why would you bother when you've got history to play in?

Because it enables the exploration of issues for which there is no model in real life. Personally, I believe that 1984 is the most important work of fiction ever written - not the best, in all respects, but certainly the most important.

expensive, time-consuming thieves of sleep' Is that a quote? It doesn't come up as one.

No, it's a descriptor born of experience!

Because it enables the exploration of issues for which there is no model in real life.

Yes, I know, really, by repute if not experience - I agree about 1984 - I was channelling my ten-year-old self.

But at some essential, affective level I don't really get it.

Another one who never got LOTR and my kids don't either. They refuse to read all that fantasy stuff - just think it's a waste of time. They have infinite capacity for fantasy with some realism thrown in (like Thief Lord or Gideon Trilogy) but all that archetypal guff. Blah.

But my daughter, who spent her childhood reading Jacqueline Wilson and Noel Streatfeild and Michael Morporgo and Jenny Valentine, has just started The Hobbit and is absolutely ADORING it...

Ditto. Hated the Hobbit. Started laughing when I went to see the first The Lord of the Rings film.

Would like to reread The Master and Margarita for a third time soon to see if I still feel it's the greatest novel ever written - I suspect I will.

Would also like to reread D M Thomas' The White Hotel one day, but don't dare. It had such a devastating effect on me at 20 that I am not sure I can put myself through that again.

After picking up my copy of Weaveworld by Clive Barker to add the opening line to another thread, I then find this topic next :p

I'll admit that I've been a little tentative at re-reading it because since I read it last I've learned a lot about writing and ended up becoming a little more critical. I've read it several times already and it's one of the few books that I can safely say will only grow with me as I understand and live through another level of wonder in it.

The only other books of my youth that I've relived have been the Sherlock Holmes stories, but because of their age, they still feel just as good to read.

The biggest casualty to my advancing years has been the action and crime titles on my bookshelf. Both are too formulaic and easy to predict and I ended up giving away a whole shelf of unread titles because I didn't feel they would be worth the time any more. I do still have some action books left though, purely as a guilty pleasure. Some feel like they're written by an easily excitable youngster, but they're an easy read and a refreshing break from others that take real imagination.

But I re-read Elizabeth Bowen's The Heat of the Day, which I read in my early twenties, and loved it just as much - and perhaps even more in awe of her technique. Even blogged about it!

I actually read this - or at least about 100 pages - because of your blog. I stopped because of two reasons:
1. Couldn't get interested in the story.
2. I had to read sentences twice, constantly. The writing seemed to me pretentious and one character spoke like another. Okay, call me a philistine.     

Glad this old thread has been revived!
Having just become Kindled, it's now amazingly easy to get all the classics for free- and I've been re-discovering loads of old favourites. Little Women, which I used to weep and weep at, is not having that effect on me at all now... oh dear.
 

Have enjoyed reading your contributions to this thread. My biggest shock at revisiting has not been in novels but in film. For example, Oh What a Lovely War – had no idea what it was about when our class was marched off to the cinema age 10 but now looking forward to a revival with the First World War centenary. And Cabaret in my late teens, dubbed in Spanish – I hadn’t a clue!
Have you come across How to Be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis? It’s about exactly what you’re asking, Anna – a cross between memoir and literary criticism, including Gone with the Wind. I’ve just finished a review on my blog which I’ll be bringing out on International Women’s Day. I really didn’t think it would be my kind of thing but I really enjoyed it.

Oh What a Lovely War – had no idea what it was about when our class was marched off to the cinema

Funny, my class had no idea what it was about when they were marched off to war. 

As a teenager and into my early twenties I devoured Victorian novels, all the usual stuff, Austen, Brontes, Zola, Balzac, I now find it completely unreadable. It does feel a bit like a door's been closed behind you.