Do you reread books?

I re-read books frequently. But then, I am a fast and voracious reader. I've recently been trimming down my library from around 7000 books due to an upcoming move, and there's a hardcore of about 2000 I'm unwilling to get rid of because they're either reference materials or old friends I expect to re-read before I die. There are some things (LOTR, much Heinlein, Oz books, Alice in Wonderland...) that I've read a dozen times or more.

I do re-read some non-fiction, mainly history. But most of my well-worn books are fiction.

Definitely. There are books that have hit me differently as I’ve grown. :)

I'm on my third Sanderson Cosmere reread... So yes :D

Oh heck yes, probably more than I should. I have a shelf next to my bed of my most frequently re-read books (novels, a few short story volumes) and honestly the last few years those are almost all I have read

Oh definitely. I've read the Dark Tower series by Stephen king 3 times! There are others, but that's probably my top

I typically re-read the LOTR, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion once a year. Well, The Silmarillion is once every two years because, whew, it is a dense one.

Sometimes - Dune before the release of film.

But usually rereading books in en when I read translated version before.

I had to reread Good omens because teacher said that it is necessary to read translated version.

I only reread my so-called "comfort books". Whenever I feel like I'm having a hard time in my life I grab my Dune or my Foundation and feel amazing for a little while, being immersed in these worlds I love so much.

There are a few books and series that I go back to every couple of years - they’re my old dependables when I want to sink into a story that I know I’ll enjoy.

I definitely reread my favorite series. The thing about re-reading a book is that you don't actually ever get the full experience the first time around. Well-written books are full of foreshadowing, not just of plot points, but themes. The first time you read a book, you don't really know what it's about yet, what the book will eventually decide is it's overall thesis, and where the characters' journeys will take them. Critical moments that shift the trajectory of a story may happen quietly, only important in retrospect.

When you read a book a second or a third time you get to do so with all of the context of where the story is going, and it lets you catch so much more.

This example is from television, but The Good Place is my favorite show, and (spoilers) one of its central theses ends up being the modern world makes unethical choices unavoidable.

Very early on in the show we get a scene of Eleanor making fun of her boyfriend when he says they should find a new coffee shop, after the owner of their current one is outed as a sexist pig. She lists a bunch of other products they buy like smartphones and sports games and says that bad stuff is unavoidable so why bother?

At that point in the show, the scene is just a way to show you what a dirt bag Eleanor was on earth. But on a seconds viewing, with foresight, you can clock it laying early groundwork for one of the main arguments that the show wants to make.

This is one of the reasons I don't mind getting spoiled on stuff, and in some cases will spoil myself on purpose. When you know how the story ends, you get to pick up all the little things it does to get there, without reading or watching it twice. I went to film school and am a bit of a story nerd so for me that's the most enjoyable part of watching someone else tell their story.

Most books only once, a few a couple of times, and my favorites multiple times.

Yes! I love to reread my favorites. It's like visiting old friends. Pride and Prejudice, Lord of the Rings, the Wheel of Time, Matilda, Watership Down. Can you look at a favorite painting too much? That's how it feels to me- another visit to a beautiful work of art.

Of course I do.

I go through several phases: sometimes I am busy reading new books, and other times I am in "reread" mode. This happens for novels and essays as well. I have always been doing that, since I was a kid, and there are books that I have been re-reading since then.

And this is without even mentioning poetry which, in my experience, expects to be read multiple times (in no small part due to the same processes by which we enjoy music - based on repetition and familiarity).

Very often, honestly. I'll sometimes just remember scenes from a book I really liked and go back and read the surrounding text... too often that turns into a full reread.

But when digital library isn't a thing, I would keep re-reading Dragonlance and Wheel of Time over and over. I do still re-read books, but only when I can't find anything good.

Very very rarely. I don't really re-consume media at all though. I don't particularly enjoy rewatching movies unless they are my absolute favorites. I don't like rewatching shows. I easily get burnt out on music, and will even go months without listening to my favorites because I've heard them too much.

I love to read, but I'm much more likely to find a new book than re-read one.

Yeah, I've actually reread several series usually with a year or more in between readings. I like it because it helps me solidify the book into memory more and it allows me to see all the little details the author hid that I may have not picked up on in previous readings.
Also my memory isn't always the best so I get to relive some of the fun parts that I don't remember after the gap between readings

I find myself going on jags of rereading. I always have something new that I'm reading with some others in the wings, but sometimes I get an itch to reread books. Usually I'll pick up an old Vonnegut novel, for example, and realize how much I've missed his style and message. That leads me to binge several more of an authors books.

Almost never, at this point. I feel like I must be a pretty slow reader. I get through maybe 20 books a year right now. (This does not include all the kids books I read with my kid. We read together every night. Currently in early chapter books. Longer books it’s hard to keep his interest more than a few nights in a row).

But at my current pace it would take 10 years just to go through everything I own and want to read.

I do, usually because I'm at a point where I just want to read something but don't have a new book in mind.

Some books are better than others for this though - for example I found Gardens of the Moon rewarded a re read a while after finishing the Malazan series because I actually understood a lot more of what was going on.

I reference books more than reread them, unless I'm actively writing something about a piece of literature. I would love to reread more books, but being reminded how few books one can ultimately read in a lifetime makes me want to read new things instead.

I've only reread a couple. Ghost Story by Peter Straub and I am re reading the Malazan series so I can finish the last three books without being too lost.

Generally I enjoy the experience of reading a new story and rereading I end up a bit bored.

Sometimes. I reread a few books from my childhood because I wanted to reframe them

I reread a few because I forgot I read them (Michael crichtons pirate latitudes and John irvings a widow for one year are two that I've completely forgotten)

I reread Ulysses 3 more times and I still don't get it. I just don't think I know enough about Europe and catholicism to really get the jokes. I took a class In college on the illiad and the odyssey and it was not enough to understand.

Some books just beg to be read again and again. I am on my 3rd copy of The Lord of the Rings, 2nd of Dune. The advent of good reading apps, like fbreader on Android saved my Ian M. Banks collection from a similar fate. That said my copy of The Algebrist is starting to show its age.

So yes rereading a good book can be fun.

No, I can't remember ever doing that (outside study purposes). For me the joy is thinking about what could happen and see if the story unfolds that way and being able to get surprised when there's a plottwist.
But maybe I should try it once just to see if I missed some references or ques

In general I don’t reread books. However, there have been a couple of exceptions. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe is one I find myself returning to every few years. It’s just a marvelous work.

Sometimes. I occasionally reread books I loved when I was younger. Mixed results though....

Like Robin Hobb and the Assassin's series? I appreciate it much more as an adult.

But then I reread some Xanth... Ya that should have stayed in memory lane.

I never seem to finish if I try to reread something.

I almost never re-read books. I suppose if it has been a really long time - like 15 or 20 yrs - and I loved the book, then I'm not against the idea.

This is probably because one of the things I love about reading most is not knowing where things are going to go. Hence why I like a lot of suspense/thriller type stories.

Yes.

Sometimes it's because I'm sure there are depths and nuances that I missed before, so I want to go through it again to pick up additional things. And there have even been times that I've done that immediately - gone straight from the end back to the beginning.

Sometimes it's because I remember enjoying a book but I don't remember much of the details, so I get the urge to reread it to enjoy it again and refresh myself on the details.

And sometimes it's just a world or characters that I love, so it's like taking a vacation to visit old friends.

I reread great books frequently, good books occasionally, and mediocre to poor books not at all. But I'm lucky: although I have a great memory, I can reread a book and get as much enjoyment or more from it as the first time.

I'm a serial monogamist with novels. Three, four, five reads, and then I'll move on to the next one once someone "borrows" it.

I know they're not the only ones, but the only books I recall reading more than once are Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth and it's first sequel World Without End. I haven't read the second sequel or the prequel yet, though.

Yes, with a 10 year gap. There are too many good books to read to reread the ones I liked on the first read. Always reread the classics first.

@TimTheEnchanter the only book(s) I re-read is The Lord of the Rings.

generally: no, unless they have something worth repeatedly highlighting or internalizing. i think this is mostly a function of being a non-fiction reader, though, where re-reading wouldn't typically be a thing you do for pleasure so much as retaining the information at all and synthesizing it with other stuff.

I reread if I really liked something and once such a long time has passed that I forgot 90% of it. My memory isn‘t great, so I think at least 7 years maybe is when that happens.

No. I've probably got a little over 1000 books left in my lifetime given my rate of reading, age and average lifespan.

There are so many books in the world I want to experience. Re-reading a book is a new book I won't read.

Yes, but rarely enough that the instances stand out in my mind. I've read LOTR a couple of times, The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Martian by Andy Weir, a textbook called Art and Visual Perception because I am a fucking nerd. It's very likely that I'll read Midnight in Chernobyl again, Spillover by David Quammen (predicted the Covid pandemic 10 years early!), and anything by Erik Larson or James Gleick. Those books are great.

But LOTR is the only fiction I've ever read more than once

I reread my favs about once a year. Sometimes the point you're at in life just makes a book hit completely different. I also get a rush of nostalgia from revisiting books that can be pretty pleasant.

There are some books I read every five years or so. Every new read resonates differently and kind of helps me figure out where I'm at now. I just feel them so much. They're:

• Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
• Soul Mountain - Gao Xingjian
• The Abyss - Marguerite Yourcenar
• Fictions - Jorge Luis Borges

I never understood rereading books. There is so much content in the world, so many books, and reading is time consuming; why reread when you can read something new? I don't get much from rereading because I already have most of the plotpoints at the tip of my tongue so nothing really wows me anymore about, as much as I wish I could relive my first time with them.

I have done before, but not often. I’ll reread something if I can remember enjoying it but can’t remember why

Yes, I reread them and take notes. After many years of being an active reader I've realized that it doesnt matter how many books you read, but how many books you read well and what you can recall from them further on that can bring meaningful context to new contents or situations.

Never did for novels, but I often re-read light novels, manga and artbooks.

I reread books all the time. I have several I go back to regularly from my preteen/teen years. It's like watching a movie from your childhood, lol, nostalgic and comfortable. I always pick up new/forgotten tidbits .

When I was a kid I read Harry Potter 6 times forward and once backwards (going chapter by chapter starting with book 7)

Now it's hard to justify rereading a book when there are so many books on my reading list (and on my shelf) that I haven't read yet.

Though I have read HPMoR twice because I was going to recommend it to someone but wanted to check if it was as good as I remembered. Read the first few chapters and then got sucked in and read the whole thing.

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Back before the Internet was really a thing I would sometimes reread some of the few favorite books that I owned. Like a lot of other posters, LotR was a staple though I did find myself skipping through the parts where things got slow. Jurassic Park and the Lost World were another set that I enjoyed every time through.

When I was much younger, I read all of the star wars books that I could get my hands on. A few years after I had stopped reading them, I randomly got bored and decided to check what new stuff had come out. I picked one out and got about 3/4 through before realizing that it was not a new book and that I had read it before. So much for retention!

Constantly. I read Harry Potter every year (despite any misgivings I have about the author), lately to my kid before putting them down to sleep.

The God of Small Things, LoTR, the Hobbit, Dune, the Foundation series, the Nightrunner series (by Lynn Flewelling), the Left Hand of Darkness. One of my favorite things to do is to reread novels I loved as a child and see if they held up.

Reading a book again, you notice things you've forgotten or missed. And you've changed as a person, so your understanding is different every time.

Yep, totally do. I'm usually on the lookout for something new, but I have no fault with rereading a book when the mood comes up. A lot of my reasons seem to line up with yours: it can be a good decompressor, the novelty kinda returns after a while, certain books are Comfort Books. Besides that, I think there's already a default understanding for games being replayed and TV and movies being rewatched. Why does reading have to be any different if I don't want it to be 😅?

There's also the utility in doing so with textbooks or literature I read for professional reasons. Sure, manuals focused on tech rather than practices and technique might not be as evergreen, but even tech specific manuals often have specific strategies that could be worth taking the time to get a reminder of. Just gotta make sure that information is indeed still applicable and hasn't been deprecated somehow.

Sometimes! My favourite series I've reread twice. Which at nearly 50 books (at the time) was quite the endeavour.

I only reread, when reading a book to a child. Otherwise rereading is very rare for me.

I do like to read some very generic fantasy genres, like for example Isekais/Portal Fantasies or fan fictions. Novels in that area are so similar to each other, you may as well count that as reading the same thing over and over again. Each novel has its own twists and strengths though, so it always feels fresh.

Honestly, I Have yet to try such thing. Partially, because I have always something new to read, but hmm... Maybe I will try doing so later. Who knows, might be fun :D

Pretty much every single Disc World novel by the late and great Sir Terry Pratchett, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Barry Hughart's 3 Master Li novels, Detective Dee/Judge Dee by Robert van Gulik, Martha Wells excellent Murderbot novels, Marie Andreas fun Lost Ancients series, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and more.
Some of these give me great comfort (Terry Pratchett) and some are just amazingly well written.

I like to reread a loved series/book between reading other things. It helps keep me from getting in a reading slump.