Rereading

Once in a while, I decide to reread favorite books from the past. Mostly these have been books I’ve read in the past few years. I’ve found audiobooks are a good way to revisit the favorites and sometimes they bring out even more from the books. Then there are books I read when a teenager, and sometimes even younger. I have such good memories of those books and yet I was a very different person at the time. I wonder if those books will stand up after so many years. I must admit to not revisiting many of those books.

Today I was scanning a list of books of a Goodreads friend and came across Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. I really liked that when I read it as a teenager. Then I read Illusions by the same writer and particularly loved it. I read and reread it a few times during my youth. But would I still love it now as I did then? Is it always a good idea to revisit those books? If I read it today, I might not feel the same way and then the “illusion” would be destroyed, leaving a different memory from earlier. I guess it’s a bit like watching television shows you liked in your youth but now make you cringe.

More recently I got the ebook version of Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier because it was one of those books from my youth that left a major impression. I have recently started my second reading and so far it’s been quite good. I imagine this is one book I will be just as satisfied with the second time around. In fact, I may actually appreciate it so much more with the many extra years of maturity.

In my previous post, I mentioned reading books by Victoria Holt as a teenager. A couple of years ago I did reread one and I did find it stood up after all these years. I think it was one of her best ones, so I guess that was a good choice. I think I also sought one by Phyllis Whitney that was still okay although it did not leave much of an impression. I know there were some of her books that I really loved but do they still work for me as they did then?

Many years ago I revisited From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler that was a magical book for me as a child. Reading the book as a probably forty-something adult isn’t quite the same as for an eight or nine year old. I’m sure I reread this a few times during my childhood and it held up. But it felt less than magical to the much older me. It was still good to read but more in a nostalgic way. Fortunately, this hasn’t spoiled the book for me and I do still have fond memories of it.

I’m not so sure a book like Illusions would hold for me. I remember it being kind of magical too, but I somehow feel it would fall under a different scrutiny were I to read it today and it really would ruin that memory. Therefore it’s unlikely that’s a book I will revisit again.