Do you re-read books?

[wayspooled]

I often re-read favorites and I have so many favorites that I picked the reread "many" books choice. I've reread Tolkien's LotR and Hobbit maybe 5-6 times, Dunnett's two series twice, most of Wodehouse twice, Dumas's 5 books that involve the Three Musketeers about three times, Cherryh's Chanur series 3 or 4 times, Jordan's Wheel of Time I reread all of them each time a new book came out up until about the 7th book, Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe and Doyle's White Company, Niven's Mote, Goodkind's Sword, McCaffrey's Pern, most of Dickens and Sayers and Haggard and E.R. Burroughs Tarzan and Kipling's novels, M. Connelly's Harry Bosch, Donaldson's original Covenant trilogy and Geo R R Martin's books all more than twice -- Claire Bee's Chip Hilton series and Louis L'Amour's westerns long ago and.. Reread all the Pratchett Discworld books at least twice, some more often. Brin's 6 Uplift books twice.

I have reread Patrick O'Brian's 20 book series of Aubrey/Maturin 3 times at least, maybe 4. It's so good I just feel the need to wallow in it about once every couple years. I think Jane Austin readers would like it if they can stand some action. It's very much a social commentary and history of the period.

And I'd say maybe another 35-50 books I've reread at least once completely, like The Stand, Dracula, The Iliad, Jurassic Park, some Wouk, some Clavell, some Costain, some Mary Stewart, etc. This doesn't count rereads where I've reread most of the book but not completely.

Very few non-fiction I've reread completely. Obviously you use them for reference but I'd say I've reread completely for pleasure Roger Caras's Dangerous to Man, William Manchester's The Glory and The Dream, Jim Corbett's Man-Eaters of Kumaon, Arleigh Burke's biography (author name escapes me), maybe a few more.

In fact I'm coming up on a need to reread the Patrick O'Brian again quite soon. I feel it building. I sure wish it was in ebook. It's okay though, I have 3 different complete printed sets of them, lol...

And worth mentioning. I think I've only read McMurtry's glorious Lonesome Dove once and really loved it, but I've rewatched the mini-series about half a dozen times. Hands down the best tv movie/mini-series adaptation ever made. If it had been a theater thing, there would have been Oscars all over the place.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by no.guru

I re-read non-fiction often, but never cover to cover. I almost never re-read fiction, and even then almost never cover to cover.

It's like meeting a person for the first time; you can't do it again.

But meeting a person for the second time and third time and so on is often better than the first time. And that is often the case for books also.

[nohmi2]

Originally Posted by nekokami

I'm curious -- does the limited screen size present a problem because of diagrams, or text?

I find that maps are a bother as are *family* maps.

I usually print them out and put them in the cover for my Kindle.

Cheers.

[nekokami]

I've re-read several non-fiction books, e.g. Trefil's From Atoms to Quarks and Gould's The Mismeasure of Man in their entirety. Some non-fiction books are just written so well that they're worth re-reading, cover to cover.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by tompe

But meeting a person for the second time and third time and so on is often better than the first time. And that is often the case for books also.

Yes, often, when I re-read a book, I notice things I didn't notice (or forgot I noticed) the first time. Which can bring extra depth to a story. Or, because you know the end already, you'll see the character progress differently. Or you just focus on different part of the story.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Yes, often, when I re-read a book, I notice things I didn't notice (or forgot I noticed) the first time. Which can bring extra depth to a story. Or, because you know the end already, you'll see the character progress differently. Or you just focus on different part of the story.

When I re-read a book I love to see all the subtle foreshadowing (not the kind that beats you over the head) that I don't pick up on the first time. But when you know what's going to happen, it's almost like the author is giving you a little wink and nudge.

[benham]

As bad as my memory is, it shouldn't even count as a reread.

[sirbruce]

I don't often re-read books, but my childhood special book I reread from time to time is Ben Bova's The Star Conquerors.

Growing up in a small rural town in the Bible Belt, finding science fiction and fantasy to read was no easy take in school. Other than my brother, no one else I knew read it, and in the 70s pickings were still slim even in a bookstore. But to go to a bookstore meant a trip to St. Louis which was a rare event. So confined to the school and public library, one was left primarily with beat up, tattered copies of old books from sf's golden age.

Oh, there were a couple of Henlein and Bradbury books, and quite a few Winston Science Fiction classics. But none of them really grabbed me at the time, and I was mostly reading more contemporary juvenile fiction like Danny Dunn and Encyclopedia Brown. Meanwhile, movies and tv had seen a SF revival, with Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Star Trek, BSG, Buck Rogers, etc. But nothing I read seemed to match that level of space fantasy which captures young minds.

Then one day in my grade school library I found a recovered copy of Ben Bova's The Star Conquerors.

I loved that book! Pure space opera at its best. I loved it. I read it a many times. I even had someone else check it out once I moved on to high school just to read it again. By then I had moved on to Heinlein, Ellison, etc. but it was still one of my favorites.

So flash forward a few years, and now I'm in college, and despite searching several bookstores in the intervening years I could never find a copy of The Star Conquerors for my own. I even consider breaking back into my old grade school just to steal their copy. Why can't I find this book? Remember that this was back before the days of widespread Internet so you can't just look up the answer on Wikipedia. I was on the Internet then, but wisdom, even fandom wisdom, still passed down primarily from individual to individual.

Finally I went to WorldCon in Chicago in 1991. I figure if anyone has the book, it'll be at the world's largest science fiction convention. I hit the Dealer's Room as soon as I get registered and find the biggest used bookseller there. I browse through all his books. Hundreds of copies of Ben Bova's various works in hardcover and paperback.

But still no copy of The Star Conquerors.

I grumble at my luck. The dealer sees my distress and asks, "Can I help you find something?"

"I'm looking for a Ben Bova book. But you don't have it."

"Oh? I've got almost everything... what are you looking for?"

"The Star Conquerors. Have you heard of it?"

The dealer gets a knowing look on his face and proceeds to tell me how hopeless my quest is. It's a rare book indeed, one of Ben Bova's first works, published as a Winston juvenile and never reprinted. For whatever reason, he wasn't happy with the work and was going to ensure it was never published again.

I was heartbroken. My dreams of ever owning this book were shattered. I might as well have asked for an original copy of the Mona Lisa.

Flash forward again many years later, and the Internet has exploded. Rare booksellers everywhere are now offering their stock online. And a book which once had to be located by word of mouth, by "I know a guy who knows a guy who might know where there's a copy", can now be searched for and retrieved in seconds. And I, flush with newfound Dot.Com wealth, can easily afford a rare book or too.

I paid $350 for a very, very fine copy with just a minor crease. I was ecstatic. I read it as soon as I got it, and I've read it many times since.

It's years later again. Now I read my books on an ereader. If this book is never to be reprinted, how will I ever get a copy on my Kindle?

One day out of the blue, a PDF copy of The Star Conquerors was offered on Ben Bova's website. Not long afterwards, it was removed mysteriously. Did the webmaster who put the book up there not realize that Bova never wanted anyone to see it? Or had Bova relented, changed his mind, then changed it back? No one seems to know, but the PDF file is now a rare book itself.

But this story has a happy ending. With a little Internet know-how, the PDF book can still be had. And with Mobipocket Creator and a little massaging of the HTML, I now have a beautiful MOBI version of The Star Conquerors that I can read on the Kindle any time I want.

And so can my friends. And they don't have to pay $350 to enjoy it.

[toomanybooks]

Italo Calvino wrote an essay about reading in which he said that you haven't truly read a book until you've read it three times.

[hnoto]

Even as a child I re-read my favorites. (I still have some of them.) I have a good collection of audio-books in mp3 that I sometimes re-listen to when I'm in the mood. I miss my books when I'm away from them.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by hnoto

Even as a child I re-read my favorites. (I still have some of them.) I have a good collection of audio-books in mp3 that I sometimes re-listen to when I'm in the mood. I miss my books when I'm away from them.

Same here. One of my problems is that many of my childhood favorites are not available as ebooks (any source). I still have them in paper, but like most of my other books, they're packed away due to limited shelf space. I'm considering scan+OCR, but some of them might not survive the process. Still, I doubt any of them are valuable collector's items, and if I can't re-read them as ebooks any other way....

[sakura-panda]

I re-read books all the time! Often!

Two of my collection tags are "Shelf" and "Box" so that I know which books I have already read and would like to re-read someday (shelf) and which ones I'd rather forget that I have (box).

[rlparker]

Relevant to this thread from Newsweek. Also some other interesting-sounding links on the page.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/204221

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by sakura-panda

I re-read books all the time! Often!

Two of my collection tags are "Shelf" and "Box" so that I know which books I have already read and would like to re-read someday (shelf) and which ones I'd rather forget that I have (box).

"shelf" and "box" !! i love it !

Originally Posted by rlparker

Relevant to this thread from Newsweek. Also some other interesting-sounding links on the page.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/204221

well if they don't, they should ! thanks for the link.

[kelly1010]

Typically I do not re-read books. It's really no fun if I already know the ending. Sometimes I do go back and read my favorite parts in books, but never the whole book. I have way too many unread books to spend time re-reading a book.