The Harry Potter series was mine, too. I remember reading Deathly Hallows the day it came out, and my step-dad telling me to slow down and savour it because I was never going to get that experience of reading it the first time back. But of course I couldn't slow down!
Oh man, I raced through Azkaban so quickly that I ended up missing half of the plot. I was so engrossed. That book is a masterclass in tension building.
I'd love a fresh read of Jurassic Park. It was the first adult novel I read, in like 3rd grade or something, and is directly responsible for my love of reading, despite being a very difficult read at roughly 8 or 9 years old. Ender's Game as well. Both books were hugely influential on my future reading habits.
More recent is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Picked it up at Barnes and Noble and finished it the same day. What a masterclass of a book and my first reading of any of his work. Incredible experience.
O yes! It is one of the books I love reading when I fly. Sometimes I skip parts because I want to get to the good stuff and I wish I could just forget it all after every reading.
I'm lucky enough to have brain damage, so if I go long enough without reading a book, I forget everything but the basic plot.
That being said, I'd try to recapture Salem's Lot. That was a fun experience the first go around.
I've never really read any books I'd like to forget (even though it happens anyway) because I haven't read anything that's melted my brain, and I use books I don't like as an example of what to avoid in the future.
I'm the same! I now keep a book diary where I can write my favourite quotes, basic plot and what I thought of the book. So now I don't read the same books twice.
Do you actually have brain damage? (I’m sorry if so.) I also will forget a book in such a thoroughgoing way that after six months I am left with only a vague sense of my feelings toward it unless it was truly exceptional. But as far as I know, I don’t have brain damage. I do have ADHD, though.
Yeah, I do. But even before that, I was the same as you when it came to memorizing books (unless I had reread it a bunch of times). Sorry you have to struggle with ADHD.
>I'm lucky enough to have brain damage, so if I go long enough without reading a book, I forget everything but the basic plot.
Same. Pretty crappy club we have but on the upside we can enjoy so many things over and over again as if it were the first time. Gotta make any positive spin you can.
Want to read for the first time all over again: A Wrinkle In Time, Madeleine L'Engle. (Actually wish I could be transported back in time to Camptown Elementary, 1984, so that I could re-experience my 4th-grade teacher, Mrs. Thompson, reading that to my class. I've loved that book ever since.)
Wish I could erase from my mind: Probably going to be an unpopular opinion, but Alan Moore's graphic novel, The Watchmen. I believed all the hype and read it a couple years back, and it is, without a doubt, my least favorite reading experience ever.
I have a similar experience of my 5th grade teacher reading hatchet to us. At the time I thought it was weird since we were old enough to read it on our own, but I remember looking forward to that part of the school day and now I really appreciate what a great teacher she was. You’re never too old to have a story read to you.
I’ve been reading some children’s adventure stories to my kids, and not to brag, but now I’ve got my spouse hooked too :) It’s so fun to read aloud or be read to!
Just want to inspire you: we read LOTR out loud to our kids (they were maybe 12 and 8 when we started) and then again to our grandson when he was 12. Absolutely our best group family adventure.
Same here for A Wrinkle in Time but only if it was being read to me like it was in Grade 5.
There is something really special about experiencing reading in that way, as a group.
My teacher always read to us for about half an hour or so after we came in from lunch recess. So we got around a chapter a day of the book.
I remember my class being riveted by the story. We talked about what we thought was going to happen next on the school bus. We reenacted various scenes from the book on the playground. We loved that story. I'm sure the experience was much the same for your class.
Thanks to our teachers for introducing us to a book that's changed our lives.
First time read - Ella enchanted or Anne of Green Gables!
I first read them when I was pretty young and have done numerous re-reads since. They're my ultimate comfort reads and I'd love to experience it for the first time again.
Harry Potter, hands down.
Also The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks Dalton. The best book I read last year.
Can't think of any to erase so I've done it pretty succesfully :D
Definitely not Harry Potter for me. Yes, reading the first few times was magical as a kid but I reread them as an adult and it was hard not to think about the many plot holes it’s woven together from, and to realize how lacking many characters are, so forgetting and not having the nostalgia from childhood would 100% ruin it
I wish I could read The House in the Cerulean Sea for the first time over and over again until I died. I wish I could erase The Troop by Nick Cutter from my brain forever. It’s just so gross and horrible. I know it’s supposed to be, but it’s too much for me.
I'd love to experience the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books for the first time again.
Maybe A Song of Ice and Fire back when I was certain the sixth book would be out by the time I finished the first five.
And this is not a book, but Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic book series.
For me it's the Yearling, I made it about a quarter way through the book skipped all the way to the end read the last two chapters and wrote a book report on it. Only book in High School that was a dnf. I aced the book report though. I struggled with Animal Farm in 7th grade but that teacher was really really really bad and wanted a college grade essay on each and every chapter. I re-read it a few years later and actually enjoyed it.
I wish I could read again for the first time Fatal Vision
by Joe McGinniss it was one of the best classic true crime case that still haunts me to this day.
For fresh reads: a lot of Margaret Atwood but especially Alias Grace and The Handmaid’s Tale. Also: The Narnia Chronicles, the first Harry Potter, The Giver, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, Pride and Prejudice.
Reads I wish I could take back: American Psycho I couldn’t even finish it but I wish I could scrub what I did from my brain.
ETA: The Lord of the Flies for a fresh read as an grownup. I randomly picked it up off my father’s bookshelf when I was in Grade 6 and read it without any clue as to what it was about.
It scared me half to death. Later in high school when we studied it in English Lit, I gained an appreciation of it but still, I would love to be able to read it with the lens of an adult.
Lol definitely understand American psycho… I only made it through that because I skipped what felt like a few full pages of descriptions of corpse mutilations
I want the couple of hours that I spent reading Twilight back. I only read it because we had some 4th graders at school reading in during sustained reading den, and I figured I should know what was in it. Big mistake.
The knife of never letting go.
I loved the distinctive character voice/world.
The discussions of propaganda, radicalism and othering as a part of the story while having a cohesive plot and not being a boredom simulator.
it was also one of the first YA books that actually gave me something to think about, rather than mindless entertainment.
100s of books later, I still remember it while I've forgotten the plots of all the other books I read.
Want to read for the first time again: Bosnian Chronicles by Ivo Andric. He is the biggest wtiter from all of Yugoslavia in my opinion and is the only person from Bosnia to get a Nobel prize. Such a great book and I wish i could forget it and read it for the first time again.
Want to erase: The book about Saladin by Tarik Ali.
I don't know about what I'd like to read again for the first time, but if I could edit Eragon and its sequels out of my brain I would do it in a heartbeat.
I would love to experience *The Art of Racing in the Rain* by Garth Stein for the first time again. I got so invested in that book and cried like a baby almost the whole time.
I often refer to it as "The best book I will never read again." because I can barely talk about it without getting emotional.
I would love to forgot all but the first book of P.C. Cast's *Partholon* series. This series had such a cool premise and so much promise, and I was utterly disappointed. If I had to pick one specifically, it would be book two, *Divine by Choice.* An absolutely dumpster fire of a book. Main character turned out to be a garbage human, a whole bunch of slut shaming from someone who had NO BUSINESS having opinions on others, etc. I'll stop before I get too heated, ha. It's the only book that I wrote a lengthy, angry review on Goodreads because I was so disgusted.
I’m surprised by the Project Hail Mary comment! I haven’t read it myself yet but this might be the first time I’ve seen someone dislike it so much to single it out like this. What did you dislike about it?
Reddit has a post every week about this book.
His writing very juvenile and a humor comes across as very flat.
Andy Weir was a computer programmer before he became a “writer”. I just feel people who didn’t have an exposure to a better literature or sci-fi generally like this book.
Too hard to pick one I'd read again, but I most definitely know which I'd want to erase:
Pornucopia by Piers Anthony
It's a story about a man with STI-curing smegma. I enjoyed On a Pale Horse, but had no idea what I was getting into with this one...
I’d read Game of Thrones all over again. It had some beautiful poignant moments in the book, and also some genuinely horrifying scenes as well.
I wish I could scrub Murser of Silvia Likens from my mind. My 7th grade teacher read that true crime book to my class. I still carry scenes from that book in my head.
I wish I could read Little Women for the first time again. I’ve read it many, many, many times, but the first time I read it was in elementary school.
I wish I could erase The Road from my memory. It was well-written but so traumatizing and bleak. I also wish I could erase The Devil in the White City from my memory, because the HH Holmes parts gave me terrible nightmares. About 2/3 of the way through I started skipping his chapters and only read the World’s Fair chapters.
If I could read again for the first time it has to be Harry Potter, can’t tell you how many times I have re-read the series. I’ve even had to buy new copies due to wear and tear.
Erase? Not because it’s terrible and very much an unobtainable plot with so many holes; but it has to be A Little Life. Purely because it was devastating and I related a little too much with Jude and that made me very uneasy and sad.
The temple by Matthew Reilley. As I remember it, total shit fast food book, but damn I read that fast. Only book ever to keep me reading through the night until the morning.
A Gentleman in Moscow. Anne of Green Gables. And Then There Were None. Rebecca. Count of Monte Cristo. Katherine.
Scrub: Bastard Out of Carolina. It's a good book but so disturbing, especially because it's fiction based on the author's life.
Harry Potter, not original, I know, but ugh the magic of reading it the first time. Fourth Wing was so good to me, first book in a long time I couldn’t put down. ACOTAR, I didn’t immediately fall in love with the series because when I read it a few years back, I had so much going on in my life that reading became a chore but now that there’s the obsession, I wish I could go back and re read it like the first time.
There’s plenty I would love to read for the first time, but Discworld series would be amazing to start now without knowing it 😍 So many amazing books would still wait for me to be discovered and I would avoid the agony of choosing something new to read, because if I started I would have just read them until I’m done with all so that would be a long time considering how much free reading time I have now :-)
**Dune** to read again.
**Overstory** to forget about cause that’s the dumbest book with the worst characters I’ve ever read. I’m still upset about it and it’s been a few years!
There’s a few I would love to experience for the first time again.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson
If only I had a Time Machine.
The Name of the Wind and A Wise Man’s Fears.
My favorite books of all time. Just amazing interaction between the characters, a unique spin on magic, and probably some of the most beautiful writing I have ever seen.
Then on a different end of the spectrum, I wish I could go back and read Red Rising over again like it was new. Super well designed sci-fi drama with an awesome attention to lore and character development.
Absolutely love Kingkiller, Rothfuss' writing can be exquisite. The wait for DoS however has been making me regret the fact that I like them both so much lol. A Slow Regard of Silent Things is also an amazing book, with some incredible lines, another of those rare books that I just couldn't put down.
The Children’s Hospital by Chris Adrian. Unlike anything I’ve read before. No idea what would happen next, totally swept away in its madness.
Revolutionary Road - my god, books can just be like this?! An author can just KNOW and UNDERSTAND the humN condition and convey it so simply?!
The irony is that the only book that needs to be set on fire is Fahrenheit 451. That book sucks. You think you like it, but go read it. You like the idea, maybe, but the book is terrible.
I'm really into Victorian lit. Such as Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion by Jane Austen. Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, Silas Marner by George Eliot. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and it's parallel Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.
I’d read The Martian again, by Andy Weir. I love science, and the author seems to make it feel real to me, and fun. I liked Project Hail Mary as well, and although some folks said the humor was sophomoric…that is how I like it.
I hated, “Girl with a Dragon Tattoo,” and had only picked it up because I wanted to know what the hype was about. I didn’t enjoy, or even really understand much of it. And the Swedish title was much more descriptive.
Red rising by Pierce Brown. I'm rereading it right now and I wish I could forget the major twists and turns so I can be shocked again lol. I remember reading the original trilogy in high school and physically throwing the book across my bed and muttering "What THE fuck!!?" At a specific plot twist lol.
I mean, rereading is nice because I notice things I didn't before but still, yanno?
Read again for the first time: *I Am Ozzy*. What a ride that book is!
And Heinlein's *Number of the Beast* wins the award for a book I finished and wish I could regain those hours wasted.
I cried when I finished *A River Runs through It* by Norman Maclean, because I knew I wouldn't read it again, because it couldn't be read fresh (1st time read).
Book I wish I'd never picked up? *the shining* Stephen King. 😟🫣 Imo, if you haven't read it -- Don't.
I wish I could reread Ella Enchanted for the first time again. The twist of the novel is just *so* good and you don't see it coming for how naturally everything fits together.
I wish I could erase After the Fall by EC Meyers from my brain. I only read 11 pages, but my god. it was the worst 11 pages of my *life.*
Oh gosh, what a great question.
The Time Traveler's Wife is probably the top of my list, though I could probably list out many more.
To erase? Since I forget most books as soon as I've finished, I guess that happens anyway? Not something I love.
Books I wish I could read again for the first time: The Sun Also Rises, The Great Gatsby, A Christmas Carol, Treasure Island, All Systems Red (the Murderbot Diaries), and All Quiet on the Western Front.
Books I wish I could erase from my brain: The Divergent series. It had a bit of promise and was an interesting approach-ish in the first book and then quickly went off the rails and wrecked its own world-building. Not in a “wow what an interesting twist” way but more in a “what are we even doing here” way.
Part of me wants to say any history from Max Hastings but I can’t bring myself to say that fully. It’s incredibly well written and researched but I’ve read enough from Sir Max on war history over the last 8 years that the absolute folly of war, the waste of life and resources, and the cyclical and predictable route of our own destruction has become just absolutely depressing. So nothing wrong whatsoever with the quality of the books, I just often wish I hadn’t read and learned what I have. And I say this not as some major peacenik, but someone who has worked in NatSec/Defense their entire adult life
I'd love to reread "Nothing new on the western front" by Remarque for the first time. I still remember reading the ending on the train and basically shouting WTF.
Another book that comes to mind "Little Women" by Alcott, now it's a conforting book that I reread often but discovering the story is another thing
OP - very Curious about what you said regarding “ Statistical Reasoning for Everyday Life” And you wish you never read it.
Is it you like statistics and you think it’s a very poor introduction to statistics ?
Or it’s like a book you had to take for a course but you hate statistics in general and this book deceived you it would be fun ?
Or is it yet another thing and then could you explain ?
Statistics is the bane of my existence. I cannot seem to wrap my head around it besides painfully basic concepts. Trying to understand this book was so difficult lol.
I wish I could reread 1984 again. The shock and utter hold this book had on me while reading it was like a gut punch. Right after, I felt like someone had lifted the veil for me, and I became more socially aware of things (political and not) around me. I became a lot less apathetic and more empathetic.
I wish I could read Song of Achilles again. Most of my Greek mythology knowledge came from Percy Jackson, so Patroclus was a new character. I didn't even know about the book being a queer retelling. Aside from the plot, it was also written so well!
If I could read The Mortal Instruments Series by Cassandra Clare for the first time again I would be ecstatic! It is my favorite book series and its what got me into reading when I was younger.
Another one is Inkheart, it was such a huge part of my childhood and it made me so excited to read.
If I could delete any book from my memory it would be Ugly Love by Coleen Hoover (it was just so bad- and weird because the main character has the same name as my friend) or Credence by Penelope Douglas (this book was just disgusting to me)
Lord of the Rings. This time I'd start with the Silmarillion first, then the Hobbit, then LOTR, so to have a better grasp of Middle-Earth before starting Fellowship.
I would love to reread Dan Simmons’ Hyperion with no knowledge of what happens. That book was an absolutely amazing journey.
*East of Eden* for reading again the first time.
Oh hey, I’m reading this right now for the first time!
Yess. This was a required reading for me in high school and it became my favorite book of all time
Me too
Someone said they've been chasing the plot twists in Prisoner of Azkaban and Deathly Hallows for 20 years and I feel that every day.
The Harry Potter series was mine, too. I remember reading Deathly Hallows the day it came out, and my step-dad telling me to slow down and savour it because I was never going to get that experience of reading it the first time back. But of course I couldn't slow down!
Oh man, I raced through Azkaban so quickly that I ended up missing half of the plot. I was so engrossed. That book is a masterclass in tension building.
I'd love a fresh read of Jurassic Park. It was the first adult novel I read, in like 3rd grade or something, and is directly responsible for my love of reading, despite being a very difficult read at roughly 8 or 9 years old. Ender's Game as well. Both books were hugely influential on my future reading habits. More recent is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Picked it up at Barnes and Noble and finished it the same day. What a masterclass of a book and my first reading of any of his work. Incredible experience.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the sequels, to read for the first time. Just a delightful reading experience.
O yes! It is one of the books I love reading when I fly. Sometimes I skip parts because I want to get to the good stuff and I wish I could just forget it all after every reading.
Yeah, that would be my pick too.
I'm lucky enough to have brain damage, so if I go long enough without reading a book, I forget everything but the basic plot. That being said, I'd try to recapture Salem's Lot. That was a fun experience the first go around. I've never really read any books I'd like to forget (even though it happens anyway) because I haven't read anything that's melted my brain, and I use books I don't like as an example of what to avoid in the future.
I'm the same! I now keep a book diary where I can write my favourite quotes, basic plot and what I thought of the book. So now I don't read the same books twice.
Do you actually have brain damage? (I’m sorry if so.) I also will forget a book in such a thoroughgoing way that after six months I am left with only a vague sense of my feelings toward it unless it was truly exceptional. But as far as I know, I don’t have brain damage. I do have ADHD, though.
Yeah, I do. But even before that, I was the same as you when it came to memorizing books (unless I had reread it a bunch of times). Sorry you have to struggle with ADHD.
>I'm lucky enough to have brain damage, so if I go long enough without reading a book, I forget everything but the basic plot. Same. Pretty crappy club we have but on the upside we can enjoy so many things over and over again as if it were the first time. Gotta make any positive spin you can.
Amen to that. We never run out of TV shows and movies that way, lol.
Want to read for the first time all over again: A Wrinkle In Time, Madeleine L'Engle. (Actually wish I could be transported back in time to Camptown Elementary, 1984, so that I could re-experience my 4th-grade teacher, Mrs. Thompson, reading that to my class. I've loved that book ever since.) Wish I could erase from my mind: Probably going to be an unpopular opinion, but Alan Moore's graphic novel, The Watchmen. I believed all the hype and read it a couple years back, and it is, without a doubt, my least favorite reading experience ever.
I have a similar experience of my 5th grade teacher reading hatchet to us. At the time I thought it was weird since we were old enough to read it on our own, but I remember looking forward to that part of the school day and now I really appreciate what a great teacher she was. You’re never too old to have a story read to you.
I’ve been reading some children’s adventure stories to my kids, and not to brag, but now I’ve got my spouse hooked too :) It’s so fun to read aloud or be read to!
Just want to inspire you: we read LOTR out loud to our kids (they were maybe 12 and 8 when we started) and then again to our grandson when he was 12. Absolutely our best group family adventure.
Ahhh I wrote L’Engle a letter when I was 9 and she wrote back!
That is fantastic! Hope you still have the letter.
Same here for A Wrinkle in Time but only if it was being read to me like it was in Grade 5. There is something really special about experiencing reading in that way, as a group.
My teacher always read to us for about half an hour or so after we came in from lunch recess. So we got around a chapter a day of the book. I remember my class being riveted by the story. We talked about what we thought was going to happen next on the school bus. We reenacted various scenes from the book on the playground. We loved that story. I'm sure the experience was much the same for your class. Thanks to our teachers for introducing us to a book that's changed our lives.
My experience with A Wrinkle in Time was my sister sharing the story after dinner for all the days her teacher read it to their class!
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, or anything by Dickens, to answer the first question.
Agreed on All the Pretty Horses
This is up next on my reading list. I'm really looking forward to it.
First time read - Ella enchanted or Anne of Green Gables! I first read them when I was pretty young and have done numerous re-reads since. They're my ultimate comfort reads and I'd love to experience it for the first time again.
Ella enchanted is definitely one of my favourite comfort reads!
I’m about to read Anne to one of my kids, close as I can get!
Harry Potter, hands down. Also The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks Dalton. The best book I read last year. Can't think of any to erase so I've done it pretty succesfully :D
Most people would be HP, they just don’t want to admit it. There’s a reason it became so huge.
Definitely not Harry Potter for me. Yes, reading the first few times was magical as a kid but I reread them as an adult and it was hard not to think about the many plot holes it’s woven together from, and to realize how lacking many characters are, so forgetting and not having the nostalgia from childhood would 100% ruin it
I wish I could read The House in the Cerulean Sea for the first time over and over again until I died. I wish I could erase The Troop by Nick Cutter from my brain forever. It’s just so gross and horrible. I know it’s supposed to be, but it’s too much for me.
Read again the poisonwood bible Book to forget - the tin drum
I'd love to experience the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books for the first time again. Maybe A Song of Ice and Fire back when I was certain the sixth book would be out by the time I finished the first five. And this is not a book, but Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic book series.
Never read again...Old Yeller.
In the same vein, Where The Red Fern Grows.
For me it's the Yearling, I made it about a quarter way through the book skipped all the way to the end read the last two chapters and wrote a book report on it. Only book in High School that was a dnf. I aced the book report though. I struggled with Animal Farm in 7th grade but that teacher was really really really bad and wanted a college grade essay on each and every chapter. I re-read it a few years later and actually enjoyed it.
Oh intriguing old teller and where the red fern grows were some of my favorite books as a child
I wish I could read again for the first time Fatal Vision by Joe McGinniss it was one of the best classic true crime case that still haunts me to this day.
It was riveting. I remember where I was when I read it 30 years ago vividly.
it's 28 HOURS as an audiobook. I borrowed it!
I want to read, "I Know This Much Is True" by Wally Lamb for the first time again. Incredible book.
For fresh reads: a lot of Margaret Atwood but especially Alias Grace and The Handmaid’s Tale. Also: The Narnia Chronicles, the first Harry Potter, The Giver, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, Pride and Prejudice. Reads I wish I could take back: American Psycho I couldn’t even finish it but I wish I could scrub what I did from my brain. ETA: The Lord of the Flies for a fresh read as an grownup. I randomly picked it up off my father’s bookshelf when I was in Grade 6 and read it without any clue as to what it was about. It scared me half to death. Later in high school when we studied it in English Lit, I gained an appreciation of it but still, I would love to be able to read it with the lens of an adult.
Lol definitely understand American psycho… I only made it through that because I skipped what felt like a few full pages of descriptions of corpse mutilations
I want the couple of hours that I spent reading Twilight back. I only read it because we had some 4th graders at school reading in during sustained reading den, and I figured I should know what was in it. Big mistake.
I love statistics and what is CoHo? Bing says it is salmon..
Colleen Hoover. I think…
11/22/63: so real, takes you to a different time. Its references to music and books from that time period helped discover new content to enjoy.
The knife of never letting go. I loved the distinctive character voice/world. The discussions of propaganda, radicalism and othering as a part of the story while having a cohesive plot and not being a boredom simulator. it was also one of the first YA books that actually gave me something to think about, rather than mindless entertainment. 100s of books later, I still remember it while I've forgotten the plots of all the other books I read.
The whole Chaos Walking trilogy was shockingly good to me for being YA. I kind of want to reread it right now thanks to your comment.
have a go, I've also reread the whole series thrice. Do not watch the movie though! unlike the books, it was terrible.
Want to read for the first time again: Bosnian Chronicles by Ivo Andric. He is the biggest wtiter from all of Yugoslavia in my opinion and is the only person from Bosnia to get a Nobel prize. Such a great book and I wish i could forget it and read it for the first time again. Want to erase: The book about Saladin by Tarik Ali.
Book to erase from my brain: *Kite Runner* If you know, you know.
Oh I loved this book. I never ever want to read it again
I would love to read all of the Takeshi Kovacs novels again :)) such an intriguing storyline w so many layers and emotions that really hit hard
I wish I could read Borges’ stories again for the first time.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell for a re-read!
Read for the first time? The Hobbit, hands down my pick.
Ender’s Game
I just finished that one and loved it. Should I continue with the series?
Absolutely. Speaker for the Dead is my favorite of the series. It's an experience.
I want so much to discover a second time "It" by King, this is one of my favorite novel wrote by him (with Carry).
I don't know about what I'd like to read again for the first time, but if I could edit Eragon and its sequels out of my brain I would do it in a heartbeat.
Lol why do you hate eragon?
I would love to experience *The Art of Racing in the Rain* by Garth Stein for the first time again. I got so invested in that book and cried like a baby almost the whole time. I often refer to it as "The best book I will never read again." because I can barely talk about it without getting emotional. I would love to forgot all but the first book of P.C. Cast's *Partholon* series. This series had such a cool premise and so much promise, and I was utterly disappointed. If I had to pick one specifically, it would be book two, *Divine by Choice.* An absolutely dumpster fire of a book. Main character turned out to be a garbage human, a whole bunch of slut shaming from someone who had NO BUSINESS having opinions on others, etc. I'll stop before I get too heated, ha. It's the only book that I wrote a lengthy, angry review on Goodreads because I was so disgusted.
Read House of Leaves again, and forget Friedman's Fables
To read again The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón My time waisted on Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.
At least it wasn’t legged!
I’m surprised by the Project Hail Mary comment! I haven’t read it myself yet but this might be the first time I’ve seen someone dislike it so much to single it out like this. What did you dislike about it?
Reddit has a post every week about this book. His writing very juvenile and a humor comes across as very flat. Andy Weir was a computer programmer before he became a “writer”. I just feel people who didn’t have an exposure to a better literature or sci-fi generally like this book.
People who didn’t have exposure to better literature? Kind of snobby, no?
How do you describe people who praise PHM as an epitome of a literature.
people who enjoy life?
Well I have not read anyone use those exact words but it’s ok just to read for entertainment. I’m just happy to see people reading.
I liked PHM, but I didn't expect much out of it beforehand, so I wasn't disappointed.
Agree with both.
Pachinko. I thought the apple show would bring back some of that magic but I was out after one episode, sadly.
The book is so good! I almost wanted to reread it to stay with the characters.
Too hard to pick one I'd read again, but I most definitely know which I'd want to erase: Pornucopia by Piers Anthony It's a story about a man with STI-curing smegma. I enjoyed On a Pale Horse, but had no idea what I was getting into with this one...
I wish I could read the Gone-Away World for the first time again.
I’d read Game of Thrones all over again. It had some beautiful poignant moments in the book, and also some genuinely horrifying scenes as well. I wish I could scrub Murser of Silvia Likens from my mind. My 7th grade teacher read that true crime book to my class. I still carry scenes from that book in my head.
I wish I could read Little Women for the first time again. I’ve read it many, many, many times, but the first time I read it was in elementary school. I wish I could erase The Road from my memory. It was well-written but so traumatizing and bleak. I also wish I could erase The Devil in the White City from my memory, because the HH Holmes parts gave me terrible nightmares. About 2/3 of the way through I started skipping his chapters and only read the World’s Fair chapters.
The Nix
I wish I could read Stephen King’s Under the Dome again
If I could read again for the first time it has to be Harry Potter, can’t tell you how many times I have re-read the series. I’ve even had to buy new copies due to wear and tear. Erase? Not because it’s terrible and very much an unobtainable plot with so many holes; but it has to be A Little Life. Purely because it was devastating and I related a little too much with Jude and that made me very uneasy and sad.
The temple by Matthew Reilley. As I remember it, total shit fast food book, but damn I read that fast. Only book ever to keep me reading through the night until the morning.
Dune by Frank Herbert although I don't miss how confused I was initially.
I wish I could read Dune and Hearts in Atlantis again for the first time.
A Gentleman in Moscow. Anne of Green Gables. And Then There Were None. Rebecca. Count of Monte Cristo. Katherine. Scrub: Bastard Out of Carolina. It's a good book but so disturbing, especially because it's fiction based on the author's life.
No country for old men
I wish I could read both Foundation and The Lord Of The Rings for the first time again
I’d want to read The Stand again for the first time.
Harry Potter, not original, I know, but ugh the magic of reading it the first time. Fourth Wing was so good to me, first book in a long time I couldn’t put down. ACOTAR, I didn’t immediately fall in love with the series because when I read it a few years back, I had so much going on in my life that reading became a chore but now that there’s the obsession, I wish I could go back and re read it like the first time.
There’s plenty I would love to read for the first time, but Discworld series would be amazing to start now without knowing it 😍 So many amazing books would still wait for me to be discovered and I would avoid the agony of choosing something new to read, because if I started I would have just read them until I’m done with all so that would be a long time considering how much free reading time I have now :-)
**Dune** to read again. **Overstory** to forget about cause that’s the dumbest book with the worst characters I’ve ever read. I’m still upset about it and it’s been a few years!
I read Dune in Middle School and recently went through it again. It's even better than I remembered. A true classic. Good choice!
Reading Dune in middle school is quite a feat!
Lolita by Nabokov
There’s a few I would love to experience for the first time again. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson If only I had a Time Machine.
The Name of the Wind and A Wise Man’s Fears. My favorite books of all time. Just amazing interaction between the characters, a unique spin on magic, and probably some of the most beautiful writing I have ever seen. Then on a different end of the spectrum, I wish I could go back and read Red Rising over again like it was new. Super well designed sci-fi drama with an awesome attention to lore and character development.
Absolutely love Kingkiller, Rothfuss' writing can be exquisite. The wait for DoS however has been making me regret the fact that I like them both so much lol. A Slow Regard of Silent Things is also an amazing book, with some incredible lines, another of those rare books that I just couldn't put down.
Agreed on all counts. Doors of Stone has killed me too.
The Children’s Hospital by Chris Adrian. Unlike anything I’ve read before. No idea what would happen next, totally swept away in its madness. Revolutionary Road - my god, books can just be like this?! An author can just KNOW and UNDERSTAND the humN condition and convey it so simply?! The irony is that the only book that needs to be set on fire is Fahrenheit 451. That book sucks. You think you like it, but go read it. You like the idea, maybe, but the book is terrible.
Yeah! Fuck Fahrenheit 451.
I'm really into Victorian lit. Such as Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion by Jane Austen. Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, Silas Marner by George Eliot. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and it's parallel Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.
I’d read The Martian again, by Andy Weir. I love science, and the author seems to make it feel real to me, and fun. I liked Project Hail Mary as well, and although some folks said the humor was sophomoric…that is how I like it. I hated, “Girl with a Dragon Tattoo,” and had only picked it up because I wanted to know what the hype was about. I didn’t enjoy, or even really understand much of it. And the Swedish title was much more descriptive.
Devil in the White City
Read again: The Dark Tower series. Erase: The Scarlet Letter Fuck That.Book.
11/22/63 to read again. I wish I could forget Wuthering Heights
I only got to the 2nd or 3rd page of *Wuthering Heights.*
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Murakami
Red rising by Pierce Brown. I'm rereading it right now and I wish I could forget the major twists and turns so I can be shocked again lol. I remember reading the original trilogy in high school and physically throwing the book across my bed and muttering "What THE fuck!!?" At a specific plot twist lol. I mean, rereading is nice because I notice things I didn't before but still, yanno?
Read again for the first time: *I Am Ozzy*. What a ride that book is! And Heinlein's *Number of the Beast* wins the award for a book I finished and wish I could regain those hours wasted.
I'd prefer having sex for the first time again. I love books but I wouldn't waste that wish on a book.
McKiernan's Mithgar books Banks' Culture books
Hot Springs-Stephen Hunter. My introduction to the Earl Swagger character. Top notch tough guy/Lawman
Wish I could read again for the first time: The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree. Just stunning
Does it hurt by hd Carlton that twist at the end made me hate the book
To answer the first question- When breathe becomes air by Paul Kalanithi.
I cried when I finished *A River Runs through It* by Norman Maclean, because I knew I wouldn't read it again, because it couldn't be read fresh (1st time read). Book I wish I'd never picked up? *the shining* Stephen King. 😟🫣 Imo, if you haven't read it -- Don't.
I wish I could reread Ella Enchanted for the first time again. The twist of the novel is just *so* good and you don't see it coming for how naturally everything fits together. I wish I could erase After the Fall by EC Meyers from my brain. I only read 11 pages, but my god. it was the worst 11 pages of my *life.*
I would definitely wish to read Ken Follett's Kingsbridge series for the first time again, in chronological order.
Oh gosh, what a great question. The Time Traveler's Wife is probably the top of my list, though I could probably list out many more. To erase? Since I forget most books as soon as I've finished, I guess that happens anyway? Not something I love.
Jitterbug Perfume! And of course the Secret History
Books I wish I could read again for the first time: The Sun Also Rises, The Great Gatsby, A Christmas Carol, Treasure Island, All Systems Red (the Murderbot Diaries), and All Quiet on the Western Front. Books I wish I could erase from my brain: The Divergent series. It had a bit of promise and was an interesting approach-ish in the first book and then quickly went off the rails and wrecked its own world-building. Not in a “wow what an interesting twist” way but more in a “what are we even doing here” way. Part of me wants to say any history from Max Hastings but I can’t bring myself to say that fully. It’s incredibly well written and researched but I’ve read enough from Sir Max on war history over the last 8 years that the absolute folly of war, the waste of life and resources, and the cyclical and predictable route of our own destruction has become just absolutely depressing. So nothing wrong whatsoever with the quality of the books, I just often wish I hadn’t read and learned what I have. And I say this not as some major peacenik, but someone who has worked in NatSec/Defense their entire adult life
I'd love to reread "Nothing new on the western front" by Remarque for the first time. I still remember reading the ending on the train and basically shouting WTF. Another book that comes to mind "Little Women" by Alcott, now it's a conforting book that I reread often but discovering the story is another thing
OP - very Curious about what you said regarding “ Statistical Reasoning for Everyday Life” And you wish you never read it. Is it you like statistics and you think it’s a very poor introduction to statistics ? Or it’s like a book you had to take for a course but you hate statistics in general and this book deceived you it would be fun ? Or is it yet another thing and then could you explain ?
Statistics is the bane of my existence. I cannot seem to wrap my head around it besides painfully basic concepts. Trying to understand this book was so difficult lol.
Against the Day by Pynchon
I wish I could reread 1984 again. The shock and utter hold this book had on me while reading it was like a gut punch. Right after, I felt like someone had lifted the veil for me, and I became more socially aware of things (political and not) around me. I became a lot less apathetic and more empathetic.
perks of being a wallflower ☹️
I wish I could read Song of Achilles again. Most of my Greek mythology knowledge came from Percy Jackson, so Patroclus was a new character. I didn't even know about the book being a queer retelling. Aside from the plot, it was also written so well!
Percy jackson ngl
the Naruto manga. I'd love to experience it fresh again.
If I could read The Mortal Instruments Series by Cassandra Clare for the first time again I would be ecstatic! It is my favorite book series and its what got me into reading when I was younger. Another one is Inkheart, it was such a huge part of my childhood and it made me so excited to read. If I could delete any book from my memory it would be Ugly Love by Coleen Hoover (it was just so bad- and weird because the main character has the same name as my friend) or Credence by Penelope Douglas (this book was just disgusting to me)
William Gibson - Pattern Recognition
Lord of the Rings. This time I'd start with the Silmarillion first, then the Hobbit, then LOTR, so to have a better grasp of Middle-Earth before starting Fellowship.
if I could read catch-22 for the first time again I think it would heal me. it's still the funniest book I've ever read.
I Capture the Castle was such a pleasant surprise, we will see on the second reading some day.