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(1) I have neglected this string for a while. I came back and found that a Homer war has broken out. (Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition.) I'm in favor of Homer.
(2) Rereading has been mentioned in several posts. We're presumably talking about real literature here, not transient trash. Any literary work that is worth reading, is worth rereading. I find it especially valuable to reread immediately, or almost immediately, after a first reading. The first time I am concerned with the basic story. The second time, I pick up details and subtleties I missed the first time through.
(3) The original post referred to works published before 1960. If I may take the liberty of stretching that by two years, my own nominee is To Kill A Mockingbird, a book ostensibly about race, but really about class. The black characters are not real people, but strips of litmus paper whose only function is to tell the good white people from the bad white people. The good white people are, for the most part, the respectable sort. People like Harper Lee, in other words. The bad white people are the rednecks.
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