" Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are is true enough, but I'd know you better if you told me what you re-read".
Francois Mauriac
An interesting take on the old adage. Barry and I regularly cull our book case. We have whittled them down to the singular, and work hard to keep good books moving around, sharing with others and keeping them circulating. We do however hang onto the special ones.
As part of our recent move it was interesting to see which ones came with us. We really were quite ruthless this time, hence the single bookcase. Amongst them are many that we probably plan to dip into and re-read; others that have been read and re-read.
Re-reading can be a bit of a mixed bag though. Sometimes the book offers more; delights you as if for the first time or provides the comfort or solace that you seek. At other times the re-reading results in nothing more than disappointment. I have been left wondering what on earth I thought I saw in it; why did I think it so wonderful or worthy? How did I deceive myself so comprehensively?
Another adage of course is that books don't change, we do.
Happy to say I have not read, let alone re-read most of the books in the rainbow stack! I often glance at the titles and think, if I am ever really really desperate I might open a couple; but given they were gathered only for their colour that's not so bad.
re-reading got me through the pandemic when all unwashed surfaces were suspected virus vectors, making the library and online book sellers equally shunned (I still haven't read a book online ... on principle)
ReplyDeleteinteresting to note, I'm still happily re-reading (sometimes after finishing a good book, I immediately re-read it to see what I missed the first time around)
I oftentimes re-read ending just to make sure I got things right in my head; and the bookshelf has books that I go back and re-read.
Deletelove your rainbow stack, my favourite book to read over and over again for this century is 'Pattern Recognition" by William Gibson
ReplyDeleteMay have to track that down to read for the first time Mo - sounds great!
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