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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To re-read books?

147 replies

Clary · 01/11/2009 21:48

Not a terrifically serious AIBU but still...

Just from a throwaway comment on another thread, do other peopel re-read books or not then?

I mentioned sthg about it at my book group and was met with horror at the idea.

I could give you a list of at least 30 books I have read many times (Austen, Sayers, Fitzgerald, Mrs Miniver), and others I have casually re-read. Eg I read Time Traveller's Wife 3 times (2nd time for book club; third time before I saw film); or Agatha Christies; or Anne Tyler books etc etc.

Not sure why I do it - is it a comfort thing maybe?

Am I a bit weird?

OP posts:
GroundhogsRocketScientist · 01/11/2009 22:38

LOL, sometimes i finish a book, and just turn it over and start it all over again.... Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracey Chevalier..

Must confess to doing same with Bill Brysons walking the appallacian trail too.. It was hiking, without the mud or incovenience of the great outdoors. I honestly felt like i journeyed with them!

GOD, why would anyone think it odd not to re-read? That really shocks me!

TabithaWitches · 01/11/2009 22:43

I re-read books all the time. In fact, I wouldn't buy a new book for myself unless I knew I'd want to read it again (and again, and again). The books I end up buying are generally those I've borrowed from a friend and enjoyed, or got from the library first.

shineoncrazyfirecracker · 01/11/2009 22:45

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

TigerBitesAgain · 01/11/2009 22:45

kat2907

Do you have an enormous house? I don't read hugely but would literally have nowhere to keep books if I didn't recycle them, wish I had time for the library but don't so amazon wins out. A lot of my pals say they don't get rid of books they've read, but I don't understand where they keep them.

TeamEdward · 01/11/2009 22:45

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ChunkyKitKat · 01/11/2009 22:49

I've read the last Harry Potter book 3 times, yes, I know it's tragic.

I've also read Jane Eyre several times and Pride and Prejudice. I wouldn't say you're weird, Clary .

momijigari · 01/11/2009 22:55

I love re-reading books, something you know you are going to enjoy, that is already on the shelf (easy to pick up), and it might bring back lovely memories of when you first read it too.

ShutUpandDrinkYourGin · 01/11/2009 22:55

it's a bit like watching a film again isn't it - many people do that

it's def a comfort thing for me - and i often find something i missed the first time

OneLonelySock · 01/11/2009 23:08

Prepares for horrified comments

You are soo not being unreasonable.
I love books, but I am a ahem robust reader, and I cannot read a book without having an impact on it, be it dog-ears, waterstains from being dropped in the bath, broken spines or whatever, my books carry physical scars of the reading.
For a bizarre psychological reason, I find it hard to truely love a book until it is clinging on to life.
So all the books that mean something to me, have all been re-read again, and again, and again. And it's not something that I ever tire of.

So as far as I can see, if your friends books are pristine and have only been read once, they need to ditch them as a waste of space and replace them with some really literature that they want to read over again. Or you can giggle when they moan about having cluttered houses, that'd work for me.

WhereYouLeftIt · 01/11/2009 23:33

I love re-reading books; if it's worth reading once it's worth re-reading. Often you will have a different response to it on re-reading because time has moved on and you are a slightly different person now. You;ll find something different in it.

Mspontipine · 02/11/2009 00:36

I read my Jilly Coopers over and over and over again!! Loved them soooooo much I would miss them if I stayed away for too long :-)

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 02/11/2009 00:57

I am an inveterate rereader, but I have come to the conclusion that it's a Marmite thing - there is no topic that will divide a roomful of readers so quickly. I reread Austen every year, and usually take a volume of Trollope for emergency reading matter when travelling. If Iam lucky enough to be ill enough to be awarded a day in bed I take a Georgette Heyer (or three) with me. If I am tired and want something enjoyable to read, I get out Mary Renault or Angela Thirkell and when the latest book of a series I am reading (eg the Morland Dynasty) is about to come out, I quite often read the last few to give myself a run up to it. The characters in books like these are like old friends - and who would give up the pleasure of visiting old friends, just because there are new people out there to be met?
And then there are writers like William Trevor or Rosamond Lehmann whose books are so beautifully written that you are always going to find something new in them however often you read them.

letsblowthistacostand · 02/11/2009 02:30

If I read something new by an author I've previously enjoyed, I often feel the need to re-read anything I've already read by that author.

Ditto seeing the movie from a favourite book--LOTR trilogy was murder on me, had to read the whole thing every year for 3 years in a row! And just finished a re-read of all 7 HPs after seeing The Half-Blood Prince. Sure I will do it again next summer. Haven't got into the twilight saga as I don't feel I have time.

My other re-reads are Austen, Bronte (could probably quote most Jane Eyre), Sayers, Noel Streatfeild, FH Burnett, Rex Stout, Terry Pratchett , White Oleander, Bleak House, Kate Atkinson, and oooh Margaret Atwood. Cat's Eye never disappoints.

It's partly wanting to suck every little bit of pleasure out of the book, wanting to understand everything possible in it and partly a comfort thing. There are definitely books I've finished and started over again right away and some I go back to when I'm feeling down or need some distraction.

What I don't understand is why anyone cares? What's it to other people if I read Ballet Shoes 9 times (or more...would read it again right now if I could find it...or the Railway Children, must hunt that up...)? Everyone else can rip their way through the latest crime thrillers, I'll be ensconced on the couch surrounded by my well-loved Tenant of Wildfell Hall and hard-won 1974 edition of Travelling Shoes, thank you very much.

Tee2072 · 02/11/2009 06:47

I re-read books all the time.

purepurple · 02/11/2009 07:26

YANBU
I love re-reading books.
You don't listen to a cd just once do you?
I am not good at watching films more than once though.
I nearly had a fit when DS gave all his books to charity. Because he had read them. I didn't understand why he didn't want to read them again.

cory · 02/11/2009 07:32

I find when I reread a book it often isn't the same book that I read the first time. Because I read it with more experience, in a different frame of mind etc etc, so I'm seeing things I didn't see the first time. And between the first read and the second read, I will have read other books, that will add more to my enjoyment of the first book. ALmost like hearing the same piece of music with a different conductor.

Bucharest · 02/11/2009 07:33

It's mashed potato and gravy comfort isn't it?
I reread lots....but ones usually that don't take anything out of you...think Marian Keyes, Bill Bryson, John O'Farrell etc...
The ones that leave me drained with emotion, whilst changing my life, do it only once.

WoTmania · 02/11/2009 07:37

I re-read lots. Some books its comfort reading, some it's that they are complicated and I need multiple reads to really get to grips.
Others it's when a new one in a series is coming out and I reread the rest so I'm up to speed with the story. I've recently reread the Wheel of Time (WoT) series for the umpteenth time in anticipation of book 12. (it came out on tuesday but I'm not getting it as I~'m in the middile of Middlemarch and don't want to put it down as then I might not pick it back up)

Babieseverywhere · 02/11/2009 07:42

The whole purpose of a book is to read it, why wouldn't you reread them.

We have 3 eight foot high bookcases in our spare room crammed with books and my DH & I re-read them all the time (well pre children we did)

If DH or I picks a certain book up, we'll end up reading all that authurs books one after another.

We have his book, her books and our books and the 'replaced every couple of years as they fall to pieces through constant reading' books. For example. We are on our third copy of Daughter of the Empire by R.Feist and J.Wursts.

GinSlinger · 02/11/2009 07:42

I re-read lots too and I'm sure it has to be a comfort thing - it's as Bucharest says - mashed potato and gravy. I think I do it more when there's some major stress going on and I find it difficult to concentrate but need something to read to relax me.

peachpearplum · 02/11/2009 07:45

So true Cory! I am a re-reader by necessity rather than choice since Amazon upped their postage fees for international deliveries (wee town in italy, no international bookshops and v. limited english section in library) but completely agree that a book can have a different effect the second (or third or fourth) time round. I often guzzle books the first reading and take more time over them at the second reading (since I'm not in a rush to find out how it ends) so it really does become a different book.

I think i have re-read every book I own - if it's not worth reading twice it wasn't worth reading once - but the hands-down winner is 'Brother of the more famous Jack' which is so well-loved it's going to fall to bits soon.

gorionine · 02/11/2009 07:47

I love rereading books. Sometimes when you read a same book at a different stage of your life, it is like reading a different book because you have matured or your life experience makes you see things in a different light.

Recently I went to see my parents and got back a lot of books I read as a child to give to my DCs. I decided to read them again myself. It was a fabulous trip down memory lane as well as a door to new thoughts I did not have when I was reading as a child.

I also re read books that I have read as an adult just because I loved them.

teafortwo · 02/11/2009 09:09

Actually everytime we read something new we are also re-reading what we have already read. When you read your favourite Sunday paper, a poem by a poet you already know and love, an author who is in the same genre as another author who you like or perhaps didn't identify with, you are not just reading this specific text; but remembering and applying what you have read before. So actually we are constantly re-reading when we are reading things we think are brand spanking new! If we think about it hard enough it is clear that readers are constantly re-reading and writers are constanly re-writing. It is the nature of literature!

When we go out of our way to re-read a specific text we are re-reading not only the text itself but ourselves when we read (and re-read and re-read) it before. This is because we become involved in a process of re-evaluating and reasoning our past biases, position of comprehension, inferences and deductions made. We consider the reasons we made these and wonder why on earth we missed others? It is a completely fascinating process of self discovery as well as allowing us to achieve a much deeper and more learned understanding of the text.

YANBU... at all, at all, at all!!!!!

gorionine · 02/11/2009 09:30

So beautifully said, as usual T42!

oricella · 02/11/2009 09:43

YANBU - re-read all the time; often even just little bits and will dip in and out of several books at a time. Even as a kid I'd start at my favourite part of a book, read till the end and then go back to the start... now that is probably really weird!