How Often Do You Re-Read A Book?

[CollegeGal09]

I have read both Ender's Game and Catcher in the Rye approximately ten times each. I feel a mix of euphoria and nostalgia when I flip through the battered pages.

[African_Love]

I generally find it difficult to reread most books, and if i do it's only a skim because knowing what happens bores me. The only book i can remember rereading and genuinely enjoying and finding more and more with each read was On the Road.

I would hate to be in your position, lol. A book is as good to me the second (or third, fourth etc.) time as the first. The prospect of rereading a good book is the only reason why I would bother to buy something that could probably be found at a library.

I have read both Ender's Game and Catcher in the Rye approximately ten times each. I feel a mix of euphoria and nostalgia when I flip through the battered pages.

I guess ordering Ender's Game was a good decision after all. Catcher in the Rye also sounds interesting.

[Veho]

I like to re-read Jane Eyre. I'm sure there'll be others that I'll want to re-read, but Jane Eyre is always in my sub-conscious, tempting me.

[Janine]

Not that often but I have read a few twice....they were mostly D.H.Lawrence books. I do desire to read more books over in the future. I think one gets a much better understanding of a novel or book on second reading. It's almost more enjoyable as well.

[blazeofglory]

I am a bookworm and keep myself engaged with books whenever I have time

[Night_Lamp]

I think those of you who don't reread great novels are really shortchanging yourselves: there's a lot of deeper subtleties you're missing in only one read. I enjoy many books more the second, third, (or more) time I go through it; after the major plot points are clear, you are more able to understand the smaller but just as, or more important, details.

[blazeofglory]

I read books of poetry several times; for poetry necessuiates rereading for they are not implicit at first and we need to read repeatedly so that things become clearer at each reading.

The prophet by Khalil Gibran I read a number of times and each reading gives me a different meaning and different feeling. Of course some books must be read repeatedly. War & Peace needs several readings. James Joyce's Ulysses has been tried several times and it tired me.

I like this book beyond imagination; what I like of this book is its style, sentecne constructions, experiments wiht new usages; allusions, inferences, refeences, frankness, openness, modernity and what not.

Dostavesky' s books need several times, the Karmazov brothers in particualr

[kiki1982]

I think those of you who don't reread great novels are really shortchanging yourselves: there's a lot of deeper subtleties you're missing in only one read. I enjoy many books more the second, third, (or more) time I go through it; after the major plot points are clear, you are more able to understand the smaller but just as, or more important, details.

I disagree with that.

I rarely re-read, because it also bores me. Although I do study my books and I think about them. It does not mean that I don't re-read parts of them when I think there is something in that particular part, but re-reading all...

The thing is how well one reads it the first time, not how many times. And with e-texts we can do 'control f' and we find the part we are looking for.

[blazeofglory]

I am thinking about rereading the Karamazov Brothers by Dostoevsky for it is a philosophical novel and every reading renews us or answer our philosophical questions.

[Snowqueen]

I like to re-read Jane Eyre.

I have read Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice twice. There are few parts of Tess of the d'Urbervilles that I would love to re-read as it is one of my favourites.

[mono]

Though it sounds somewhat counter-productive in terms of the sole enjoyment of literature, as opposed to making it appear more like an always-student obligation, I seldom, if ever, re-read a piece of literature for leisure or hobby, but more for confirmation and comprehension. I re-read and thoroughly enjoyed books like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Doctor Zhivago, Beowulf, The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Divine Comedy, and Paradise Lost and Regained, but the primary and prioritized reason as to why I re-read them lay more in reasons of enhanced understanding than fun (or because I read them at too early an age); though I hope not to speak too soon, I could never see myself going back to Jane Austen, O. Henry, Guy de Maupassant, Charlotte or Anne Brontë, Charles Dickens, or Agatha Christie because, to put it bluntly, and I hope not to offend anyone, they felt quite easy to absorb, yet this did not subtract from my enjoyment. I crave understanding things, and love a good challenge, hence tackling works by Joyce, Pynchon, Shakespeare, Shaw, the Greco-Romans, Dostoevsky, Camus, Kafka, Goethe, countless philosophers, and even more poets feels like that last mile on the racetrack I know I can run if I try hard enough, the final lap I feel I can succeed with enough practice, and, if I cannot, then it seemed a good exercise in the pursuit.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I re-read all the time, and go by Wilde's philosophy that if a book is not worth reading more than once, it is not worth reading at all. Sometimes the re-reads are not full-on re-reads, I might just read a chapter here and there to refresh my memory, but for the most part I re-read quite a lot, especially works which really demand it like Shakespeare and Milton - you can't over-read the likes of those - the joy of picking up the likes of Paradise Lost and reading a section at random is something to behold.

Having said that, you do have to find a balance between reading new material and going back over old ground. I think the most I have re-read something is probably Dorian Gray at six or seven times, Paradise Lost at about four, several works of Shakespeare King Lear, Macbeth and about three or four, Hemingway's A Moveable Feast about the same, though for many others (excluding poetry) I don't usually re-read, a re-read; twice is usually enough.

There are several works that I wouldn't re-read don't get me wrong, but overall I think it is important to do so, after all would you play your favourite record only once?

[Paulclem]

Having said that, you do have to find a balance between reading new material and going back over old ground.

This is my problem. I re-read works when I studied them, and I am aware that you get more from a re-read. I am also aware that there is much much more out there to have a go at. So I tend not to re-read unless for a specific purpose. I'm just too busy.

[Paulclem]

On the other hand, I re-read poetry all the time.I have been reading poems like The waste Land and other challenging poems for the past twenty odd years. It is easier and quicker to re-read poetry, but I have found that my undrstanding has developed with time

[FrankMarcopolos]

This is a great topic. I think in general it's great to let 5-10 years go by before re-reading a classic novel. What happens for me is that my life experiences have changed me so much during that time that I bring a much different perspective to the reading, which greatly enhances the experience. I would suspect the same holds true for most people. (But I've been known to be wrong quite frequently, so you never know!)