I don’t know about you guys, but I always have a ridiculously long TBR (currently 700+ books), so I always feel incredibly guilty when I re-read books! I feel like I have so many new books, ARCS, and books that have been on my shelf for a while that I have yet to get to, that reading a book I’ve read before is counterproductive. NOW. I know that’s a silly way to think, but I can’t help it! I was having this conversation with my lovely friend Cait at PaperFury the other day, and she told me that she’s been making it a point to re-read one book a month, and I love that idea. I’m not sure if I can do one a month (apparently I have commitment issues!) but I am going to make it a point to do more re-reads, especially when I’m really in the mood to re-read certain books.
Below, I want to share with you some of the books I’ve been meaning to re-read for a while, and I’ll also link their Goodreads pages so you can check them out too!
#1. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. The Night Circus is my all time favorite book, and it’s been too long since I’ve read it! I miss the magical world it created and the beautiful prose. The next time I re-read something, it will likely be this one.
#2. 1984 by George Orwell. This is one of my favorite classics, and I started to re-read it on a plane once and only got 2 or 3 chapters in before I got distracted and switched gears. Ever since then, I’ve been dying to re-read it. I’m a huge fan of dystopians, and this is a great one.
#3. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. This is a super controversial book, and for good reason. Any book about a man having a sexual relationship with a young girl is hard to read, but I did like Lolita and it’s been probably 10 years since I’ve read it, so I want to revisit it.
#4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. With all of the hype that happened from the recent(ish) movie, it’s reminded me how long it’s been since I’ve read The Great Gatsby and how many of the details I’ve forgotten!
#5. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I’ve been meaning to re-read this one for a while, but now that HBO is adapting it, I really want to do my re-read soon!
#6. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. Okay, okay, I’m combining these two together. Last year I started a Harry Potter re-read, and got through books 1-5 before I got overwhelmed with ARCS and review requests and stopped to change gears. I really want to finish that re-read, because it always reminds me of my childhood!
#7. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. So this was actually my favorite book in High School, and it’s a very polarizing one! Ayn Rand is infamous for her off the wall philosophy, and I’ve been wanting to revisit this one since it’s been a few years since I last read it.
#8. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. This is another one I haven’t read since high school, so now that it’s been more than 10 years, I’d love to re-read it and see if I like it as much as I did the first time.
#9. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. As many of you know, I have depression and have had it for a very long time. This is a book I related to a lot and looked to when I needed to seek comfort and know that I wasn’t alone.
#10. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. Another one I read in high school (I’m sensing a trend here…) that I remember liking a lot, but honestly, I can’t remember a lot of it. Now that I live in Chicago, I’d love to re-read this one!
**How do you feel about re-reading books? Do you like to do it, or do you feel guilty like I do? What are some books you’d like to re-read at some point?**
The Blonde Likes Books 
I haven’t re-read for a very long time. I also have way too many new books I want to read for the first time, but I’m also worried that I won’t love a book as much the second time around and then my fond memories of reading it will be ruined! I do want to try though 🙂
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That’s true, too! There are so many worries about re-reading 😂
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We shouldn’t have ANY worries about re-reading! Let’s just do it 🙂
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Yes! I like that plan!
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Ooh, Lolita, interesting choice! I read it last year, and while I really appreciated the amazing writing, it just made me so uncomfortable… Harry Potter though, that I can understand a lot more! I’d love to read it yet again 🙂
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It’s definitely an odd one to want to re-read! It’s been so long since I read it the first time that I’ve forgotten a lot of the details so I want to revisit it!
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Neal Stephenson’s ‘Baroque Cycle’ was enjoyable enough to reread a few times.
Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes stories are still wonderful to me. So is anything by Dashell Hammet.
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Oh very cool! I haven’t read any of those, so I’ll have to check them out!
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Nice list of books! I adored The Bell Jar! Depression is the worst ugh! I seriously need to read it again and also buy it because I borrowed it from the library when I read it.
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Right?? It’s both so sad but also reminds me that I’m not alone. You’re totally right about depression being the worst. I’m so sorry you have to deal with it too!
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I’ve never read Rand but I have the short story Anthem and I’d like to read that!
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Oh yes! I like Anthem too!!
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I used to get an enormous amount of pleasure from re-reading books but I have to admit is a long while since I’ve done so – I have way too many books yet to be read to re-read without some sense of guilt – top of my list is a hankering to read A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell a book I have read countless times – I also want to read A Great Gatsby.
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Right? It’s so hard to re-read without feeling guilty when you have a huge amount of unread books lying around! I’d probably feel significantly less guilty if I were one of those people who read books as they bought them and ever had a large TBR! 😂
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Re reading is definitely a comfort thing for me so I really have to be in the right mood to do it.
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That makes sense!
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I love re-reading books, usually, if you’re considering re-reading a book it’s almost always a favorite and you know you’re going to love it. My TBR is massive as well but I really want to re-read the Harry Potter series sometime soon, I haven’t read them in almost two years and it seems about time for a re-read. I also want to re-read A Court of Mist and Fury in preparation for the release of A Court of Wings and Ruin. Hopefully, you’ll get to those books soon!! 🙂
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Ahh yes! I was thinking I may re-read ACOMAF too before ACOWAR!
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I hardly ever re-read books. I think I’ve only read like 1 or 2 books more than once. Idk why I just feel like it’s better to spend my time reading a book I’ve never read before than to read one I have. Plus I have a really good memory so I remember what happens in a book for a really long time.
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That’s awesome! I’m the exact opposite and I’m forever forgetting what happened in books and can never remember the characters names either 😂
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That just means you get to read books over and over again! I buy a book that I only read like once. That’s the only downside.
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I almost never reread, only if I started a book and didn’t finish it I will star from the beginning. I feel like I should but if I pick I up I will get bored already knowing what will happen. Maybe if I wait a very long time when I have forgotten the plot it might work. Sometimes I listen to the previous book in a series in audiobook to remember what happened before I start the next one.
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That’s sort of where I’m at is the books I want to re-read are either childhood favorites (like Harry Potter) or books I’ve forgotten a lot of the details of. I remember liking them and the general plot, but want to re-read to remember the smaller details!
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Sounds like a good plan 🙂
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