I am still in a reading slump as I have not completed a single book this week. But that’s ok, because I am re-reading one of my all-time favorite books and it’s worth taking my time to savor it.
A few weeks ago on Twitter I was contacted by someone who asked me to submit a photo of my favorite books for a project he was creating to apply for a job at Penguin Publishers in the UK (side note — his project – Creased Spines - is awesome and as an HR manager in my daily life I’d totally hire him). So I took a look at my shelves and pulled down three favorites – The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry.
It has probably been 15 years since I read A Fine Balance. My copy is huge — it’s in hardcover and at 748 pages it truly looks like a brick (when I moved here from Canada 13 years ago I only allowed myself to bring 3 boxes of books, so the fact that I picked this one at the expense of several smaller books says something, doesn’t it?). When I took it down from the shelf for the photo, I “remembered” how much I enjoyed reading it; and when I abandoned yet another book to the DNF pile last weekend I thought that re-reading an old favorite would be just the right thing to get my reading mojo back, hopefully enjoying the book as much as I did the first time.
I am about halfway through the re-read and I am thrilled to say that it is as good as I remembered. A Fine Balance is not a pretty story – it is set in Bombay (its name at the time) in 1975 with flashbacks to earlier eras – but for me it captures perfectly the sights, smells, and sounds of India. In fact, despite the harshness of its descriptions, this novel sparked a desire to visit India, though I don’t consider myself brave enough to withstand the reality of the country (yet).
So though I have hundreds (yep) of not-yet-read books sitting on my shelf I think this experience has made me want to re-visit other old favorites sitting on my shelf to see if they still are as good as I remember. Maybe I’ll seek out a challenge for 2013, or create one if it doesn’t already exist.
Do you re-read books?
I love re-reading books but with the pile of unread books nearby, I don’t do it often. I will re-read Before I Go to Sleep (SJ Watson) for a book club this month and similarly, I re-read State of Wonder (Ann Patchett) earlier this year. I love re-reading books!
Have fun with your re-reads – it’s good that the books are not idling in your book cases, isn’t it?
Yes, sometimes my book club picks books I’ve already read so that usually is the only time I’ve re-read books lately (this month is Gone Girl which is a re-read for me). As I’ve mentioned before if only the publishers would stop releasing interesting books I could catch up on the ones I already have and re-read more in the process!
I’m going to be spending December snuggling down with a pile of old favourites. To re-connect with books I say I love but haven’t read in years, ‘come home’ as a reader and just take a bit of a holiday from the clamour of new books.
That is a good idea. With A Fine Balance I wanted to see if I loved it as much as I thought I did.
I am re-reading Bleak House this fall for a class I am taking and recently re-read Don Quixote and Middlemarch. I got so much more out of those books the second time around. If only there were more hours in the day for reading. I’d love to re-read more, but that tottering TBR stack calls.
I hardly ever reread the same books, but when I do, it’s usually one of my three favorites: The Poisionwood Bible, Self Help ( short stories by Lorrie Moore) or The Red Tent. Even though I rarely reread , I have a ton of books that I would love to reread!