When I read this article in Newsweek back in 2009, I was struck by the notion of having enough time in my current (and, alas, only) life to reread favorite books. David Gates, bless him, rereads a lot.
Most of the “joys of rereading” pieces you come across tuck in an obligatory apology for indulging in the “childish” pleasure—this is a bad thing?—of “obsessive” repetition. You often hear a distinction made between strictly literary rereading, the kind of close study scholars and writers undertake, and the “comfort” reading relegated to the beach, the bathroom, and the bedroom.
Is it a comfort thing? It might be for some—the comfort of the familiar being for me a case of not moving my furniture once I’ve decided where it should be, while for some it’s the comfort of a familiar book. My friend Judy Christie wrote a blog post in which she wondered if she should change her opposition to rereading. “The notion of lingering again over a book seems relaxing,” she says.
The Boy says he’s reread The Catcher in the Rye at different ages and gained a different perspective every time—a sentiment expressed also by author Martin Amis in this article (“Our Man in Brooklyn”) in Vanity Fair:
He’s constantly rereading the novels of other writers, however—his mentor Saul Bellow, and Nabokov, more than anyone. “Every 10 years you’re a different person, and the really great books evolve with you as you get older,” he said. “They’re full of new rewards.”
What is it, then? Comfort? Relaxation? Insight?
Gates goes on to name-check many books he’s read more than once, and makes a very good case for why he does it. It’s not comfort, he insists, but pleasure—the pleasure of a good story, a great line, an interesting voice.
I tend to agree with him. That’s certainly why I reread, back when I did such things. (I don’t anymore. Too many books, too little time.) But reading Gates’s article made me wonder how many books I’d reread, and I started jotting down titles I could say for certain I’d reread. The list (and this is probably not comprehensive) was longer than I’d thought it would be.
Watership Down (Richards Adams)
Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
If Beale Street Could Talk (James Baldwin)
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë)
The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
Possession (A. S. Byatt)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (Arthur Conan-Doyle)
A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens)
David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)
Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens)
Play It as It Lays (Joan Didion)
The Well-Wishers (Edward Eager)
Daniel Martin (John Fowles)
A Virtuous Woman (Kaye Gibbons)
Stranger in a Strange Land (Robert Heinlein)
The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway)
For Whom the Bell Tolls (Ernest Hemingway)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway)
Dune (Frank Herbert)
Various titles (Georgette Heyer)
The Stand (Stephen King)
The Strawberry Statement (James Simon Kunen)
Ring of Bright Water (Gavin Maxwell)
Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger)
The Moon-Spinners (Mary Stewart)
The Hobbit (J. R. R. Tolkien)
The Lord of the Rings trilogy (J. R. R. Tolkien)
Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)
Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain)
Changing (Liv Ullman)
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne)
The Once and Future King (T. H. White)
It’s an interesting list, certainly, and not a bad one to look to for recommendations (though Ayn Rand makes me tired just thinking about her). Most of these I read and reread (some more than once) before I was twenty years old. There are a few I repeated between twenty and thirty, but only one—Byatt’s Possession—repeated after that. I have, as noted previously, been revisiting Georgette Heyer. I reread poetry periodically, but haven’t listed poets here (Shakespeare, Dickinson, Teasdale, Yeats).
How about you? Do you reread? What titles are your favorites?
Tweet: Why do people reread books? Is it comfort? Relaxation? Insight?
Tweet: The luxury of rereading: do you indulge?
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I love discovering new books and new authors, but I also love to reread certain authors–they’re like old friends. I reread Jan Karon’s Mitford series every couple of years. Other rereads: Austen, Fitzgerald, Welty, Hawthorne, Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Agatha Christie, Tolkien, C. S. Lewis. And I’m sure others will come to mind as soon as I click “post comment”!
So you are a comfort re-reader, then. Or perhaps it should be classified pleasure! 🙂
I’ve reread many of the same ones you have. I have a list of book I hope to reread – like Edgar Sawtell, The Mark of the Lion Series, Anne of Green Gables, and everything written by Agatha Christie. Why? Pleasure.
Pleasure is a very good reason! 🙂
Sometimes I’m a comfort rereader (love the term!), and sometimes it’s just the sheer pleasure of revisiting a masterpiece. A truly great book bears multiple readings, and I find something new each time. (Of course, as my brain ages, it gets distressingly easier to find something “new” in an old favorite. )
Hahahahahahahahaha. Don’t get me started 🙂
Great list! I copied into my “to be read” journal. 🙂 I’ve re-read a handful of novels as well as published diaries over the years. My real life resonates a great deal with characters from Elizabeth Berg’s books. My favorite (hands down) is The Catcher In the Rye…whether for the quirky voice of of Holden or the eccentricity of Salinger is not clear. I like to re-read the “classics” (anything by Austen, especially), but I also own the complete set of Anais Nin’s published diaries, and A Diary of the Century by Edward Ellis because the minutiae of daily life fascinates me. Like you, however, I feel the sands of time slip slip slipping down the hour glass and worry that I’ll never get through the “to be read” pile before the last of it passes through it’s narrow waist.
I read Anais Nin but didn’t REread her… When my mother got too ill to hold a book we got her books on tape. I intend to go down reading too!
When I’m writing I often reread favorites because it’s easier to resist them. I already know that they are good and I like them and the fact that I know what’s going to happen keeps me from staying up too late or being unable to put them down during the time I’ve set aside for writing. It’s still entertaining. I have favorite movies that I watch over and over too. Also, in the past few years I’ve spent a lot of time rereading books in a series when a new title comes out. I read so much that I often forget the little details and I want to refresh my memory before I take another adventure with those characters.
That’s a really interesting phenomenon: that old faves are easier to resist. I keep up with a couple series(es) (serieses?) by Alexander McCall Smith, but he ships his titles so quickly I don’t forget. And James Lee Burke gives the reader juuust enough of a reminder.
I feel the same about movies. “Love, Actually” and “Amelie” are two of my all-time faves. Both just make me feel happy.
That settles it. You’re with Jack under the autism umbrella. (Rings Trilogy – TWICE?!) 😉
Hahahahahaha. 🙂
I reread books to my kids that I enjoyed when I was young. We recently finished Where the Red Fern Grows and I bawled like it was happening to me. I have to say it’s still one of my favorites. My eight year old hugged me and reminded me it probably wasn’t true.
Kids today! They’re so sophisticated! 🙂