simak	Time is the Simplest Thing, Way Station, City	RM
Kuttner	many short stories	RM
Bradbury	many short stories	RM
Niven	Protector	RM
Niven/Pournelle	Inferno	RM
Carroll	Alice, Through Looking Glass	RM
Orwell	1984	M
Haggard	She, Ayesha, King Solomon’s Mines, Allan Quartermain	RM
Zelazny	Lord of Light, Creatures of Light and Darkness, Today We Choose Faces	RM
Beagle	Last Unicorn	RM
Stevenson	Treasure Island	M
MacDonald	Phantastes, Lilith	M
Pratchett	Thief of Time	RM
Pratchett	a few other Diskworld, Good Omens	M
Grahame	Wind in the Willows	M
Miller	Canticle for Leibowitz	RM
Biddlecombe	French Lessons in Africa	M
deCamp	Incompleate Enchanter	M
Laumer	Retief’s Ransom, Dinosaur Beach	RM
Chandler	Long Goodbye	RM
vanGulik	early mysteries	RM
vanGulik	later mysteries	M
L’Engle	Wrinkle in Time	RM
T.S. Eliot	The Cocktail Party	RM
Ryan	Longest Day	RM
Bunyan	Pilgrim’s Progress	M
Twain	various, more often the short stories than the novels	M
Nye	various short stories	M
Kelly	Pogo books	RM
Frank	Farley collections	RM
Aaron Williams	Nodwick collections	RM

The latter few aren’t exactly great literature, but I don’t always read great literature . . .

Some of these are obviously for the humor: Twain, Pratchett, Kelly, Nye, Biddlecombe

It looks like I have a taste for “worlds within worlds” or “unknown worlds” fiction, and for twists. With some other things thrown in, of course: still quite a few of these are origin or end-of-the-world stories (Today We Choose Faces is a little of both). That seems to show up in my own fiction as well (the bulk of which has not yet been inflicted on a suffering world).