{DISCUSSION} Re-Reading Books

What is the point of re-reading a book?

Who out there re-reads books? Really, I’m curious because I hear people talking about this all the time.

“Look at all these gorgeous new books I can read! …nah! I’m gonna go re-read book X again… for the twelfth time.”

“Oo! Look how worn out this book is! That’s a sign that someone really loved it because they must have read it so many times!”
(This makes me cringe soooo bad! I don’t care how many times you read a book. You should never wear it out! What are people DOING?!)

Being a semi active member of the blog-o-sphere, I run into readers making these comments more often than I can count. Often, it’s made in distress, though. The reader in question is lamenting about how they have all these new books, but have nothing to read and therefore revert to a favorite that they’ve read a dozen times.

On the other hand, there are those who buy used books based on the quality of wear and tear they have because that’s supposedly an indicator of whether or not it’s a good book. The more worn a book appears, the more often a person re-read that book. (Though, it could just mean the previous owner had abhorrent book-caring qualities.)

In fact, re-reading is apparently such a common practice that Goodreads actually set up their system to allow people to log re-reads of books. It’s so important to some readers that you can actually go in and select which dates you read the book each time! (I know this by accident because of a fluke with my Goodreads apps. I don’t actually re-read books, guys. ;p )

A Non-Re-Reader’s POV

Obviously, y’all know by now (as I just stated it above) that I don’t re-read books. I’ve never done it. I honestly can’t even imagine doing it. I mean, what’s the point? You already read the book. You know what happens. You know the good and the bad parts. So, why would you want to read it again?

I suppose one argument could be that it’s like re-watching a movie. You notice something different each time you watch/read it. Or perhaps you just enjoy the story so much that you want to enjoy it again and again. However, a movie only takes a few hours. For someone like myself (the slowest reader on the planet, [though, I’m still trying to trademark that 😉 ]), reading even a 300-page book takes me a couple of days. That being said, re-reading a book would be a couple days wasted that I could be using to tackle that enormous TBR plaguing me from the dark shadows it lurks in(aka my not-big-enough bookshelf).

Speaking of TBR, why would you want to read a book you’ve already read when you still have 100, 200, 500+ books you haven’t read yet? That TBR is going to get longer no matter how fast you read, but you can at least attempt to tackle it by not re-reading. Why would you subject yourself to the torture of your TBR never decreasing by allowing yourself to re-read a book you’ve already read? Why do you want to feed the monster looming in every corner of your room? What’s the catch?!

Seriously, what’s the incentive? Because I am not seeing what is so amazing about re-reading books. From my point of view, it seems like a waste of time, energy, and imagination. But maybe I just lack the patience or passion for the books I’m reading. What do you think?

Do you re-read books?
Which ones and why?
Let me know in the comments!

---

And check out my discussion from last week:
“Hardcover vs Paperback“