“I’ve been reading the old books, books that I’ve read before. The first time you read a book, you don’t read it at all carefully; you just read it for the story. You have to keep rereading. Every year or so I read Shakespeare straight through. But then I go to the latest by Agatha Christie or Rex Stout. I read every book of theirs. I do like a book with an elaborate plot. But I haven’t any definite plan of reading. I read almost everything, and I like anything that’s good.”
–P.D. Wodehouse
Peter Vilhelm Ilsted, Woman Reading by Candlelight, 1908
I’m with P.D. I’ve never understood people who don’t re-read books. I do it all the time. I like to read Raymond Chandler on a semi-regular basis, and since he only wrote a few books, one must re-read. I also think of books by Jan Karon and Alexander McCall Smith as a sort of comfort food. Nothing calms the soul like a visit to Mitford or Botswana. This past summer I re-read a lot of Eudora Welty. And, of course, there’s J.D. Salinger. His oeuvre is small, but every once in awhile a new gem is unearthed. I found a short story of his in a copy of The Best Short Stories of the Saturday Evening Post–wow! And sometimes when we re-read a book that we read many years ago at a spectacularly younger age, we discover a whole new book. This was the case when I recently read Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. What a great book! (Sometimes, it must be noted, the opposite is true–when a much-loved book doesn’t quite measure up on the second go-round.)
The best re-reading is scripture. Over and over until it enters this dullard’s brain and lives there. Like Sky Masterson says: “Don’t tangle with me on the Good Book. I must’ve read it through at least a dozen times.”
