Top ten read-agains

Top ten whats?

The subject came up on a Yahoo! group the other day - the ten books (or groups of books) the poster most liked to reread again and again. I'd only read two of the books on his list, and I thought one of those two wasn't worth reading in the first place, let alone rereading.

So after a little consideration, I came up with my own list. My Top Ten Read-Agains would (in no particular order) be:

• Tarzan of the Apes - the original, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (It's still probably the one book I've read more times than any other.)

• Island in the Sea of Time and Dies the Fire - two connected AH trilogies by S M Stirling (Counting all six books as one. I reviewed the DtF trilogy here - and he's already started on a sequel trilogy.)

• Swallows and Amazons - children's books by Arthur Ransome (Counting all twelve books as one. I reviewed them here, here and here.)

• the Falkenberg series - military SF, by Jerry Pournelle

• Against the Fall of Night - the classic AH story by L Sprague de Camp

• Star Rangers/The Last Planet (alternate titles for the same book) - SF by Andre Norton

• Beyond Thirty/The Lost Continent (alternate titles for the same book) - SF by Edgar Rice Burroughs

• Starship Troopers - military SF by Robert A Heinlein (Bears almost no resemblance to the movie.)

• The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress - SF by Robert A Heinlein

• Tunnel in the Sky - more SF by Robert A Heinlein

Other books that I considered, but which didn't make the cut for the top ten, include the Green Knowe series by Lucy M Boston, the Richard Bolitho series by "Alexander Kent" and the Hammer's Slammers series by David Drake.