Is it worth rereading books?

There is a quiet guilt among keen readers about rereading. So many books, so little time, and here you are again with the same paperback you have read three times. Let that guilt go. Rereading is not a lesser kind of reading. In many ways it is the deepest kind.

What changes on a second read

You stop reading for the plot. The first time, part of your mind is always asking what happens next. The second time, it already knows, so it is free to notice everything else: the sentences, the structure, the small moments that set up the big ones.

You see the construction. Clues, echoes and foreshadowing you sailed past suddenly glow. Endings make more sense when you can watch them being prepared from page one.

You are a different reader. The book has not changed, but you have. A novel about waiting for life to begin reads one way at twenty and another at fifty. Buzzati's The Tartar Steppe, published in 1940, about a young officer at a frontier fort waiting year after year for an enemy, is a perfect example: a warning when you are young, a mirror later.

You remember it properly. Many of us remember books as a mood and a couple of scenes. A reread puts the rest back. Our page on remembering what you read has more on this.

Which books reward rereading most

• Books you read too young. School set texts, classics you rushed for an exam, anything you read at fifteen and have firm views about. You will be surprised how much was waiting for you.
• Short books with depth. They cost little time and give a lot back. A slim book like Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince, first published in 1943, reads very differently to a child and to an adult.
• Books built from small pieces. Story collections such as Calvino's Marcovaldo, from 1963, twenty short stories moving through the seasons, are lovely to return to a story at a time, out of order, whenever the season matches.
• Books whose ending changes everything. A second read is when you see how it was done.
• Books you loved and cannot quite explain why. Rereading is how you find out.

Rereading for comfort

Not every reread needs to be an intellectual exercise. Going back to a favourite book when you are tired, unwell or unsettled is one of the oldest pleasures there is. You know the characters, you know it ends well, and you can let the words carry you without effort. That is not a failure to read something new. It is reading doing one of its jobs.

Some readers have a book they reread every summer, every winter or every holiday. It becomes a ritual, and each read is coloured by all the previous ones.

How to reread well

• Leave a gap. A few years between reads makes the second one fresher.
• Read a different edition. A new translation or a different format can make a familiar book feel new.
• Use a pencil this time. If you kept the first read clean, mark the second one. See our page on writing in books.
• Notice what you remembered wrongly. It tells you as much about you as about the book.
• Do not force it. If a beloved book no longer works for you, that is information too. Let it go with gratitude.