Re-loving Books

Re-reading or listening to old (and new) favorites is about the best way I know to recover from a week from hell. Like the week I've been having. Remember the torture scene from The Princess Bride, where Prince Humperdink and Count Rugen strap Westley to a table and drain his life away? "Do you hear that, Fezzik? That is the sound of ultimate suffering." That's what this week has felt like to me. Well, the last month or so, if I'm being honest. Work is making life unbearable right now. I'll have been with this company for 11 years next month, and I am so over it. I also only just realized that my dad's 60th birthday is next week, so my sisters and I are scrambling to put something together for him. I didn't forget that it was his birthday, only that it was a BIG one, but I still feel like the worst daughter. Luckily, he and my mom were born in the same year, so I now have ten months to plan her celebration. OH, and the book I was listening to yesterday pissed me off because I hate reading a book under the assumption that it's a stand-alone or a duology, only to discover at the end that the story isn't finished but the ending may never see the light of day because the publisher wants to gauge the sales of the book you were just listening to before committing to another book from the author.

But I digress.

Wine and chocolate help, but what really gets me through trying times like this is reverting to a favorite story, one guaranteed to make me forget my troubles. My number one go-to re-listen is The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater. It makes me feel all the things but it doesn't leave me in tears, which is the last thing I need after a miserable week like this. (If you're looking for a list of other books that are just as great the second or third time around, April and I have you covered.)

I am a big proponent of re-reading. Even though Katie has a pretty extensive library of her own, she still loves to re-read some of the first books we ever read together. Sure, now she reads them to me, but that just makes them that much better because now she knows the stories well enough to use the little inflections and voices that I used the first time I read them to her. I love that she enjoys revisiting a story as much as I do, if not more.

I just wish I had more time to re-read books myself. I re-listen plenty, but it's not always the same. Though sometimes, it's even better. It depends on the narrator(s) and my ability to speed up the narration. Either way, I love experiencing a story all over again, noticing intricate details and nuances that I never picked up on before. Learning my favorite quotes by heart because I've read or heard them so many times. Getting a keener insight into the characters minds. Finally really being able to visualize the characters…I'm the worst at dream casting a novel because I don't pay as much attention to descriptions of physical appearance as I do a character's actions. But all of it becomes so much clearer with every revisit to the story.

I read so many books in any given year -- and more with each passing year -- that it's hard for me to recall details from the previous books in a series. I really, really dislike that lost feeling I get going into a series finale if I haven't refreshed my memory with the events of the prior installments. But I don't have any extra time to spare re-reading those other books just so I can finally get to the last one. And so I've taken to listening to the previous books just to brush up on the story and familiarize myself once again with the world. It helps immensely. And it makes having that final book on hand so much sweeter. I love being able to read/listen to a series back-to-back. I've already employed this method five times this year, which probably accounts for the reason why I've read almost a book a day, according to my Goodreads challenge. ☺

And I plan to do oodles and oodles more re-reading and re-listening this year. As I said, I had a terrible week --  and it's not over yet! -- so I started re-listening to The Scorpio Races on my way home from work. It helped to fall back into that world, with Sean and Puck and the deadly capall uisce. The book's not going to save the day or anything, but it definitely helps take my mind off everything else. And that's why I love a good re-listen when I'm down and out. Forgetting, even for a few hours, is sometimes the best kind of medicine.

Labels: discussion, favorites, re-listens, re-reads