Re-reading

Do you re-read books you enjoy? Chachic has a post on this at her blog today. I’m glad to see she has made time for re-reading this year, because it’s hard to think of a greater pleasure than re-reading wonderful books.

I’m always absolutely stunned to find out that there are people who do not re-read books. I re-read when:

a) I just finished one book by an author and do not want to leave the world. For example, after reading STORIES OF THE RAKSURA, I went back and re-read bits of the three novels. I actually re-read the whole trilogy pretty recently, either earlier this year or late last year, so I just re-read little bits this time.

b) I’m working on a manuscript and don’t need to be distracted. For example, I re-read all the SHADOW UNIT books in April, when I was actually working very hard on KEHERA. I didn’t read anything else at all during that month.

c) I want a comfort read, so I reach for, say, TROUBLED WATERS or BEAUTY. Sometimes you don’t want to learn about an exciting new world and worry over the fate of the protagonists. Sometimes you just want to relax into a familiar world and enjoy watching everything work out for all the characters.

d) I happen to think how cool a particular book is, take it off the shelf and open it randomly, read a few lines, and then wind up reading the whole thing. For example, I can’t touch THE SPEED OF DARK without re-reading it from front to back.

e) I am about to start the second or third book of a series, but it’s been a while since I read the first book, so I go back and re-read it first. This is going to happen with, for example, Rae Carson’s THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS, because someday I will want to read the rest of that trilogy, and I will definitely need to re-read the first book first.

So, as you might imagine, I re-read a lot of books. I don’t think there’s ever been a year when I re-read more books than I read new-for-the-first-time, but I wouldn’t swear to it. How about you?