Booking Through Thursday: Rereading

This week's questions were suggested by me. Thanks, Laura!

1. Do you ever reread your books?
   Given that I asked these questions at least partially in hopes of confirming that I’m not such an odd duck in obsessively reading books over and over again, well, you have your answer.


2. If so, which ones? If not, why not?
   Rereading a beloved book is like coming home. At least that's how I feel when I pick up a familar text and the words resettled themselves in my head. Books containing worlds or stories that I loved inhabiting the first time around get picked up again and again. It would be quite tedious to cite all the books that I reread but here is a sampling from a quick scan of my bookshelves.




3. Do you read the books the whole way through or pick through for favorite scenes?
   It depends on both my mood and the book. In terms of mood, sometimes I feel like rereading a text from head to tail, in order. Sometimes though, a particular line or scene will suddenly crop up in my thoughts and nothing will do until I’ve revisited it in the book. In terms of the book, there are those books that contain scenes I find unpleasant to revisit, usually because they are emotionally uncomfortable (yes, I do get rather emotionally involved in my reading), and I will often skip these scenes on a rereading.


4. What qualifies a book for the reread pile?
   I guess my answer to question 2 answers this question as well. Not all the books I enjoy reading the first time get reread. There are special ones that render me insensible to the world while reading and send my imagination racing after I am finished. These are the books that I reread.