Friday, March 21, 2014

On Reading

I read, a lot, and that's an understatement.  I read more that 130 books last year and some were rereads.  I'm a great believer in rereading books, some I reread because I loved the story, some I reread because I hardly remember the story at all and some I reread because I read them originally when I wasn't ready to read them.  Perhaps I was too young, perhaps I was made to read them (and that's never a good idea because I'm a stubborn little soul), perhaps I just wasn't ready for the story it was telling.
Recently I ran across a Neil Gaimen quote ( I think it was on Marianne's  blog  at Let's Read) where he said:

I know exactly what he means, some books will stay with me forever, I don't need to reread them, they're part of me.  Sometimes I sit by the bookcase upstairs where I keep my forever books and pull one out, run my hand over the cover and relive the story in my mind, but sometimes I have to reread it.
 Dawn Treader had a little piece from a book that talked about someone who didn't want to reread books she'd already read, From Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen 
Once he’d asked, “Don’t you want to read? There are hundreds of books in the sitting room.”
  She had laughed and said, “I’ve read them all. I want to remember them the way they were. If I read them now, the endings will have changed.”
  He didn’t understand that, but then English hadn’t been his favourite subject.
And again, I understand, because each time I reread a book the ending changes, not in big ways perhaps, but my rereading, my deeper understanding and the new experiences I've had  change the book.
Do you reread?






5 comments:

  1. Wow... That is a lot of books that you read!! I wish I had the time to read that many books, I absolutely LOVE books, I buy them all of the time, I feel comfort if I'm just surrounded by books. I also love to read magazines and buy them from different parts of the World. I have re-read a couple of books, on in-particular that flashes back to WW2 and present day called "The Shell Seekers"... Just such a lovely story. I have about 25 unread novels right now... and with starting University again, I have no idea when I will ever be able to get back to them!
    I hope you're having a wonderful weekend, much love to you, Tammy

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  2. Yes I have lots of reread books although not as many as I'd like as there are so many new ones still to read. I was quite a fan of Fay Weldon in my teens and twenties but would really like to read them all again now, I suspect they would be a whole different story now.

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  3. I'm a huge reader too, sometimes I would just like to excuse myself from life and spent all the hours in the day reading. I sometimes think I should give up on the writing and just be the good reader I am but you don't get paid for that sadly...

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  4. That's a lot of books, I'm lucky if I manage one a month. I don't make a habit of rereading books, but I've recently reread Of Mice and Men which I studied for O level. Eleanor's now studying it for her GCSE so I thought I'd read it again and I'm pleased I did.

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  5. I love this post! I only wish I could match you in terms of numbers of books read per year, but I'm lagging behind by about 100!
    I'm not a great re-reader at all as there are just so many new (or new to me) books out there which attract my attention; however I did recently re-read A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute which I have always ranked as no.2 on my favourite books of all time list. Amazingly, I didn't remember half the story and the bit that had always stuck in my head as being extremely sad/moving, didn't seem half as bad second time round.

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