Re-Reading
All the books on my bookshelves I’ve read. Many of them I’ve read more than once.
About ten years ago, I had well over 750 books, double-stacked and crammed into every crevice of the bookcases. All the shelves were two rows deep, so I started stacking them on top.
I always wanted a huge library, something like the Beast’s in that Disney movie. But then I helped pack up a friend’s home for moving, and they had sixty years’ worth of books scattered throughout the house and boxed up in the basement. We’re talking over a hundred boxes of books. The books had been crammed together so long, the covers stuck together from compression.
I really should have alphabetized them ...It kind of cured me of accumulating a lifetime’s worth of reading.
Instead, I did a big clear-out, keeping only the books that I absolutely love and would want to read again: Dickens, Eliot, Melville, Steinbeck. Jane Smiley, John Irving, Kazuo Ishiguro. Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy. Patricia A. McKillip’s The Riddlemaster of Hedtriology. Mary Roach’s Stiff. The Best American Nonrequired Reading series.
I love going back to re-read something. I usually wait until the story calls to me again – something reminds me of it or I catch a reference to the author, or a scene pops into my head. Then I approach the book with a completely different lens. I’m remembering bits and pieces of it, but now I want to see if my memory is accurate. I want to know if that scene unfolded the way I think it does.
I get a lot of comfort out of the familiarity of a tale. It’s probably why I like to watch the same movies over and over again. It’s like putting on well-worn sweatpants, warm socks, and sweatshirt, and curling up on the sofa. Burrowing down into a blanket and covering yourself with rediscovered sensations.
But it also appeals to my writer’s brain. I get to pay attention to the author’s craft. How they put the pieces together. Having the overall flow of the book already in my head helps me pick up the clues along the way – the reference to the flowers by the side of the road, the significance of a letter in the mailbox. The vocabulary of word crumbs that leads a reader through the fictional landscape.
The only drawback to re-reading the same books is that it takes time away from discovering new ones. I’m trying to balance between the two. Just yesterday I started a new book – You, by Charles Benoit. Very compelling and curious, a great find. And I started an old book that I read when I was fourteen – Harvest Home, by Thomas Tryon. Scenes of that book have stayed in my mind, but now I get to learn how accurate my memory is. And now that I’m older, I get to appreciate the craft of the novel as opposed to only the thrill of the Modern Gothic (which was what appealed to me as a teen).
By the time I finish Benoit’s You, I’ll have to decide if it will join the other books to be re-read. I kind of hope that it does.
About ten years ago, I had well over 750 books, double-stacked and crammed into every crevice of the bookcases. All the shelves were two rows deep, so I started stacking them on top.
I always wanted a huge library, something like the Beast’s in that Disney movie. But then I helped pack up a friend’s home for moving, and they had sixty years’ worth of books scattered throughout the house and boxed up in the basement. We’re talking over a hundred boxes of books. The books had been crammed together so long, the covers stuck together from compression.
I really should have alphabetized them ...It kind of cured me of accumulating a lifetime’s worth of reading.Instead, I did a big clear-out, keeping only the books that I absolutely love and would want to read again: Dickens, Eliot, Melville, Steinbeck. Jane Smiley, John Irving, Kazuo Ishiguro. Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy. Patricia A. McKillip’s The Riddlemaster of Hedtriology. Mary Roach’s Stiff. The Best American Nonrequired Reading series.
I love going back to re-read something. I usually wait until the story calls to me again – something reminds me of it or I catch a reference to the author, or a scene pops into my head. Then I approach the book with a completely different lens. I’m remembering bits and pieces of it, but now I want to see if my memory is accurate. I want to know if that scene unfolded the way I think it does.
I get a lot of comfort out of the familiarity of a tale. It’s probably why I like to watch the same movies over and over again. It’s like putting on well-worn sweatpants, warm socks, and sweatshirt, and curling up on the sofa. Burrowing down into a blanket and covering yourself with rediscovered sensations.
But it also appeals to my writer’s brain. I get to pay attention to the author’s craft. How they put the pieces together. Having the overall flow of the book already in my head helps me pick up the clues along the way – the reference to the flowers by the side of the road, the significance of a letter in the mailbox. The vocabulary of word crumbs that leads a reader through the fictional landscape.
The only drawback to re-reading the same books is that it takes time away from discovering new ones. I’m trying to balance between the two. Just yesterday I started a new book – You, by Charles Benoit. Very compelling and curious, a great find. And I started an old book that I read when I was fourteen – Harvest Home, by Thomas Tryon. Scenes of that book have stayed in my mind, but now I get to learn how accurate my memory is. And now that I’m older, I get to appreciate the craft of the novel as opposed to only the thrill of the Modern Gothic (which was what appealed to me as a teen).
By the time I finish Benoit’s You, I’ll have to decide if it will join the other books to be re-read. I kind of hope that it does.
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