Rereading books

[Newrules]

I have a bit more free time at the moment and I have started reading again and have been looking at the threads on here for inspiration.

I am accidentally rereading Never Let Me Go. There was a new copy on my bookshelf and I had forgotten I had read it. I loved it the first time but I am not getting anything from it second time around. It made me realize that I don't have the urge to reread anything, even my very favourite books over the years.

Do you reread books and what do you get out of it?

I have some very old favourites that I like to comfort read (Jane Austen and Nancy Mitford to name a couple), but otherwise I rarely re read. Too many books out there!

I reread series of books quite a lot. Particularly LOTR and other related Tolkien works (love Silmarillion! (SP?)), Harry Potter and a Song of Ice and Fire.

The only standalone book I've reread is Catcher in the Rye.

In answer to what I get out of it ...?

I think I get attached to the characters hence rereading series and rarely standalone books. I miss them too much to just close the books and never "talk to them" again.

I don't get that same connection to characters from standalone books no matter how well written they are.

I think that I may have read Persuasion eight times (or even more) over the years. And have re-read Dorothy L Sayers Lord Peter Wimsey books many times. There are quite a few other classics which I've read several times: Wuthering Heights, Barchester Towers and other Jane Austen novels.

TBH, I think that I'm just a bit lazy. I like the safe and familiar. Sometimes, I really have to force myself to pick up something new.

I reread old favourites too. When I was a child it was Lord of the Rings and Susan Coolidge. Now it's more likely Jane Austen, though I'm currently rereading (along with other books I have on the go), for the umpteenth time, Gaskell's North and South.

I think some books have a lot more to give than others, particularly at different times in your life.

I’ve reread the Jane Austen novels countless times. Reread Persuasion a year or so a go and still got more out of it that time than when I read it in my twenties, saw it completely differently.

Fantasy sci-fi series can create fun worlds that are comforting to revisit. Sometimes out of curiosity to see what I’d think now I have more life experience. Sometimes in a plot when you know what is coming you read the foreshadowing bits differently and see things you didn’t pick up on before.