I suspect that some books were meant to be read aloud, week by week, or night after night, as a form of family entertainment. Dickens goes down well that way.
I just re-watched Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus (the Julie Taymor production) recently and, as always, found the spoken words absolutely hypnotic.
Shakespeare's works remind me of really good pizza...they defy the laws of diminishing marginal returns. The more I hear them, the more I want. In fact, if Shakespeare's plays were pizza, I would weigh 500 lbs.