I am currently dipping in and out of What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton. This is a collection of her blog posts originally published on Tor.com (a Science Fiction & Fantasy blog) in which she claims there are two kinds of readers: those who re-read and those who don't. I'm not 100% sure I agree with this sentiment, but it did make me wonder about the sort of reader I might be, or at least what sort of books I am likely to re-read.If we take Walton at her word, I would say that I fall into the former of her categories, although in reality I probably don't re-read that much. But I definitely have certain titles that I return to in times of literary need, when something familiar is called for. There are books that I re-read now and am immediately transported back to any number of points in my childhood, and others that carry a kind of timelessness for me, and others still that I re-read knowing that I will take something new on board with each read. Whichever kind they are, these books are all old friends, and I love re-visiting them.
The Time-Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
I mention this title first because it is the only book I have read, as an adult, and immediately re-read again afterwards. The first time I read it, I found myself rushing through, devouring it much too quickly, certain that I was missing things but desperate to read more of Claire and Henry's story. Once finished, I felt bereft and sad; so much so that I just read it again, more slowly this time and savouring it. I have read it several times since this first encounter, and return to it, as an old friend, knowing almost down to the page which parts will make me laugh/cry/laugh&cry.
How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
This was the first book to make me cry, and in re-reads I have found myself aged 16, on the train returning to school from my parents' house on the Isle of Skye. Re-reads of this book are nostalgic, and a little bittersweet.
and the ultimate re-read:
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
My favourite book. Possibly ever. I don't remember the first time I read this book, but I know that I've read it at least every other year since then. I still have moments of outrage that my father wouldn't buy the family a Scottish castle my mother and I discovered in the paper. I had (/probably still have) aspirations of the kind of bohemian shabbiness in which the Mortmains live and didn't remotely care that the castle was old and falling apart, not to mention roofless!. The book is timeless for me, like with the best of friends, every time I return I feel as if I've never been away.
Are you a re-reader? What do you re-read, and why?
