Maybe you’ve heard of C. S. Lewis. Some people consider him to have been a fairly smart man. A literary superhero, even, who once wrote, “An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only. . . . We do not enjoy a story fully at the first reading. Not till the curiosity, the sheer narrative lust, has been given its sop and laid asleep, are we at leisure to savour the real beauties. Till then, it is like wasting great wine on a ravenous natural thirst which merely wants cold wetness” (from On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature).
I love C. S. Lewis. I love to read. And, because I’m a writer, I don’t want to be “unliterary.” But here comes a confession: I don’t often re-read books. Percentage-wise, at least. There are so many books I’ve yet to experience for the first time, ya know? Most years, I read 70-100 books, yet my to-be-read list keeps getting longer and longer—Oh, wretched man that I am!
However, over the years, there have been more than 70 books I’ve read more than once—some more than twice (indicated with an asterisk in the list below). That’s not counting picture books, which I’ve read numerous times to my children and grandchildren; those are too numerous to list. And also not counting the Bible, which I’ve read through many times, in numerous versions. So, while I’m sure I’ve forgotten some, the following are books I know I have read at least twice:
A Diary of Private Prayer (Baillie)*
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare)*
All’s Well That Ends Well (Shakespeare)
Ancient Prophets and Modern Problems (Brengle)*
Bird by Bird (Lamott)
Celebration of Discipline (Foster)
Guest of the Soul (Brengle)*
Hamlet (Shakespeare)*
Hand Me Another Brick (Swindoll)
Heart Talks on Holiness (Brengle)*
Helps to Holiness (Brengle)*
Henry V (Shakespeare)*
Hinds’ Feet on High Places (Hurnard)
How Green Was My Valley (Llewellyn)
In Shady Groves (Lehman)
Julius Caesar (Shakespeare)*
King Lear (Shakespeare)
Knowing God (Packer)*
Leadership Prayers (Kriegbaum)
Leap Over a Wall (Peterson)
Love’s Labours Lost (Shakespeare)*
Love Slaves (Brengle)*
Macbeth (Shakespeare)*
Mere Christianity (Lewis)*
Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare)*
My Side of the Mountain (George)*
My Utmost for His Highest (Chambers)*
On Writing Well (Zinsser)*
Othello (Shakespeare)*
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Dillard)
Prayer: The Heart’s True Home (Foster)
Ragman and Other Cries of Faith (Wangerin)
Resurrection Life and Power (Brengle)*
Riders of the Purple Sage (Grey)
Robinson Crusoe (Defoe)*
Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare)*
Sit Walk Stand (Nee)*
Spiritual Leadership (Sanders)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Doyle)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Twain)
The Call of the Wild (London)
The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life (Smith)
The Chronicles of Narnia, 7 vol. (Lewis)
The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh (Milne)*
The Contemplative Pastor (Peterson)
The Daughter of Time (Tey)
The Divine Hours, 3 vol. (Tickle)*
The Elements of Style (Strunk/White)*
The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare)*
The Mouse and the Motorcycle (Cleary)*
The Pilgrim’s Progress (Bunyan)
The Pursuit of God (Tozer)*
The Screwtape Letters (Lewis)
The Soul-Winner’s Secret (Brengle)*
The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare)*
The Tempest (Shakespeare)*
The Way of Holiness (Brengle)*
The Way of the Heart (Nouwen)
The Way to Power and Poise (Jones)
The Writing Life (Dillard)*
Twelfth Night (Shakespeare)*
Walden (Thoreau)
When the Holy Ghost Is Come (Brengle)*
With Christ in the School of Prayer (Murray)*
So, how about you? Are you a re-reader? If so, what books have you read more than once? More than twice?
Endorsements: How Important Are They?
They are precious to me now,
voices of my old dear friends,
and in the night they tell me how
this long and aching journey ends.
The comfort of familiar words,
met again, time after time,
take my hands and lead me towards
the morning glow of the Divine,
for hidden in stories I’ve found
a looking-glass comes ever clearer
each time into their depths I sound,
and behind me, ever nearer
smiles the Author of all tales,
found in small studied details.
Thank you for this, Andrew. It’s precious.
Thank YOU, Karen.
Like Bob, I don’t often reread books. So much to read. So little time. One of the lures of retirement. Some books insist on being reread, for the reason C. S. Lewis gives: the richness draws us back. When writing a long project, I am drawn back to books that lend something essential to the writing. While working on a novel over the last several years, I reread Dennis McFarland’s The Music Room and Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto several times each. Both breathed the same air of the story I was working on. And in both, music acted almost as a character, a dominant facet of the protagonist’s persona; and this was true for my protagonist, too.
I call re-reading, comfort reading. I love finding something I missed or didn’t see from that perspective theorist or second or third time. It’s kind of like with the Bible – I first read it though – cover to cover – in the 1970s. I would hate to think I never picked it up or studied it since then.
I don’t reread often, but I do have to say here are the few:
1) The Bible…I’m not sure if I’m on my 4th or 5th read through and some books even more often.
2) C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters…this is why I chose to comment–I was surprised this wasn’t on your list!
3) The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
4) The Harry Potter series.
5) The Little Women series.
6) The Island Stallion by Walter Farley.
7) Tim Keller’s The Case for Christ.
8) Pride and Prejudice, plus the rest of Jane Austen’s books.
9) The Five Little Peppers series.
10) Anne of Green Gable series.
11) Redeeming Love.
That might be it? So many other things to read!
Thanks for the post–I’m glad you brought this topic up. 🙂
A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon van Auken
Ruthless Trust, Brennan Manning
Lonesome Dove (Trilogy), by Larry McMurtry
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Divine Conspiracy, by Dallas Willard
The Great Bridge, by David McCullough
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
The Odyssey, by Homer
The Red Sea Rules, by Robert Morgan
I’m the same. I enjoy rereading, because I glean so much more from a book each time around, But there are so many new books I want to read. My TBR list will outlive me, but it gives me something to continually look forward to.
Books I’ve read more than once (I’ll borrow your use of an asterisk for those I’ve read more than twice):
Daily Light on the Daily Path compiled by Samuel Bagster*
Morning by Morning and Evening by Evening*
Our Daily Walk by F. B. Meyer
Mere Christianity (Lewis)*
Spiritual Depression by David Martin Lloyd Jones
Winning the Inner War: How To Say No to a Stubborn Habit by Erwin Lutzer*
Rose From Brier by Amy Carmichael*
By Searching by Isobel Kuhn*
In the Arena by Isobel Kuhn*
Second Mile People by Isobel Kuhn
Green Leaf in Drought by Isobel Kuhn
Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur by Frank Houghton*
Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot*
Goforth of China by Rosalind Goforth*
Climbing by Rosalind Goforth*
Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret by Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor
The Autobiography of George Muller
To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson by Courtney Anderson
Evidence Not Seen: A Woman’s Miraculous Faith in the Jungles of World War II by Darlene Deibler Rose*
Mary Slessor: Queen of Calabar by Sam Wellman
The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
Marriage to a Difficult Man:The Uncommon Union of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards by Elisabeth D. Dodds
Charlie’s Victory by Charlie and Lucy Wedemeyer
Mountain Rain: A New Biography of J. O. Fraser by Eileen Crossman
Sometimes I Prefer to Fuss by Verda Peet
Not My Will by Francena Arnold
The Mitford series by Jan Karon
The Savage My Kinsman by Elisabeth Elliot
Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot
A Path Through Suffering by Elisabeth Elliot
The Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens
Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder*
Little Women*, Little Men, and Jo’s Boys by Louisa May Alcott
Anne of Green Gables and all its sequels by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Ben Hur by Lew Wallace
The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis*
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
There might be a few others that aren’t coming to mind just now.
I adore rereading books! It is like visiting an old friend or stepping back into a world that you love and have missed! Of the 39 books I read this year, only 6 have been rereads. However, in 2021 I had 19 rereads … so that was better, ha!
Although I agree with C.S. Lewis that we really don’t know a book at one reading, I don’t re-read a lot of books. A few that I have re-read are:
– The Iliad by Homer
– The Odyssey by Hmer
– The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis
– The Sabbath by Abraham Heschel
– Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
– The Hiding Place (audio) by Corrie Ten Boom
– The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
– The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (read this one several times and wrote a blog post)
– Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell
– The Call of the Wild (Jack London)
I just read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis for the first time, but it is on my re-read list for the near future.
You may want to consider, In Praise of Plodders, by Warren w. Wiersbe. A copulation of 33 articles published while serving at Back to the Bible.
Frank, I really really hope you meant “compilation,” not “copulation.” 🙂
You shame me, sir! 😉
Yes, I do re-read certain books, but my list is nowhere near as long as yours.
Actually, as a British royal family scholar, I have re-read several books such as Tom Bower’s Revenge (I don’t like Harry and Meghan’s actions), Diana Her True Story in Her Own Words (very nicely written by Andrew Morton), and a couple other books I don’t have with me right now. I am also very fond of Patti Callahan Henri, until her most recent book. Becoming Mrs. Lewis and Once Upon a Wardrobe are awesome. Her new book The Secret Book of Flora Lea includes immorality, sex, smoking, and drinking, which was a huge disappointment. I never got past the first 38 pages.