Rereading is not a lack of imagination. It is a way of visiting a place you already love, and noticing that you, not the book, have changed. Here are five books that tend to give more the second time around.
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (1813)
The first time you read it for the romance. The second time you read it for the jokes, and the third for how precisely Austen sees everyone in the room.
The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
A narrator who tells you less than he knows. On a second reading, every polite sentence has something underneath it.
The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943)
Short enough to reread in an evening, and different at every age. Children and adults often remember different books.
Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf (1925)
One day in London, told from inside many minds. The second time, you stop fighting the current and float.
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (1937)
A warm, funny adventure that is also a quiet book about home. It is a natural book to read again in autumn.
A small rereading habit
Keep one book by your bed that you have already finished. When you are too tired for anything new, open it anywhere. Familiar sentences are a kind of rest.
