I’ve read seven of McCarthy’s books and most of Thomas Hardy’s novels, actually onto the less well known ones now: The Hand of Ethelberta is my current reading.
I hadn’t made the connection but I can see what you mean to some extent. Someone described the landscapes as being characters in Hardy’s novels and you could say the same for some of McCarthy’s work.
Hardy doesn’t do happy endings either.

That might be what I have to turn to in the future!

Yes some books reveal more each time you read them. Like what you say they reveal more about the reader too.

I anticipate what’s going to happen and enjoy it even more each time. There are scenes and reactions from the rabbits I always look forward to. I can quote parts of it to this day.

I’ve heard Plague Dogs is hard. I remember when it was published, it made a bit of a splash at the time. Funny thing about Shardik, we’d just finished WD in class and were in the school library when two of us spotted it on the shelf. The other guy grabbed it gleefully and borrowed it. I forgot about it then. Later he said he only borrowed it because I wanted it and he didn’t even read it…

Thanks for the recommendation.

Breasts - pick an author.

I’ve read some books I’ve really enjoyed until the author flubs the landing. I’ve read all three Amor Towles books and it happens every time. The overall story is great and the writing is solid but I feel let down by the ending each time.

Watership Down here too. At least twenty times. I used to read it annually but hadn’t for quite a few years until quite recently. That felt like a new experience in that I really appreciated every word and even noticed a few new things. I’ll write more about it soon.

I’ve been an avid reader of sci-fi and fantasy for years with the odd classic thrown in. In recent years I’ve gone all out on the classics from 100 years ago or more, due to their lack of copyright, and have loved it. I love putting myself into the era and thinking about how the world has changed since then.

Or when they do this and each chapter is a different POV, like A Game of Thrones series. So you might not be coming back to that character until the next book. Which may not have been printed yet. And may never…

Move zig!

National Treasure plot.

“She’s got glasses and a ponytail!”

The opposite for me. I had to read Watership Down in Year 7 and it came in a year of personal tragedy. It really helped me escape my reality and, while I don’t think I did that well in the assignments for the book (can’t recall, but did pretty badly at school that year), I loved the book enough to buy my own copy and have regularly reread it over the years, including quite recently. I still love it and would be happy for it to be the last book I ever read when that day comes.

He did it so they’d be just like the Gatsbys.

Tom’s Midnight Garden is the only one I could think of, off hand.

Tim Moore, Paul Theroux, Bill Bryson.

A Question of Travel by Yvonne de Kretser. It’s a shame as I loved the first third but it promised much and delivered little. I came to dislike the female protagonist so much. The male I liked. We follow these two separate stories for 500 pages expecting them to come together and they do, but barely and with no significance, and then the book is over.

Look at the bookshelves in historic houses if they still have the collections. So many books I’ve never heard of, so many authors too.