There are two kinds of people in the world, those who re-read and those who don’t. No, don’t be silly, there are far more than two kinds of people in the world. There are even people who don’t read at all. (What do they think about on buses?) But there are two kinds of readers in the world, though, those who re-read and those who don’t. Sometimes people who don’t re-read look at me oddly when I mention that I do. “There are so many books,” they say, “And so little time. If I live to be a mere Methusalan 800, and read a book a week for 800 years, I will only have the chance to read 40,000 books, and my readpile is already 90,000 and starting to topple! If I re-read, why, I’ll never get through the new ones.”
This is in fact true, they never will. And my readpile is also at, well, let’s just say it’s pretty large, and that’s just the pile of unread books in my house, not the list of books I’d theoretically like to read someday, many of which have not even been written yet. That list probably is at 90,000, especially if I include books that will be written in the next 800 years by people as yet unborn and books written by aliens as yet unmet. Wow, it’s probably well over 90,000! When will I ever read all those books?
Well, I read a lot more than one book a week. Even when I’m fantastically busy rushing about having a good time and visiting my friends and family, like right now, I average a book every couple of days. If I’m at home and stuck in bed, which happens sometimes, then I’m doing nothing but read. I can get through four or six books in a day. So I could say that there are never going to be sufficient books to fill the voracious maw that is me. Get writing! I need books! If I didn’t re-read I’d run out of books eventually and that would be terrible!
But this argument is disingenuous, because in fact there is that towering pile of unread books in my bedroom at home, and even a little one in my bedroom here in my aunt’s house. I don’t re-read to make the new books last longer. That might be how it started… The truth is, that there are, at any given time, a whole lot more books I don’t want to read than books I do.
Right now, I don’t want to read Storming the Heavens: Soldiers Emperors and Civilians in the Roman Empire by Antonio Santosuosso, and/or The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade by Maria Eugenia Aubet. I do want to read both of these books, in theory, enough theory that they came home with me from the library, but in practice they both have turgid academic prose that it’s work to slog through. I am going to try to slog through the Phoenician one before I go home to Montreal and the book goes home to Cardiff library, but the other one is going back unread. (The Phoenicians, unlike the Romans, are insufficiently written about for me to turn down a solid book for bad prose.) But yesterday, when I was picking up books to take to read on the train to London, both of them glowered at me unwelcomingly. I was already in the middle of one (pretty good) book on Hannibal’s army, I wanted fiction. And I didn’t just want any old fiction, I wanted something good and absorbing and interesting enough to suck me in and hold my attention on the train so that I wouldn’t notice the most boring scenery in the world—to me at least, who have taken the train between Cardiff and London quite often before. I didn’t want to have to look out of the window at Didcot Parkway. I had some new fiction out of the library, but what I wanted was something engrossing, something reliable, and for me, that means something I have read before.
When I re-read, I know what I’m getting. It’s like revisiting an old friend. An unread book holds wonderful unknown promise, but also threatens disappointment. A re-read is a known quantity. A new book that’s been sitting there for a little while waiting to be read, already not making the cut from being “book on shelf” to “book in hand” for some time, for some reason, often can’t compete with going back to something I know is good, somewhere I want to revisit. Sometimes I totally kick myself over this, because when I finally get around to something unread that’s been sitting there I don’t know how I can have passed it over with that “cold rice pudding” stare while the universe cooled and I read The Pride of Chanur for the nineteenth time.
My ideal relationship with a book is that I will read it for the first time entirely unspoiled. I won’t know anything whatsoever about it, it will be wonderful, it will be exciting and layered and complex and I will be excited by it, and I will re-read it every year or so for the rest of my life, discovering more about it every time, and every time remembering the circumstances in which I first read it. (I was re-reading Doris Lessing’s The Good Terrorist. “The first time I read this was in a cafe in Lytham St Annes in 1987,” I mentioned. “How can you remember that?” my husband asked. “I don’t know. It was raining, and I was eating a poached egg on toast.” Other people remember where they were when they heard that Princess Diana was dead. I haven’t a clue, but I pretty much always remember where I was when I first read things.)
This ideal relationship doesn’t always work out. Even when I like the book in the first place, sometimes a re-read is a disappointment. This usually happens when the thing that was good about the book was a temporary shininess that wears off quickly. There are books that pall when I know their plots, or become too familiar with their characters. And sometimes I read a book that I used to love and find it seems to have been replaced with a shallow book that’s only somewhat similar. (This happens most often with children’s books I haven’t read since I was a child, but it has happened with adult books. This worries me, and makes me wonder if I’m going to grow out of everything and have nothing to read except Proust. Fortunately, when and if that day comes, in several hundred years, Proust will be there, and still pristine.)
A re-read is more leisurely than a first read. I know the plot, after all, I know what happens. I may still cry (embarrassingly, on the train) when re-reading, but I won’t be surprised. Because I know what’s coming, because I’m familiar with the characters and the world of the story, I have more time to pay attention to them. I can immerse myself in details and connections I rushed past the first time and delight in how they are put together. I can relax into the book. I can trust it completely. I really like that.
Very occasionally, with a wonderfully dense and complex book I’ll re-read it right away as soon as I’ve finished it, not just because I don’t want to leave the world of that book but because I know I have gulped where I should have savoured, and now that I know I can rely on the journey that is the book I want to relax and let it take me on it. The only thing missing is the shock of coming at something unexpected and perfect around a blind corner, which can be one of the most intense pleasures of reading, but that’s a rare pleasure anyway.
Re-reading extensively can be a bad sign, for me, though a sign of being down. Mixing new possibilities with reliable old ones is good, leaning on the re-reads and not adventuring anything new at all isn’t. Besides, if I do that, where will the re-reads of tomorrow come from? I can’t re-read the same 365 books for the next 800 years. I’ve already read some dearly beloved books to the point where I know them my heart.
Long before I am 800 I will have memorized all the books I love now and be unable to re-read them, but fortunately by then people and aliens will have written plenty more new favourites, and I’ll be re-reading them too.
This article was originally posted July 2008.
Jo Walton is a science fiction and fantasy writer. She’s published a collection of Tor.com pieces, three poetry collections and thirteen novels, including the Hugo and Nebula winning Among Others. Her most recent book is Necessity. She reads a lot, and blogs about it here from time to time. She comes from Wales but lives in Montreal where the food and books are more varied.
It’s delicious that this article is a re-print.
Audiobooks have been a gift for me to “re-read” books since I can listen to them at work when I need something to be only mildly distracting.
People who don’t read rarely think or have empathy for others. Sad to be them or be around them. But they are so obsessed with their selfies and their phones that they are easy to avoid.
I very rarely reread because I remember the books so well. (Born to be an English major.) I once pulled the plot and characters of a story I read when I was nine from my memory when I had desperate need for a horse story to tell my niece and nephew. For lighter and for-fun fiction, I may need to glance through the first few pages to remind myself so the major points will resurface.
During very rough times like when my dad was dying of cancer, I did have some comfort reads that I read more than once, but that’s very rare.
Bless the writers and the readers!
I’m in Cardiff too! Which has a pretty marvellous Central Library for all kinds of fiction. My train home is on the Portsmouth line, which means I get much better scenery (Bath, Salisbury, all the pretty bits of Wiltshire and Somerset) but I still enjoyed rereading A Wizard of Earthsea on my last trip.
I reread all the time, especially when I’m tired. (I’m usually reading on my phone, which makes snide comments about those devices particularly amusing.) Much like a good friend, I can trust a book not to betray me, to do me wrong, to disappoint me. Or even to make me cry unexpectedly; there are books where I know not to read certain parts while on public transport, because it’s always a bit embarrassing to be sniffling on the light rail, even if people are polite enough to pretend they don’t notice.
(Or maybe they really don’t notice. It’s hard to say. Most of them are looking at their phones. I wonder how many of them are deep in books and stories they love as well, whenever I see a person frown or smile or sniffle or glare at the light in their hands.)
You’re so lucky that you can read so many books.
As someone who reads and is constantly looking for something new, sadly few books keep my interest, and I often find myself ditching new books and re-reading old ones. Luckily, the ones I love I can read endlessly. When seeking something to read, the free preview chapters incite me, then I get the book and find it a dull slog and never finish. It’s happening more and more lately, and I don’t know what to do about it except force myself to try and finish new books.
I find myself craving specific books the way I crave specific foods, so I re-read often. I was very upset to find that I couldn’t instantly gratify my most recent craving by putting the ebook I wanted on my phone, since it doesn’t exist, but I was luckily able to track it down at a used book store. Now I’m halfway through it, and another one I found that I’ve also read more than once before. (I also own copies of both of these books, but spending $8 seemed like less effort than finding them.) I also find myself putting off new books that I expect to be good, so that I can save them for later. (I don’t actually know when later will be).
When I moved from my one bedroom to a two bedroom apartment my Aunt was appalled by the number of books I own. She asked why I have so many. If I like a book I will buy it because I’ll read it more than once. She is a one and done reader as is her husband. On the upside when they clean out their bookshelves I get the books to take to the used bookshop down the street.Yay More books! Paperbacks are my bus books. If I have to many hardbacks from the library to take with me I grab an old friend and off we go. I just have to be careful not to read the sniffley bits on the bus. People look at you funny.
Wow, that’s seriously quick reading. I know there are a lot of people who read fast. I, unfortunately, happen to be on quite the other end of the scale.
But I know exactly what you mean. It works the same with me, with books as well as with movies. There are things I have read or seen only once, and there are things I find myself coming back to again and again and again. Indeed, I feel just like returning to an old, trustworthy friend, and even if I haven’t visited it for some time, I know it’s right there, waiting for me, and I can always count on it making me happy.
I have a reading speed of roughly 100 pages an hour. Faster if I’m sucked in. I read A Memory of Light in about nine hours at work with interruptions for various job related reasons. I get swept away with the story and the intense desire to know what comes next. I read it again the next night and it took a lot longer. I knew what was happening and how it ended so I was able to drink in the prose and savor the details. I often reread rather than start new as I don’t have to rush to the end. I love the David Eddings series. I have read several of them to destruction and had to buy them again as they fell apart on me. They are and remain in my top five favorite rereads. I used to go mad for Anne McCaffrey but returning to them a few years ago I was shocked at how shallow and trite they felt. These were books I read to death in my childhood. Doona, Pern, etc. My go to worlds weren’t my friends any more. And I mourned their passing. The same with E. Nesbitt. As a child I was captivated and couldn’t get enough of the Phoenix or the Psammead or the Arden stories. As an adult I found them almost unreadable. Yet I find when I’m tired or busy and don’t have the strength to start something new then an old friend on the shelf will always be waiting for me to drop me into a strange world of wonder and familiarity.
I frequently re-read books. Some ( like Malazan Book of the Fallen) because they almost demand it after the first time and some because I enjoyed them so much.
For me, rushing thru a book is not pleasurable. If I like the book, I want to savor it. If I don’t, it gets set aside. Rarely, I get back to it and decide I misjudged it or wasn’t in the frame of mind to read it first time. I once read The Rise of Silas Lapham in an afternoon, while cramming for an exam. All I retain from it is that it involved family drama and a paint business.
Re-reading seems to become necessary depending on the speed of consuming the book. I imagine a fast reader would miss a lot the first time around. Like a good meal (or sex, or any other pleasurable thing), I usually don’t see a reason to rush.
@Nora: same thing’s been happening to me last couple years. Maybe it’s about getting older and not wanting to lose time finishing something mediocre. More often it’s SF/fantasy books I turn away from, books I would’ve devoured when younger, so I try to mix in other genres, like thriller or mystery, or switch to a more “literary” novel (although the feeling of sameness is prevalent there too). Usually reading non-fiction breaks me out of that rut, though nothing recently has reached George Packer’s The Unwinding or Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction in level of interest.
I used never to quit on a book without finishing it, whether I was getting very much out of it or not. Now that I’m an old I can find it very difficult to keep going with some books, I have a whole string on my e-reader that are stuck at various places, often not very far in. I would much rather re-read something that I know I’ll enjoy, or even that I just know I can get along with–I’ve actually gone through phases of re-reading Agatha Christie.
I read ALL the time. And I have a shelf (or a file in my kindle) of “I’m too tired to start a new book” books. It includes Dickens, Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe stories, the Phryne Fisher mysteries, just realizing I read a lot of SFF but reread mysteries, though I like Stout for his descriptions of NYC and Dickens for his of London. And Gaiman.
I read several (fiction) series where the author only puts out a new book once a year. So every time a new book comes out, I reread the previous 3-4 books to refresh my memory! This way I reread constantly. Every few years I read the entire series and I always find something new to delight me.
When I was a teenager I used to feel almost guilty and silly for re-reading my favorites. But for some reason it’s not seen as lame as re-watching a movie or TV series. These days I’m separated from all my favorite books (I’m an expat), so the choice is out of my hands. But I think it does come to mood, and I’m in the mood to read everything!
I only buy books if I know I’ll re-read them (what’s the point of spending money on them if they’re just going to sit on the bookcase taking up valuable shelf space and collecting dust?) they are all either books I originally borrowed from the Library, and enjoyed enough that I knew I’d want to visit it again, or sequels in a series.
So all the books on my bookcases have been read several times each. Some of them have been read so much they are falling apart and I need to buy a second copy. Some of them are second copies. Two of them are third copies.
With many of them I’ve reached the point where I will feel the need for a particular brain-flavour and pick one up off the shelf, open to a random page, read for a while, and then put it back on the shelf. Like dropping by to visit a very good friend.
As far as I’m concerned books are like food. You have your regular meals which you cook over and over again. When you feel the need you try out new recipies. Some you enjoy enough that you cook it again and it joins your regular meals, others you only cook once.
I lived in Cardiff mid90s-mid00s (in NZ before & after), this made me google to see if Troutmark books was still going.
I am always puzzled by avid readers who say they *never* re-read a book (as opposed to people who rarely read for pleasure). It seems as strange as saying you’d never watch a film or TV program in re-runs (or on DVD/online). Almost as strange as saying you’d only ever listen to an album once, because there’s so much other music out there, or you know how the song goes.
I’ve ended up buying some books multiple times as I’ve shed collections to shift hemispheres. Not every book gets re-read – some don’t grab me enough to warrant it – and the length of time between re-reads varies greatly. There are some I turn to as old faithfuls, some that may be re-read when a new book in a series comes out, some that may be pulled out after a decade because something seen/heard/read/felt tickled an urge to revisit. Mind you, some previously often-read books aren’t likely to be opened again because I’m not quite the same person who read them 20 years ago.
And then there’s the short story anthologies, which are sort of a different beast. Completely aside from that is the non-fiction which may be dipped into to re-read a few pages, a chapter, or occasionally the whole thing for many different reasons.
I actually am similar to eggertcoby, in that if I start a book I finish it. I also do all of my reading in audio, so I get the full monty, I can’t past anything or just dump a bit in the middle.
For me, books are like journeys. There are occasions I want to journey to a place I’ve seen before, often because as rlstanfil says I the series and need to reread them to catch up. There are also occasions where I go back to loved classics to see I find them now in particular what I can say in a review, though I tend to find these days there are far more new books I want to try than old books I want to revisit, and usually if I do revisit it tends to be after a significant time has passed and I’ve forgotten enough of the to make rereading the book a fresh experience.
After reading Harry potter to death (mostly because of waiting while successive entries got added to the series), I am chary of rereading now, plus there are always new places to see.
I agree with this article completely. Except about the size of TBR and reading speed. My TBR is of a quite reasonable size, and I read maybe two books a week, including audiobooks, which I rip through really quickly. I like savoring books, but I also like reading all the time, so I usually have two physical books going at a time so I can switch back and forth depending on my mood or if I’ve gotten a really juicy passage in one that I want to let sit for awhile.
I used to reread a lot more when I was younger and didn’t have access to as many books; I have a lot of books that I don’t feel I need to reread for some time since I have them essentially memorized from reading them over and over and over. I still reread a lot, and am making a conscious effort to do so, but the majority of my reading diet now is new books.
I have to confess that for years now I have tended to reread almost exclusively (at least with novels, with short stories I am far more willing to try something new). Currently rereading A Game of Thrones and about to start a reread of Dune.
Rereads, for me, are a blessing when I’m sick. I usually want to read something, but without needing the concentration that a new book needs. That’s when I pull out the old favorites.
Nailed it as usual Jo.
Some books, I’ll re-read as they keep revealing more depth. Some won’t get re-read simply because they don’t have any of that depth, or they’re simply not that interesting. Since I view all fiction as escape literature, it first has to pass the “fun to read” threshold, which a lot of fiction fails to meet (like all of Hemingway — I last read him under severe duress, which may have prejudiced me against him, but it would take threats of violence to get me to open any of his books again). I’m also quite unwilling to excuse what I view as blatant stupidity in plotting and worldbuilding, so there’s also a few current sf authors who used up their chance, and won’t disgrace my current reading list ever again. (I won’t mention names).
Being re-read, and being worth re-reading is what separates potential classics from everything else.
“People who don’t read rarely think or have empathy for others.”
That’s not showing a lot of empathy or imagination, particularly for the illiterate.
I’m just happy to see that the Chanur saga is a re-read favorite for someone other than myself :) At this point they’re more like old friends.
@25: Maybe that could have been better phrased as “People who choose not to read”?
I recently re-read the Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman. A friend (university librarian Kiley Bailin) intuited my feelings: I wanted to live in that world again. Thank you, Lev Grossman, for the hours of pleasure you’ve given me.
Re-reading books I love is the best.
You ever go to a museum just to see a certain piece of artwork? And then a few years later you return, and joyously sit in front of that same piece of artwork, and just, well, enjoy it? Ok, maybe I’m a nerd for certain pieces of art, but rereading is sorta like that. And I do it all the time.
I’m a terribly slow reader and while I have a shortlist of books I may re-read someday, I haven’t gone back there yet. It’s a several days, maybe even weeks investment in my case.
Anyone passionate about books and reading is always going to feel a bit of angst about everything they’ve neglected and aren’t reading, no matter what they are reading now. Like a buffet where you find something you like and could keep going back for more of that, but you don’t know what else is wonderful that you haven’t discovered yet, and knowing all the while that no matter what you choose eventually you will be full (i.e., dead). My cheerful thought for the day, lol.
I was never much of a re-reader, maybe a few of my very favorites, like some Heinlein or Lord of the Rings. There was always so much new stuff I was discovering. But now that I am in my 60s, I have pretty much read everything I wanted to read, and am less interested in the new stuff I am seeing. So I started revisiting a few old favorites. Then I started a column here on Tor, Front Lines and Frontiers. I am re-reading stuff I hadn’t read in 30, 40 or 59 years, and I am finding it a whole lot of fun. There is so much I have forgotten about my favorites, and so many little things that went over my head on the first reading, especially those that I read at a very young age.