Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Original poster

Are you a re-reader?

40 replies

Cooper77 · 12/06/2024 17:41

This question seems to divide the room. Some love to re-read, others say it's a waste of time, since there are so many books out there and life is so short.

Personally, I'm very much in the re-read camp. In a lecture on Dickens, Nabokov said that you must "surrender to Dickens' voice," and I think that's the key. All the writers I re-read have a distinctive and comforting voice. When I pick up P. G. Wodehouse, for example, or Douglas Adams, it is unmistakably them. Same goes for my other favourite writers– Aldous Huxley, Anita Brookner, Bertrand Russell, Robert Graves, Virginia Woolf, etc. In many ways, re-reading them is as comforting as meeting up with a beloved friend.

I also read out loud. I suspect I developed the habit because I wanted to bring the author's voice alive. When you think about it, a book really is a kind of miracle. It's as if the soul or mind or consciousness (or whatever word you choose) of that dead author is in the room with you –especially when you read them out loud. One of my favourite books is Patrick Fermor's A Time of Gifts. But I don't read it for the content. I read it for the pleasure of his company. I've re-read that book so many times now it's like I know him.

OP posts:
AllProperTeaIsTheft · 13/06/2024 16:54

Yes! And there are even a few books that I've read loads of times, yet I still feel like turning back to page one and starting again as soon as I've finished them!

Original poster
Cooper77 · 13/06/2024 16:45

AdaColeman · 13/06/2024 00:12

I'm an enthusiastic re reader, I think it stems from when I was young and poor and only had a few books, but I HAD to read something!

I've got a few long series that I reread, usually late at night, including Wolf Hall trilogy, Shardlake series, Aubrey/Maturin series. Reading them is like having a cup of tea with an old friend.
Then there is another group, read for the beauty of the language and how the characters can still surprise me, books such as A Room With A View, Brideshead Revisited, Mrs Dalloway etc.

I'm a huge Patrick Leigh Fermor fan too, though I was disappointed by Artemis Cooper's biography.

If you've not already read it, Ill Met By Moonlight by W. Stanley Moss, is an interesting book, the story of the kidnapping of a German General on Crete in WWII, by a group including PLF and Greek partisans. It's a real Boys Own adventure story.

Yes, beauty of language is another reason for re-reading. I suppose my attitude to authors is similar to my attitude to friends. We really do have a similar relationship with them. Just as I have certain friends I turn to when I need a laugh, and others I turn to for advice, so I have certain writers I turn to for beauty, and others for wisdom or comfort. If I crave beauty, I read Philip Larkin, T. S. Eliot and Anthony Burgess. All of them use language in ways that thrill and move me. But I wouldn’t turn to them for comfort. Larkin certainly doesn’t cheer me up, nor does he offer much wisdom or guidance! P G Wodehouse’s books are funny, joyful and beautiful, but not intellectually stimulating. If I want interesting ideas, I turn to Aldous Huxley.

OP posts:
SeatedattheVirginals · 13/06/2024 09:31

Absolutely. It’s a different kind of pleasure to reading something new, but a compelling (and reliable) one. The greatest compliment I can pay anything I’m reading for the first time is to find myself thinking ‘I’ll enjoy rereading this’.

icelolly12 · 13/06/2024 09:27

Yes, not as much I did in my teens, but there are a few books I will always have on my shelf

AdaColeman · 13/06/2024 00:12

I'm an enthusiastic re reader, I think it stems from when I was young and poor and only had a few books, but I HAD to read something!

I've got a few long series that I reread, usually late at night, including Wolf Hall trilogy, Shardlake series, Aubrey/Maturin series. Reading them is like having a cup of tea with an old friend.
Then there is another group, read for the beauty of the language and how the characters can still surprise me, books such as A Room With A View, Brideshead Revisited, Mrs Dalloway etc.

I'm a huge Patrick Leigh Fermor fan too, though I was disappointed by Artemis Cooper's biography.

If you've not already read it, Ill Met By Moonlight by W. Stanley Moss, is an interesting book, the story of the kidnapping of a German General on Crete in WWII, by a group including PLF and Greek partisans. It's a real Boys Own adventure story.

Beamur · 12/06/2024 22:31

Absolutely. I enjoy finding new things to reflect on and as I get older finding how my perspective sometimes has shifted from my last read.

Original poster
Cooper77 · 12/06/2024 22:28

RedHelenB · 12/06/2024 18:17

I re read my favourite bits, more than whole books nowadays

Yes, same here. I rarely re-read a book from cover to cover. I dip in and re-read favourite passages. I love David Copperfield, for example, but not every page. Dickens has his faults, and even his best works are patchy. I love Fermor’s A Time of Gifts, but I can do without the ten page description of Prague’s architecture.

OP posts:
KnitnNatterAuntie · 12/06/2024 19:43

Oh yes, I'm definitely a re-reader!

I find it very hard to let go of some of my books for that reason

I still have books from my childhood that I enjoy reading and I have my DM's copy of Rebecca which I've read many times

I collect Persephone books and always enjoy re-reading them

My favourites are 'books about books' . . . I love re-reading these and they often remind me of a book I read years ago which I then want to re-read

GivingCrapAdviceSince1973 · 12/06/2024 18:56

Yes, very much so!

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 12/06/2024 18:54

I'll say, there are some books I know pretty much off by heart, that doesn't stop me reading them over and over. They were my lifeline during first lockdown - WFH was a nightmare and I didn'd want anything complicated or new when I did pick a book up.

RedHelenB · 12/06/2024 18:17

I re read my favourite bits, more than whole books nowadays

shellyleppard · 12/06/2024 18:17

Agree with you op.....re reading an old book is like discovering an old friend to me. I have original copies of watership down from my childhood (45 years old) but I still love reading them. Original copies of Stephen king's early stuff too

Foxxo · 12/06/2024 18:16

absolutely. most of my books have been read and re-read at least every couple of years or so.

The one's that don't pass muster tend to get donated/re-gifted.

Xiaoxiong · 12/06/2024 18:14

Yes because I am a very fast reader - usually my first "pass" is enough to get the broad outlines of a book. I will then determine if I think it's worth rereading, or even multiple times, gaining something new each time. Sometimes years between and something else I've read in the interim informs and enriches my re-reading.

The classic for me at the moment is I read David Copperfield as a teen, listened to it as an audiobook in lockdown, read Demon Copperhead this year, and I'm sure I will re-read David Copperfield as a result at some point in the future with the pleasure of spotting how and why Barbara Kingsolver chose to write her book the way she did.

FizzingAda · 12/06/2024 18:10

Absolutely! Some books are like old friends, to revisit after a few years,and find something new in them. I never get rid of books (apart from the odd paperback which turned out disappointing), my shelves just grow longer!