There are so many enticing offerings to read. I know several people who buy books intending to read them, and they get to some, others clutter their houses or devices in a waiting to be read queue. There's nothing wrong with that. My philosophy is to only buy books I have already read or by author's I totally trust, and even then, only books I intend to read more than once.
This past year I put that to the test. Instead of checking out new fiction (well, except a couple of new release novels by one of those trusted authors I mentioned), I spent the last year re-reading the books I already had. It was like entering a time machine or opening a time capsule, taking me back to when I first read those stories, with characters, events, and lines of prose that reached out to me as remembered friends. And since time had passed, before I opened the covers of one of those books, I wondered how well the story and how it was written would pass muster now that I was older and more experienced in the ways of story craft.
Some books gave me a sense of, "Hey, look what they could get away with back then and still be a best-seller!" Others had a story so enticing that despite me best intentions to look at the book from the lens of an editor or analyst, the story quickly roped me in and I forgot to get technical at all. True gems. A couple of books I realized I had outgrown and no longer felt I would read them again. They've been donated to a local thrift store for someone else to try. Most passed muster and will stay on my shelves to be taken down again in the future. Some books I was able to delve into deeper than I ever had before, catching details and bits of conversation I missed in a previous reading that suddenly made the story even better.
Sometimes you don't need to search for something new to fulfill a reading craving; what you want is already at your fingertips and merely needs to be dusted off.
And now I need to dust off my library card and make sure they haven't taken me out of their system so I can revert to a hybrid pattern of still enjoying old favorites while finding new ones.
To you, dear reader, I extend the challenge to re-read what is already in your personal library. Give it a try and see what still passes your personal reading needs checklist. Or, let me know what books are your irresistible re-reads, the ones that would top your list of favorites because of how much you read and love them.
