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Over on Facebook, my "weRead" app (formerly known as Books iRead) posed the question:
How often do you re-read your favorite books?
Which is something interesting to ponder, since just last night, I was re-watching The Matrix Re-loaded. (It was on, I was doing some on-line stuff including the wednesday night Delphi chat and I just left if on.) I also caught The Great Escape this past sunday, thank you TiVo, and got to re-watch that movie too. I recall thinking as I lounged in the attic and watched that movie that I used to watch the same movies over and over again a lot as a child. I'd catch Star Wars (original flavor) on HBO, and stop and watch. Must have seen The Princess Bride dozens of times, same with Highlander (there IS only one, thank you), but beyond that, I'd catch quite a number of other classic movies growing up, especially quite a lot of westerns that I'd watch with my Dad in the den on the black and white Zenith. (It's not like we were missing out, more than half of those movies were in black and white to begin with. I didn't even know that Gilligan's island had episodes in color until I was in Junior High, and we replaced that TV with a color one.) My dad could watch the same old movies over, and over again too. Like an appetite for reading, I'm sure I picked up that habit from him.
As a kid, I'd reread some books dozens of times. I can't count how many time I'd taken out the various Narnia books from the library. I re-read The Hobbit so many times my copy eventually disintegrated. Many other books, I'd read a few times here and there. Whenever there wasn't something new for me to read, I'd go back to my shelves, and read something I'd loved.
These days, I don't do that anymore. It's not just that there isn't time. I mean, there isn't. As a kid, I had huge amounts of time to read, including even the walk to and from school. (Seriously, how I never got hit by a car crossing the street with my nose in a book is a freaking miracle.) Not to mention the surreptitious reading I'd do during classes. Many a long "boring" day at school was passed enjoyably absorbed in the paperback I'd hide under the edge of my desk on my lap and read. Even if I could eke back some of my time (say lunch and commute) the big difference as I see it is that I've got just too many NEW books to read, that going back to read old favorites seems a bit like I'm not performing due diligence. (As if reading is supposed to be about due diligence or something.) Or perhaps its this idea that I'm not going to have enough time to get to all the stuff I want to read, so I really can't afford to be "wasting" time by going back and reading something again, when I should be reading something new. It makes the idea of rereading feel like a guilty pleasure.
And there is something enjoyable about digging in anew to an old favorite, as if visiting with an old friend that you haven't seen in a while. Why shouldn't we take a bit of time out to go enjoy our old haunts? It's not as if I'm going to get to read everything ever written out there anyway, no reason to make reading into a chore. High School English classes accomplished that enough for most of us anyways.
So how about you? Do you have books that you go back and read? Do you have perennial favorites?
How often do you re-read your favorite books?
Which is something interesting to ponder, since just last night, I was re-watching The Matrix Re-loaded. (It was on, I was doing some on-line stuff including the wednesday night Delphi chat and I just left if on.) I also caught The Great Escape this past sunday, thank you TiVo, and got to re-watch that movie too. I recall thinking as I lounged in the attic and watched that movie that I used to watch the same movies over and over again a lot as a child. I'd catch Star Wars (original flavor) on HBO, and stop and watch. Must have seen The Princess Bride dozens of times, same with Highlander (there IS only one, thank you), but beyond that, I'd catch quite a number of other classic movies growing up, especially quite a lot of westerns that I'd watch with my Dad in the den on the black and white Zenith. (It's not like we were missing out, more than half of those movies were in black and white to begin with. I didn't even know that Gilligan's island had episodes in color until I was in Junior High, and we replaced that TV with a color one.) My dad could watch the same old movies over, and over again too. Like an appetite for reading, I'm sure I picked up that habit from him.
As a kid, I'd reread some books dozens of times. I can't count how many time I'd taken out the various Narnia books from the library. I re-read The Hobbit so many times my copy eventually disintegrated. Many other books, I'd read a few times here and there. Whenever there wasn't something new for me to read, I'd go back to my shelves, and read something I'd loved.
These days, I don't do that anymore. It's not just that there isn't time. I mean, there isn't. As a kid, I had huge amounts of time to read, including even the walk to and from school. (Seriously, how I never got hit by a car crossing the street with my nose in a book is a freaking miracle.) Not to mention the surreptitious reading I'd do during classes. Many a long "boring" day at school was passed enjoyably absorbed in the paperback I'd hide under the edge of my desk on my lap and read. Even if I could eke back some of my time (say lunch and commute) the big difference as I see it is that I've got just too many NEW books to read, that going back to read old favorites seems a bit like I'm not performing due diligence. (As if reading is supposed to be about due diligence or something.) Or perhaps its this idea that I'm not going to have enough time to get to all the stuff I want to read, so I really can't afford to be "wasting" time by going back and reading something again, when I should be reading something new. It makes the idea of rereading feel like a guilty pleasure.
And there is something enjoyable about digging in anew to an old favorite, as if visiting with an old friend that you haven't seen in a while. Why shouldn't we take a bit of time out to go enjoy our old haunts? It's not as if I'm going to get to read everything ever written out there anyway, no reason to make reading into a chore. High School English classes accomplished that enough for most of us anyways.
So how about you? Do you have books that you go back and read? Do you have perennial favorites?
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From:
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Leigh Bracket: Fantasy Master works collected edition.
Robert E Howard: Fantasy Master works collected Conan edition.
Malory: Le Morte De Arthur
Anon: The History of William Marshal
But yes, me too.
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I'm sad to say that I've never read Leigh Bracket, but is on my list of To Be Sought Out.
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As for Highlander, sad to say there wasn't only one. I've watched that movie loads of times (it was the first video I ever bought), but once was more than enough for the sequels :)
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