Ever read a piece of fiction more than once? Whenever I mention that I\'m rereading books I\'ve read before I get sarcy remarks, about how I didn\'t read it properly the first time.  My reply is generally unprintable but once I\'ve got over the rage I explain.

There are some books that are just comfort books. Having a crap week at work - turn to Flashman. For those of you who don\'t know who I\'m talking about - what on earth are you doing here? Anyway the full round-up on the life of Sir Harry Flashman, VC, cad, rogue and cheat can be found here - www.harryflashman.org. His custodian and Editor George McDonald Fraser has done a brilliant job at bringing the papers of this Victorian soldier and \'hero\' to light and life. The combination of lechery, skulduggery and scandal is enough to restore any jaded wage slave to full health. Incidentally for real scandals and military misdemeanours keep an eye out for a book from Osprey coming later in the year - it is in fact called Military Misdemeanours if you're interested ;-).

So a couple of chapters of the duplicitous old goat charging through history\'s great moments from the Battle of the Little Big Horn to the Charge of the Light Brigade and I\'m happy again. I\'ve read them maybe five or six times over in order of publication and chronologically. Where Fraser has broken a book in half with twenty year gaps I\'ve stopped one book halfway through, starting the next one at the correct date and coming back to the first book when we reached that period in his life. Doesn\'t everyone do that?

So as far as I\'m concerned reading a book repeatedly is not weird at all, am I the only one?