The Joy of Re-Reading

Once, long ago in my teenage years, I was hanging out with my best friend in his apartment. His mother was working, so we were cranking the tunes and getting high. In our wisdom, we were pondering the deep questions of the universe and solving all the problems of humankind.

We talked about reading a lot. My friend Frank was always a mystic kind of guy. His favorite book was Richard Bach’s Illusions. You may remember Bach as the author of the flakiest book of the seventies, Jonathan Livingstone Seagull.

I was putting off jumping into Illusions. I eventually did read it, and in the infinite maturity I still possess, I dubbed it Delusions. It definitely wasn’t my kind of book, but that’s not the point here.

Good old Frank, my he rest in peace, was frustrated with me. You know how we all love to push books on other people and can’t comprehend why everyone doesn't see what we see in them.

“You’re reading an Isaac Asimov book you’ve already read!” Yeah. I was. Is that all right?

Frank asked why I was re-reading a book when there are so many other ones out there. I don’t remember what record we were listening to, but I asked why he was listening to it again. “That’s not the same thing!”

But it is. Or close enough anyway.

We listen to music again and again to re-experience the joy we felt the first time. We hear new things in the songs. We understand what the writer was saying more with repeat spins. The music soothes our souls.

It’s the same thing with books. I get intense emotion from books, just as you do. Some books are pleasant trifles, while others have greater depth and intellectual resonance. Books don’t change, unless someone tinkers with the manuscript, which I generally hate. We change. A novel read at age fifteen isn’t the same as when read at age fifty.

Sometimes it’s a general feeling. I remember the euphoria I felt when I realized that Stephen King wasn’t some spooky version of Danielle Steele. I ran through every one of his existing books up until the newest one. Which was Pet Sematary.

I think back to that buffet of King books and I feel some of the warmth I felt when I was reading them. I re-red them and discover new wonders and terrors. When I was young a walking dead person might frighten me more than the horrors of old age.

The same goes for Robert A. Heinlein. I read every one of his books when I was a pre-teen. The wonder, the splendor, the exhilaration I felt still resides in my heart. I go back and read them, remembering when the future wasn’t necessarily terrifying. There was hope in Golden Age SF. Now so much of it is dystopian.

I am in my mid-sixties and while I continue to try new books and authors, re-reading is an important part of my literary life. I’d say half of my reading diet is books I’ve already read. It’s one of the greatest joys of my life.

I am currently going through all of Joe R. Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard books. The final novel in the long-running series, Petrified Dreams, is coming in October. It’s going to be an emotional experience for me and I fully expect to weep like a baby. I want the fullest experience I can get, so I am reading the whole series. I just finished the fourth book, Bad Chili. I believe this is the third time I’ve read it, and I am still surprised by elements of the story.

I re-read King’s It every decade or so, and I suppose I better up that to every five years. I’ve re-read McCammon’s Boy’s Life a few times. I am due for a Swan Song redux.

Some writers, like Peter Straub and Dan Chaon, demand repeat readings. There’s so much complexity in the writing and the story that one ride isn’t enough.

Other books are like comfortable old slippers I slide on my feet.

I hear people say they never reread. That’s fine, but why own books if you never plan to revisit them?

I watch movies over and over for the same reasons.

I own hundreds of vinyl records. Ones I loved when I was a teen and new favorites.

Books are old friends that I like to visit with. My books, like me, have been around the block a few times. Many have wear and tear, again like me, but that’s a sign of character. Books live and breathe, and should be pulled off the shelf and enjoyed. Just as we shouldn’t spend all our time cooped up in a vacuum.

I am reading a short story collection, but when I am done with that, I think it’s time to re-acquaint myself with Mr. Joe Hill. Has it really been almost twenty years since I’ve read Heart-Shaped Box?

As for my old friend Frank, who questioned my love of re-reading books, his search for spiritual enrichment led him to the church. I went down the dark path of horror. Who’s to say which was the better road? I heard Frank died nearly a decade ago. Maybe he was right after all and he came back as a seagull.

Written by Mark Sieber