My cousin saw me reading my old, battered up copy of Emma and asked me how many times I have read it. When I said three, he shook his head. It was worse when I said I read Pride and Prejudice at least ten times, he said that was “lame”. He said that rereading the same books is preventing myself from reading new and different. books. And that has led me to this week’s Weekly Tea Discussion topic:
Rereading: is it necessarily a bad thing?
My answer: absolutely not.
People reread for different reasons. One reason is maybe you feel missed something on your first initial reading. Another reason, a common one, you just love the feeling and the awe the book gives you and you constantly just want to “wrap” yourself in the world of the novel. That is my reason for rereading anyone of my favorite books. They are my favorite, is it so wrong that I want I want to relive those moments?
Now, I know what some of you are thinking, “You’re wasting time rereading old ones when you can be discovering new ones”. While that is true, there will always be too many books for us to read. So many books, so little time, I think that is one of the commandments of a book lover. The amount of books I want to read will always increase so rereading any books would not diminish that in any way.
Last year, out of the 20 books I read, only 5 of them stand out to me. And the year before that, I read 30 books, and only 2 books stood out to me and I knew I wanted to read them again. It is a job hazard of a book lover that there will be some bad books I will meet along the way. It is so wrong of me to revisit the books that demonstrate the true joys of read after reading some bad ones?
So rereading? I have no problems with it. You may run the risk of not completing your reading list or heaven forbid, ending up not liking the book at all. But you’re doing the most important thing: reading! Isn’t that the greatest joy of them all?
How do you guys feel about rereading? Do you guys ever reread your favorite books? How often? Do you feel like your wasting time with rereading?
Post a comment below or pingback to this post. I love to hear your responses!
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