Friday, April 05, 2019

Yea or Nay: Rereading Books












Do you reread books? Do your return to a few loved titles every once in a while to remind yourself why you loved them so?

Advantages

  • You can revisit oldies but goodies. You can relive childhood favorites. 
  • You can possibly recapture not just the feelings from the story, but you might get the feels from where you were when you read the book (like listening to an old song from prom night, type of thing).
  • You might better understand something that you didn't fully catch the first time around. 
  • You might read something new into the text, given you are a different more mature person with different, newer experiences. You might learn something about yourself in the new reading.
  • It's free, if you already own the book. And reading books you already have slows the roll on your growing book piles.
  • If your family sees you reading that book that's been sitting around for years, they may stop asking why you keep "so many books if you aren't going to read them?!?!"


Disadvantages

  • Four letters, T I M E. Who's got time for a repeat, when there are sooooo many on your TBR pile?
  • And frankly, you already know the ending...boring.
  • You might be disappointed the second time around. You may not love it as much as you did the first time. Again, you are a different person now.

I'm on the fence on this one. I don't tend to reread. But I can see why some folks do. I have kept some books with the thought that I might. But then I look over at the TBR list and do the math...~13,000 books by 1-2 books a week by 52 weeks a year...eek! I'll never get through them all! There just isn't enough time!!

What is that quote, "God put me on earth to read a certain number of books. At this rate, I'll never die!"?



Of course, you should feel like rereading isn't worth it because there clearly are benefits. But personally, the benefits don't outweigh the pleasures of discovering new books.

1 comments:

Jeane said...

I don't quite feel the same. I love re-reading favorites and really wish I had more time for it. If it's been long enough since I read the book- a decade or more- it's a whole new discovery. And if it disappoints? that's one I really should cull off my shelf.