I love to re-read. I read hundreds of books every year for pleasure (last year it was over 330) and of those, a good 50-75 can be re-reads. For example, last year I re-read the entire JD Robb In Death series. All 40-some books. Some of those books (like the first, Naked in Death) I’ve read several dozen times, but I’d never done an entire back-to-back series re-read before. I then went on to re-read the entire Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum series. Partly because I was studying the differences and similarites between how the two authors handled character development and story arc over a longer running series with the same characters.This year, I just completed a re-read of Nalini Singh’s Psy/Changeling series and I’ve begun a re-read of the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, in preperation for the last book’s release this January. I stopped reading the series at around book 8 or 9 originally, because I realized I had to re-read every time a new book released, in order to remind myself of the story arc and characters. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re big, fat fantasies and there are dozens of characters and numerous story and plot threads to track. So now that the series is coming to its end, I’m re-reading those first books (one a month or so).
Now, despite what I said above, when I am re-reading, very often it’s not always an entire series. Usually, it’s either stand alone books, or one or two books I particularly enjoy from a series. What I find most interesting about my own re-reading is that while my current reading for pleasure doesn’t contain a lot of historical romance, my re-reading is probably 75% historical romance. I re-read The Devil’s Bride by Stephanie Laurens several times a year (currently, I’m listening to it on audiobook), though I don’t re-read any of the rest of the series, except sometimes the first book. I also re-read Julie Garwood’s historical titles on a yearly basis. Don’t ask me to name my favorite, but I can name my top seven, if you’d like. And both Johanna Lindsey and Catherine Coulter have historical romances I enjoy re-reading. Then there’s Johanna Lindsey’s futuristic romance novel Warrior’s Woman, which I have ridiculous love for.
Outside of historical romance, there are a few key contemporary romances I love. Be My Baby by Susan Anderson. Elizabeth Lowell’s “jewel” series (the family is in the jewel business, the series starts with Amber Island). And nudging to the romantic suspense side (another genre I don’t currently read a ton of) I’m in love with Kill and Tell by Linda Howard, as well as her romantic suspense Dream Man. I re-read those frequently.
In the fantasy genre, there are two series I re-read. The first, David Eddings Belgariad. I read that nearly yearly. The other is Elizabeth Haydon’s Rhapsody (from her Symphony of Ages series). Of course, my re-read of that has slowed because it’s not available in digital (much to my frustration, as you can imagine).
And then there’s…well, I won’t keep boring you with everything I re-read. I think you can sense that there’s a lot. Sometimes, a plot line or scene will pop into my head and I’ll be driven to re-read the book (and sometimes first I have to figure out which book it is). Of course, there are also books that I used to re-read but can’t anymore, because the author jumped the shark so badly for me later in the series, that my pleasure in the earlier books isn’t as great as it used to be. Still, I never run out of things I want to read over and over again. And I never get tired of re-reading the books I’ve listed here, and many others.
Now you tell me…are you a re-reader? If so, what do you love to re-read? And if you don’t re-read, is there a specific reason?
) but country music often does a fantastic job of telling a story, which can lead to making the song more evocative. Garth Brooks’ songs, for instance, told a story more often than not.
