Reread, or read new?

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Reread, or read new?

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1jburg
Aug 15, 2015, 9:22 am

When I consider my next book, I always contend with the question whether I should reread a great book, or a book I've dearly loved, or continue down my list of "must" reads, or, in my case, Fadiman's Lifetime Reading Plan. Multiple reading of one great book is so pleasurable and enlightening; reading a new great book is too! What to do?!

2Esta1923
Aug 15, 2015, 11:39 am

Alternate!

3LovingLit
Aug 15, 2015, 3:20 pm

I get too excited about new books ( as in new to me) to do much re reading. The only ones I recall reading again in the last few years are Crossing Open Ground by Barry Lopez, My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok (my favourite book of all time) and Orchid Fever by Eric Hansen. As I get on though, I think I will retread more as you certainly get something from it second time around.

4ajsomerset
Aug 15, 2015, 3:25 pm

You never get as much from a book the first time around as you will on re-reading. The problem I have is choosing what to re-read.

5jburg
Edited: Aug 16, 2015, 9:26 am

aj- exactly!

When I think of rereading, I think of the expression, "beware the man of one book," and how enlightening it is to thoroughly know one thing as opposed to knowing lots of things (books) but not deeply

see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_unius_libri

6bluepiano
Aug 16, 2015, 2:25 pm

But surely vita is too brevis to be devoted to unius libri? (sorry, couldn't resist) I do in fact re-read books, though not nearly so much as I once did, but the ones I read more than once are less often books of great depth than they are relatively undemanding ones. The sententia seems applicable only to someone who aspires to scholarship, doesn't it? I remember how free I felt during school holidays when I could read whatever took my fancy as opposed to concentrating on a few texts and I feel something of the same freedom in knowing I can choose amongst my many unread books of different sorts whatever I might be in the mood to read.

7ajsomerset
Edited: Aug 16, 2015, 4:03 pm

This is how education destroys the joy of reading. Re-reading a book to get more from it -- to understand it better -- is what we have to do in school and soon reading and re-reading becomes a chore. I'm sorry to say that I have heard editors at literary magazines remark that having finished grad school they will never again re-read a book. This strikes me as tragic, no less than the disappointing news that some 40% of college graduates never read another book after graduation.

I re-read what I enjoy reading. I have re-read favourite authors (McGuane, Richard Ford, for example) so often that I should probably stop. I still find new things or things I have forgotten; there is also that Heraclitus point, that one can never read the same book twice.

As a collector, I have hundreds of unread books. Hundreds more spew from the presses each year. Some I will never read, and I'm okay with that. In reading new books, I hope to find books worth reading again. To me, a book not worth re-reading wasn't worth my attention in the first place.

Put another way: would you read a poem only once, and then never return to it? Only, I think, if it were a lousy poem to begin with.

8jldarden
Aug 16, 2015, 6:31 pm

I encountered this question yesterday while with my son in the kids section of the book store. I saw a couple books I had read when young and thought how I hardly find books these days that give me that feeling of excitement and surprise. I vowed to go through my shelves and find some favorites with that feeling to re-read.

9jburg
Edited: Aug 18, 2015, 5:38 am

surely not all books are worth rereading, and many books are worth reading once

so when I think of rereading its not to the complete exclusion of new books, its that I have to choose which to do next

I think Esta1923 has it -- alternate!

And so I shall

... once I get through Tale of Genji (first reading) and Proust (second!)

10jburg
Aug 16, 2015, 10:38 pm

blue, you make a good point

it all depends what you want to do with your reading

11MarthaJeanne
Aug 17, 2015, 3:35 am

Some rereading is really just to meet up with old friends again, or to do some totally relaxing reading. One does need to be 'enlightened'.

I do reread books that are work to get through if I think I will get enough out of it to make the effort worthwhile, but I also reread my favourite light fiction again and again. In fact, rereading a favourite Georgette Heyer at the same time is likely to keep me going in the book that takes effort.

12RobertDay
Aug 17, 2015, 10:54 am

I haven't done much re-reading in recent years, except where I've acquired a copy of something I read many years ago. But of late I've developed an urge to re-read some particular books - some because I wanted to, others because a re-read will inform future reading of works by the same author. My only dilemma then is deciding just how to fit the re-reads into the assault on Mount TBR!

13LheaJLove
Aug 17, 2015, 2:32 pm

I enjoy rereading books that I love. Or reading new books written by authors that I know I love.

14bluepiano
Edited: Aug 17, 2015, 5:27 pm

>11 MarthaJeanne:, I've tried the same dodge but for me it doesn't always work. If the difficult book is exciting or even simply quite interesting then re-reading an undemanding book at the same time is a way of relaxing and gives me time to digest the other. If the difficult book is one I'm plowing through in hopes that I'll get something out of it, then re-reading something lighter along with it leads to my racing through the pleasant one and forsaking the worthy one altogether. If say someone promised me 1 000, no it would take at least 10 000, no, rather 50 000 euros to have another go at Phenomenology of Mind I'd have maybe Mr Stimpson and Mr Gorse on the side to re-read for the nth time and soon enough I'd be saying aloud, 'Patrick Hamilton, you've made me lose a considerable sum of money.'