To re-read or not to re-read?

Hello, biblios!

I'm sure I am hardly alone when I look at my TBR bookcase and my master TBR list and have a mini existential crisis.

"How am I ever going to read ALL THE BOOKS?!" The unanswerable dilemma for bibliophiles everywhere.

And thus, for me, the concept of re-reading feels almost laughable. I'm going to spend time reading a book I've already read when I have aaaaaaall these ones I haven't read yet?

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But ... but.

There are a handful of books I've read years and years ago that I would actually like to dive into again, either to see if I feel differently about it as an older reader, or to hopefully experience anew the same joy I felt the first time.

Here are the top contenders:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen — Like any feminist booklover worth her salt, I of course adore P&P. But unlike many others, I have only read it one single time, and I honestly cannot recall exactly when that was. I believe I was in high school — which means it's been at least 20 years. Oy. I feel like 37-year-old me will have an even better appreciation for it than my teenage self did, even if I'm way too gay now to care as much about the fate of cis/het romances. 😝

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman — It's of course nigh impossible to actually choose one single book and say it's my favorite, but if I had to, Neverwhere would be a top candidate. I believe I read it in my early 20s, and what I remember most was just being blown away by discovering this kind of literature. I'd read very little before that was anything like this, and it just entranced me. The otherworldly aspect, the urban fantasy elements, all came together to make one of the best things I'd ever read. But I don't remember much of the actual details, and I'm pretty sure I'd really enjoy exploring it again.

Beloved by Toni Morrison — I think I read this in JC, soon after I took a course called "History of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in the United States." I had my eyes opened quite a lot in that class, and wanted to keep broadening my understanding of lives that were different from mine. Someone recommended Beloved to me, and it was nothing short of stunning. I'm pretty sure I read it all in one day. Now that I'm older and have worked for so long to deepen my commitment to social justice and intersectionality in my feminism and my general worldview, I think reading this book through wiser eyes would be even more impactful.

Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling — Okay, bear with me here. It's not like I've forgotten the overall plot of the series, of course. But unlike many other HP fans, I only read each book once. I've seen the movies probably at least 5 times each, but I know there are some notable differences between the books and the films. And the books gave me such joy when I read them that right about now feels like the best time ever to try to inject that same feeling into my life again.

The Eye of the Heart: Short Stories from Latin America edited by Barbara Howes — I'm 99% sure that this collection was on the syllabus for one of my English courses at JC ... though it could maybe have been for Honors English in my senior year of high school?? Honestly, that's way too far back to remember clearly, LOL. But I remember absolutely loving some of the stories here, from authors like Jorge Luis Borges, Pablo Neruda, Gabriela Mistral, Clarice Lispector, Gabriel García Márquez, and many others. This collection introduced me to magical realism, a genre I have loved ever since, and I'd really like to dip back into this and see if the stories have stood the test of time for me.

Now, am I actually going to re-read these books this year? I'd certainly like to (although probably not the entire HP series). But as I said, it's really damn hard to let myself spend even a couple of days re-reading while all my unread books sit there and silently judge me for it.

But I'm putting it down as a tentative maybe goal to read the three novels, dip in and out of the story collection, and maybe knock down the first two or three HP books ... and we'll see what happened with that come next NYE!

What about you — do you like to re-read, or do you have the same reticence that I do? If you do, which books are your go-to re-reads and have you ever totally changed your mind upon revisiting an old favorite? Do tell!