Have you ever read a book more than once? At different times/ages in your life? Why?
Isn't it amazing what different parts stick with you, depending on how old you were when you read it? I've read To Kill a Mockingbird no less than 10 times and could read it again today and get something different out of it.
Every book means something different to every reader, even when upon re-reading.
A number of years ago, when I was part of the corporate craziness, I took a team building class. In one of the group exercises, we were given one word: home. For five minutes the eight people at the table and each of us had to write down every word that came to mind. We then compared our word lists and counted how many all eight of had in common.
Three, yes three. This dumbfounded me. Each person's list had at least 20 words or more. So in a book full of words, the chances of everyone getting the exact same feeling, idea, story - are slim to none. We all apply our personal filters subconsciously to everything we do. If, as part of you filters, you see family as a broken home, you could view a story about the perfect family with suspicion or wonder. So reading a book at multiple times in your life, will mean different things to you. You are reading it with different levels of life experience and new filters.
Now the question is...have you read something as a child and loved it, but reread it as an adult and didn't care for it? I can't personally name a book I have this relationship with. But I'd love to know of someone that does, what book, and why?
I have to say that if start reading a book and I don't enjoy it...I put it down. Life's too short to read something you're not enjoying.
I've asked a number of people what books they've reread:
(There are undoubtedly so many more that aren't listed, but it's the start of a new reading or rereading
1984 by George Orwell
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Anne Frank: The Diary of a young Girl by Anne Frank
Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John IrvingThe Awakening by Kate Chopin
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'engle
Beachcombing for Shipwrecked God by Joe Coomer
Blue Highways by
Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Chita by Lafcadio Hearn
Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
The Clockwork Century series by Cherie Priest
Coming Home by Rosamunde Pilcher
All Diana Gabaldon, except the newest one
Dune by Frank Herbert
Edgar Allen Poe stories
Far Pavilions...both by M. M. KayeThe Godfather by Mario Puzo
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
All Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
All Jane Austen
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
All J. R. Tolkien
Kate Chopin's short stories
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Little Princess by Francis Burnett
The Lost Continent by Bill BrysonMercy of Thin Air by Ronlyn Domingue
The Mirage by Matt Ruff
The Mistress of the Art of Death series by Ariana Franklin
All Nancy Drew
My Reading Life by Pat Conroy
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
On Writing by Stephen King
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
The Outside Cat by Jane Thayer and Feodor Rojankovsky
Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
All Raymond ChandlerRestoration by John Ed Bradley
Secret Garden by Francis Burnett
The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
Suttree by Cormac McCarthy
*To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
WarDay by
Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Golderg
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Xenogenesis trilogy by Octavia Butler
PS.spell check recommends Dust Pan in place of Distopian.
