Do you reread fiction books?

Cafe Society
61

I guess in this thread, it wasn’t particularly noteworthy that I bought a book I’d already read. But I buy very few books brand new, and those tend to be Authors I know and love, but new material.

Carry on. :slight_smile:

62

Of course. I reread every fiction book. I even reread mysteries. I favor light fiction, action-adventure, mysteries and the like.

Reread books I can think of offhand, most of them several times:



Rafael Sabatini*
     Captain Blood
     The Gamester
     Scaramouch*

C.S. Forester
     The Horblower novels
     *The General* - a scathing portrayal of WWI British army leadership.
     *The Sky and the Forest* - an African tribal chief who is a god is captured 
by slavers.

S.S. Van Dine
      The Philo Vance mysteries from *The Benson Murder Case* to *The Winter
Murder case.

Alexandre Dumas*
     The Count of Monte Cristo*

Erle Stanley Gardner
     A great number of the *Perry Mason* stories and
     Gardner's work as A.A. Fair

As you can see from the list, as a fuddy-duddy I eschew modern authors.

In fact I sometimes go to great lengts to reread. About 60 years ago I bought a cheap copy of Captain Blood at the Five and Dime (F.W. Woolworth to you rookies). Over the years the paper turned ecru, then tan and then brown and was so brittle that to turn the pages was to break off a piece. So I copied and bound it. Here and here.

I don’t have enough to do.

63

I love that you did that. You weren’t strictly recycling, since you used new paper to copy the book, but it’s sorta like sentimental recycling.

64

I feel much better knowing that I am not the only person who rereads. I too am a cheapskate, I mean, thrifty, and aside from thise warehouse booksales, mostly buys books I’ve already read, to reread or loan out, unless it’s George R.R. Martin’s newest Song of Ice and Fire book, and that gets delivered the day it’s out and huffed up like crystal meth.

Interesting to me that many of the books others have reread are also on my list. Also, there are books I’ll read twice, and then books I’ll read half a dozen times. I reckon I’ll go through Dune and LotR half a dozen more before I go blind. It is like visiting with an old friend, and I am often finding new things in old books. Rereading books I loved as a kid has been quite interesting in that regard. I do think I’m going to try something new soon, though… after American Gods.

65

Oh, absolutely I reread them.

It seems like every time I do, I pick up on something that I missed the previous times. Yeah, I know the butler did it (or whatever), but it’s that discovery that makes it like a new read.