The topic of this week's episode is one of the few book-related topics we've found where we disagree! Martha loves to re-read her favorite books, whereas Elizabeth thinks life is too short to re-tread old ground. Martha begins the episode by setting herself the challenge of changing Elizabeth's mind...listen to find out if she's successful!
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Books we're reading in this episode:
The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard (The Cazalet Chronicles #1)
Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher
A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas
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Sources:
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Intro and outro music: "The Chase," by Aves.
Do you have thoughts, questions, or ideas for future episodes? Email us at allbooksaloudpod@gmail.com. And if you want to learn more about the podcast, visit our website at allbooksaloudpod.com.
If you liked this episode, please consider leaving us a review to help us reach more listeners.
And if you'd like to see more bookish content from Martha & Elizabeth, follow us on Instagram and TikTok @allbooksaloudpod.
Read on!
The topic of this week's episode is one of the few book-related topics we've found where we disagree! Martha loves to re-read her favorite books, whereas Elizabeth thinks life is too short to re-tread old ground. Martha begins the episode by setting herself the challenge of changing Elizabeth's mind...listen to find out if she's successful!
-----------------------
Books we're reading in this episode:
The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard (The Cazalet Chronicles #1)
Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher
A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas
-----------------------
Sources:
-----------------------
Intro and outro music: "The Chase," by Aves.
Do you have thoughts, questions, or ideas for future episodes? Email us at allbooksaloudpod@gmail.com. And if you want to learn more about the podcast, visit our website at allbooksaloudpod.com.
If you liked this episode, please consider leaving us a review to help us reach more listeners.
And if you'd like to see more bookish content from Martha & Elizabeth, follow us on Instagram and TikTok @allbooksaloudpod.
Read on!
[All Books Aloud intro and theme music]
Martha: Hey Liz
Elizabeth: Hi, Martha.
Martha: How are you?
Elizabeth: I'm doing well. How are you?
Martha: I'm good. I'm good. I'm curious what you're reading right now
Elizabeth: As you may well be, because we have very similar taste in books. And so we're often reading the same things, but I have gone off on my own little tangent recently and am reading a book called The Light Years [00:01:00] by an author named Elizabeth Jane Howard. , it is the first of five books in a series called The Cazalet Chronicles. . And it was published in 1990. And I think that I talked about Elizabeth Jane Howard on our beginning of the year episode, because I've been wanting to read these books for a really long time.
I first heard about them from Elizabeth Day, we both love her podcasts and her books and everything. And, , it was one of her favorite authors when she was a young person and she feels like Elizabeth Jane Howard is really unappreciated and she just talked about this series of books in such glowing terms that I filed it away in my brain that I needed to read it and so for whatever reason I decided that this spring was the time.
And it's set in 1937 and 1938 in England, so if you know your history, you know that that is right before World War II. And it follows this, [00:02:00] they're described in the summary of the book as an aristocratic family, but they have a business selling hardwoods, which if you know anything about the class system in England, usually aristocrats don't actually have that.
business concerns. They just have land and just are rich. So I think that maybe there's a little bit of a nuance there that maybe Americans don't understand, but they certainly are well off in the 30s. Most of them have servants and things like that. And it's like the way that we were talking with Polly Mackintosh, , about Clara Reads Proust with being inside the head of a lot of different characters, which is so rare in books these days. But that is what happens in The Light Years.
You get in the head of pretty much every single character in the book, even sometimes really minor characters. And so at first it's hard to figure out like what is going on here, what's the main story. But I think that the main story is really just immersing you as a reader in this world in this , very specific [00:03:00] time and place with this family. And you get to know them all intimately and as the story unfolds. Figure out , what makes them tick, what their fears are, even though they're all very, guarded and repressed people in the British upper classes and I don't know, I just, I'm, I'm finding it really compelling, even though I, I couldn't really tell you, , what about the plot is compelling.
Martha: It sounds like it's a character doorway and maybe a little bit of setting. So maybe that's , why you like it, even though the story really is just their lives.
Elizabeth: Yeah, it's definitely character doorway, for sure. and setting probably, I would say, is the secondary one. I would also say that it's a lot of language. The language is really beautiful. And I think that that is one of the things that Elizabeth Day pointed out is that people don't appreciate, , how beautiful these books actually are.
, I don't think they won, any literary prizes or anything, so that's probably why people forget about them. And that [00:04:00] happens a lot with, , women writers who are really popular in their day, but for whatever reason don't enter the pantheon of classics, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, it's really good.
And it's definitely a departure for me from what I have been enjoying. But I've been noticing that I have been coming out of that pandemic mindset that I was in where I was like, I only want to read things that are fast and fun and light and only ever make me feel good. I was very much in my romance and rom com era for the last few years and I still really enjoy those.
I would say my favorite book that I've read so far this year is Nora Goes Off Script, which you gave me after we were on vacation together. But yeah I'm starting to feel a little bit more of a capacity in my brain to handle stories that are different from that and that might not be quite as.
It's much of an uplifting good time all the time.
Martha: Yeah, I think that's probably a good sign in a way.
Elizabeth: It's definitely more consistent with what my reading in my [00:05:00] life overall has been. And I think that I thought maybe that my reading tastes were just changing as I was getting older, but I'm now seeing that maybe it was more of a season of my life. A fundamental change.
Martha: Yeah, it was how you were coping with the rest of, what was going on in the world on the outside, which makes sense, makes total sense. I mean, look at all the people who found Sarah J Maas during the pandemic and what a ripple that created. Crazy.
Elizabeth: And I'm really glad that I did because now I feel like I have , an appreciation for other genres that I didn't, I mean as we talked about on the romance episode, I've never really been a huge romance reader and now I definitely am. And I don't think I'm going to stop reading those but I just see that there's room for more. So yeah, that's pretty much all I'm reading. I can see it may be taking me a good part of this year to get through all five of those books, , but , I'm letting that be what it is and letting go of , the numbers game as we [00:06:00] talked about in our reading goals episode. So that's pretty much all I'm reading right now.
What about you?
Martha: Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher. Have you heard of that one?
Elizabeth: I have, yeah, I bought it for the library's recreational collection.
Martha: It is I would say it's a fantasy. I'm not too far into it. I'm like six or seven chapters in, and so far it's the story of three sisters that are princesses from a small kingdom, but mainly the main character. Her name is Marra.
She's the youngest of the three, and her family has made an alliance with a bigger kingdom to marry the daughters to this prince. So the first one died. Elder sister died shortly after being married. And then her second sister replaced the eldest sister as the wife of the prince from the other kingdom.[00:07:00]
And Marra gets sent to a convent where she lives for 15 years. So when she's 30, she , visits her sister and discovers that. The prince is abusing her, basically, and she didn't realize it before, and she sees the writing on the wall that if something happens to her sister, she's next in line to marry this prince to keep the alliance, and so she starts plotting
haha. what she's going to do to make sure that doesn't happen. So it kind of goes into a dark place, I think, , I'm curious to, to see where it goes. She's fighting against this patriarchal system where this prince can just do what he wants with her sisters and discard them and hurt them and control everything.
, She's taking control of that narrative.
Elizabeth: Wow.
Martha: Yeah. Kind of intense. I didn't really know [00:08:00] what to expect. I just, read the jacket cover and thought it sounded good and picked it up. So we shall see.
Elizabeth: does sound good.
Martha: Yeah. And then I am actually rereading the A Court of Thorns and Roses series.
It was not planned, but the book club that I'm in that reads the challenged books that the, school board is reviewing here, , picked A Court of Thorns and Roses for the April read. And so I listened to the first one again, and then I was like, man, I can't just listen to the first book.
I have to finish the whole series. A lot of the fans of that series will tell you the first book is the price you pay for entrance into the Massiverse. So it just was not satisfying to read the first book and stop. [00:09:00] So I was like, okay, I have to, I have to reread the whole thing again.
But it's okay, I'm enjoying it. And I'm picking up on a lot of the little Easter eggs that she hid that I didn't know, I didn't catch the first time. So it's been really fun to revisit.
Elizabeth: Well, that is very interesting and very apropos because that is our topic today,
do you reread and why or why not? And so you already started to answer a little bit. So why don't you go first? Just give me your short and sweet answer to that question. Do you reread and why?
Martha: Yes. Yes. I do reread, and the short answer, I guess, is just, it's like comfort food.
Elizabeth: Anyone who thinks that we always agree will be in for a treat this episode because I do not reread as a general rule. And my short answer for [00:10:00] why is really similar to my answer for why I don't, , finish books
and it's basically just life is short and there are too many books. There are just too many books. I'm never going to be able to read all the books that I want to read in my life, so why would I spend time reading something that I already read?
Martha: Okay, I think I might be able to change your mind on this one.
Elizabeth: Oh, you think so?
Martha: I do.
Elizabeth: You want to set that challenge for yourself.
Martha: Yeah, let's do it. We'll see at the end.
Elizabeth: All right. Well, talk to me a little bit more then about, what you get from it.
Martha: The first thing I want to say in response to the argument that life is too short and there's just too many books. I understand and I agree with to a certain extent, but I would also challenge that life is short, so why don't you read books that you know you love? , The reason why I love rereading is because I feel like the first time you read a [00:11:00] book, you're just experiencing it for the first time, , it's like a discovery, it's something new. But the more you reread a story, the more you pick up on the nuance and the Easter eggs, if it's an author that likes to do that, and the foreshadowing and that sort of thing, because you know what's coming, you know what to expect a little bit.
Elizabeth: What is an Easter egg for those listeners who might not be familiar with that?
Martha: An Easter egg is a little hidden hint, or like foreshadowing of what's to come, right? It's something fun to discover that everyone might not see. If you read Ready Player One, it talks about that a lot in that book. , I don't know if it came from gaming or if it was just that the author used that term in that book.
I'm not a gamer, so I don't know. But basically, , it's just a little hidden treat almost in the game that [00:12:00] not everyone can find.
Elizabeth: Is And is it that you,
Basically you won't notice it until you know what happened? That does make it a little different from foreshadowing, right? Not to get too literary nerdy, English major nerdy.
Martha: the difference.
Elizabeth: Foreshadowing is something that the author puts in to give the reader, even unconsciously, a sense of what's coming.
It is meant to be noticed, but not noticed in such a way that it gives away the story. It's especially important in things like thrillers and mysteries. I have a writer friend who writes mysteries and she Talks a lot about, , it's a very fine line. You want what happens in the plot to be a surprise for the reader, but you also don't want it to feel like it's coming out of nowhere, because readers don't enjoy that either,
You have to leave enough of a trail, or of a hint of something, or of a, just a little spidey sense, or whatever. [00:13:00] And it takes real craft to, , put that in such a way that it doesn't give away the story. But there needs to be something that in the back of the reader's mind sets up what's gonna happen so that it doesn't feel like it's unearned or it just came out of nowhere.
So with foreshadowing, the author does actually want you to pick up on it, even if it's something that you don't consciously pick up on
whereas it seems like with Easter eggs what you're talking about is that it's something that you wouldn't necessarily pick up on unless you already knew what happened.
Martha: Mm hmm.
Elizabeth: Something that the author hides specifically for the purpose of people who are re reading the book. Is that right?
Martha: I guess so. I mean I do think there's just so much in, Sarah J Maas series, if we're talking about that specifically, that it's easy to miss stuff unless you go back and reread and you're like, oh, she talked about this in this. series and now it's back here and you know so it all connects.
, and it gives you a different appreciation for the author's writing [00:14:00] because you're so aware of what they were doing, whereas the first time you're just experiencing it, and you're not really conscious , of what they're doing.
Elizabeth: , I just did a little googling while we were talking, and I found a community college page that talks about Easter eggs, and they say that it is something that authors intentionally hide in their books for fans to find.
So either something about a character, a place, an object, a little bit of dialogue, they're actually calling it allusion, in literary terms, an allusion to something.
Martha: Mm hmm.
Elizabeth: Another page says, an author deliberately hides a secret clue or message to sharp eyed readers.
Sometimes it's even irrelevant to the book itself.
Martha: Mm hmm.
Elizabeth: That, super fans will figure out. There doesn't need to be a super formal definition of this, but I just thought it was interesting because it sounds like it could be some of the more formal literary devices like foreshadowing and illusion, but it sounds [00:15:00] like it also could be something that. You know, Taylor Swift does this a
Martha: Mm hmm.
Elizabeth: She references things in her songs or in her artwork or , in whatever, all of her different media that she puts out that she knows that only her super fans are going to understand potentially.
Martha: Yeah, exactly.
Elizabeth: So that's really interesting. I've never really thought about that as a part of rereading.
Martha: Well, it's kind of a super nerdy thing, but I think it's really fun. Yeah, and so series like, ACOTAR or even if you think about, which I haven't read all of these, but if you think about the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, there's like 41 books. I can only imagine that he, , sprinkles little things in there that The people who love his books and have re read them a bunch probably pick up on that I wouldn't the first read through.
So that's part of what I really like about re reading and, we've talked about how I re read Harry Potter every year and there's still things that I pick up on [00:16:00] that I didn't notice the first time or the second or whatever. But also, because we change as people, our experience reading it changes because our perspective changes.
So it's like no two readers read the same book, and you could be considered two different readers reading the same book as well, based on where you're at in your life and what's going on. Different books can hit different ways when you reread them again.
Elizabeth: using Nancy Pearl against me. you're right. You are right about that. And as you say that, I am actually thinking about the few examples of when I have reread books. The reason that I reread them, or the way in which I reread them, was that I was intentionally getting something different out of the book than I got the first time.
Examples of that that I can think of are I listened [00:17:00] to , the audio book of Anne of Green Gables, because you told me that you really liked the narrator and I was like, Oh, I haven't engaged with those books since I was a little kid and I've talked on this podcast about how meaningful they were to me when I was a teenager.
Elizabeth: The narrator of those was Rachel McAdams, , and she was great. And so I did, I don't know that I would say I got something new out of it, but it held up reading it as an adult. And I really loved reading it. It brought me back to that time of being a, young teenager and first discovering these books. So that was nice. And another example I can think of off the top of my head of the very few books that I've reread is I reread several years ago, The Wind in the Willows,
Martha: Mm hmm.
Elizabeth: think that mom maybe read to me when I was a little kid.
I don't think I ever actually read it, but I read it as an adult, and again, I loved it, it definitely stands the test of time, which , isn't always the case with stuff that you love when you're a [00:18:00] kid, , and I really loved it, , what I was getting out of it was a return to the time when I first read it, being able to sort of access those memories and appreciate them again.
Martha: Like nostalgia,
Elizabeth: Yeah, nostalgia definitely. I can get behind that like you're not the same person that you were when you first read it and so you might be getting something out of it that you didn't get out of it the first time.
Martha: that's what I was getting at with the comfort food thing, and especially if you're a mood reader, I think that if you're going through something, or even if you're not, you know what to expect when you're rereading a book that you've already read, and you know how it's going to make you feel, so you can curate your reading experience based on
what you're going through to the nth degree, , so if you're going through a breakup and you want to feel happy, you know, you can read this book and it's going to give you this feeling. Or if you're going through a breakup and you want to feel sad, you can read this book that, you know, makes you feel that way or [00:19:00] whatever, that's just an example.
Especially for people who are mood readers, I think it can be very helpful when you're rereading because when it's something new, you know kind of what to expect based on reviews and whatever, but you don't fully know. So, that's why I said it's like comfort food because you can make it that way, if that makes sense.
Elizabeth: Yeah, it does. And it feels a lot like the way that we have talked about romances , and the way that people who read in the romance genre will defend that against people who are like, they're all the same. , there was this TikTok video you shared with me where the woman was comparing them to chocolate chip cookies.
And she's like, you know that you like chocolate chip cookies. , But that doesn't stop you from eating them.
Martha: right. Or, there's so many variations of chocolate chip cookies
Elizabeth: yeah. That's what she went on to say. She's like, [00:20:00] some chocolate chip, chocolate chip cookies are cakey and fluffy. Some are chewy and gooey. Some have walnuts in them, have marshmallows in them, , but they're all of the genre chocolate chip cookie, which you know that you enjoy. So there's no reason for you to not have that.
So , I get that part. Like you were saying, it's even more in your control, how you're going to feel. Even if you pick up a romance novel, you know ultimately, , how it's gonna go, but you don't know the specifics, so if you know exactly how you want to feel and you have a book that you know makes you feel that way.
I, I can get that.
Martha: And sometimes I just plain don't remember all of the details, which I'm really aware of with this reread I'm doing right now of ACOTAR, , I know the general storyline of what happened, but , I don't quite remember the Exact sequence of events and that, sort of thing, which, , if I read it as many times as [00:21:00] Harry Potter, I would, I would know this is only my second reread or my first reread.
So the second time reading these books, but I do think there are some readers who can read a book and tell you every detail and remember all of the facts after reading it just once. I am not that type of reader. I don't hang on to all of the details after I read a book,
Elizabeth: I feel like sometimes I'm the same way. , I'll tell someone, Oh my God, I love that book so much. And they're like, what was it about? And I'm like, no
Martha: Yeah, yeah, you remember the feeling and the experience, but the details are lost.
Elizabeth: Yeah. , we talked in one of our episodes about. how also the genre of the book or, , the reading doorway of the book can really influence how much you remember it. Because if it's a book that you're just tearing through and going through really fast because it's a story doorway, you might not remember the details as much as a book that it takes you three times as long to read because it's a language doorway.
And so you really go more slowly [00:22:00] and more methodically and meditatively almost through the book. And, ruminate on what happens. And that probably cements it in your memory
Martha: Mm hmm.
Elizabeth: as well.
Martha: I also think it depends on your state of mind when you're reading the book, at least for me, if I have monkey mind going on and I'm reading it, but I'm not really paying as close of attention to it as, if I'm really focused on a book, I think that makes a difference too.
Elizabeth: yeah. But It does sound to me like you have certain books that you reread. It's not like you would just reread anything, right? So you read Harry Potter, you are rereading ACOTAR now. What are some other books that you reread? Mm, yeah.
Martha: I've read Pride and Prejudice many times. And Emma. And Sense and Sensibility. Not Persuasion. It was not my favorite. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, I've re read that one, I love that, [00:23:00] Bringing Down the Duke now I've read twice, those are the few that I can think of off the top of my head,
Elizabeth: okay, well, that's interesting that you bring up Jane Austen because now, of course I made such a big bold statement in the beginning and I'm like, I don't reread, but of course I have reread Jane Austen, lots of times. For some reason Mother Austen is in a different category in my brain or something.
That's interesting. But of course I have reread Jane Austen. I mean specifically when I was in college, I wrote my thesis on Pride and Prejudice. And so I mean I've reread Pride and Prejudice probably a dozen times over the course of, mainly when I was in college, but , even since then. I guess there is something about rereading the classics.
I wonder a little bit actually now that I'm thinking about it, if this is part of why I don't reread. As well, because for me, rereading and that close attention to every nuance of a book very much feels to me like [00:24:00] the work of literary criticism that I was doing when I was in college, which I loved, but also got really burnt out on and I don't remember if we've ever talked about this, but I went through a period after college where I just couldn't read.
Martha: Mm
Elizabeth: I like couldn't face reading because I had just read so much my entire life for four years was just reading, reading, reading, rereading, reading closely, dissecting everything that I read. And I wonder now, in the way that this podcast and our conversations tend to sometimes be a little bit of therapy for me,
Martha: hmm.
Elizabeth: I'm like unpacking, I wonder if part of the reason that I don't like to reread is because it takes it out of the realm of pleasure for me and puts it in the realm of study or work?
Martha: I could see that. And I think for me, it feels different because I'm not coming at it from that literary [00:25:00] criticism point of view, , I pick up on the nuance. And , I can appreciate Oh, that's really cool. The author did that. But
I don't really know exactly what they're doing. I have an idea, but I'm really just reliving the experience and how it makes me feel. So I'm not coming at it with that same point of view. So I could see how maybe it would feel like work or even maybe boring the second time around for you. I think the books that I can think of off the top of my head that I have reread. Most of them are my five star reads. I don't think I would choose to reread a book that was under four and a half stars
that doesn't feel worth it to me when I might read something new that is a new five star read. But , in a couple years I'll probably reread A River Enchanted and A Fire Endless because I love those books so much, and I don't want to just never read them again, you know,
Elizabeth: [00:26:00] Yeah, like it's a favorite. so it's something that you want to hold on to.
Martha: mm hmm,
Elizabeth: I get that. It's been 20 years since I graduated college. So I have had plenty of time to deprogram myself from being an English major. And so I certainly don't feel like the time since then that I've reread Jane Austen, it's been boring or it's been work and actually.
When you started talking about that, it made me also think about the fact that sometimes I do reread Jane Austen specifically, or even just parts of Jane Austen. Sometimes I'll go back to my favorite parts of Pride and Prejudice instead of reading the whole thing. I'll just read the climax of the book where she gets Darcy's letter and it makes her realize that she was totally wrong and it just reorders the way that she's viewed the world.
I love that, , that's the climax of her internal arc and I love the epiphany that's also so earth shattering , for the book. It just breaks things open. The way that Austen does [00:27:00] that is just so masterful and so sometimes I'll reread sections like that to help me as a writer
Look at how she does that and think about it in my own writing. Not to copy it but as a technique thing so that also is maybe a reason to reread that I haven't been accessing as much as I could if I didn't have this mental block against rereading.
Martha: mm hmm,
Elizabeth: The other thing actually that I just thought of that I thought of in the very beginning when you were talking about why you reread, , when you countered my, we only have so much time in life and there are only so many books with, yeah, so then why would you eschew reading your favorite books when you only have so much
Martha: mm hmm,
Elizabeth: Books that you know you love is that very much reminded me of that, , 4, 000 weeks book that I read recently about, , how we only have so much time and we, need to get out of this mindset of being productive and being [00:28:00] efficient because that's not really possible.
Martha: mm hmm,
Elizabeth: And it's much more important to just focus on enjoying the time that you do have. And so that actually is an argument that I feel like that author would probably make, the argument that you made, which is that you don't need to focus so much on reading all the books because you'll never do that.
That's impossible. and it's going to be much more fulfilling to focus on reading books that are fulfilling, that give you that fulfillment, whether that's books that you haven't read yet or books that you have read yet. That's actually something that is in line with the way that I've been trying to reorient the way that I think about my life and how I use my time.
So , I'll stew on that a little bit.
Martha: yeah, it's possible that you've already read your favorite book of all time. And then you could spend your time reading it again and revisiting it. And that's not a waste of time just because you've already read it, you know, and it still counts towards [00:29:00] your numbers of books read. It's not
Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah.
Martha: it because you've already read it.
Yeah.
Elizabeth: mean, it's like that, that quote that we talked about in that episode I can't remember what the quote is now, but that it's not wasting time if it's something that you enjoy doing.
Martha: Obviously I still read new books, you know, it's not like I just reread, but I do. Yeah. I really enjoy rereading my favorites.
Elizabeth: You know, the other place that I am thinking now actually might be fun to reread is, , Alex and I are nearing the end of our reading aloud of Lord of the Rings. We're a little bit over halfway through Return of the King, , and so we've been talking about what we are going to read after that. And I think that we've decided that we want to keep reading things that are classics that maybe one of us or both of us haven't read because I'd never read Lord of the Rings and so it was a really fun discovery for me and it was fun for Alex to share this old favorite and so we could read Jane Austen
especially [00:30:00] hearing it read out loud in a British voice, might be really fun for me in the same way that I prefer British voices reading me my audio.
Martha: I would be so curious to hear how Al tackled Mrs. Bennett
Elizabeth: He does the voices really well. He does good voices. Yeah, I'm now actually a hundred percent sure that I'm going to make him read Pride and Prejudice to me.
Martha: Oh, that would be awesome.
Elizabeth: Yeah, , okay, well, I don't know if I would say that you have a hundred percent persuaded me, but I definitely am swayed a little bit by this conversation.
I also though did want to, with the time that we have left, I did do a little bit of, searching around and reading around for other readers opinions about this topic. Not research in the way that I normally would do it, but just to get a sense of like, is it normal to reread books all the time and I'm just the weirdo?
Or , is this something that people don't, [00:31:00] actually do that much? And , of course, there's no right or wrong. There's no normal, like what is normal. But I did find a couple of really interesting little essays that I'll put in the show notes. , That I thought we could just talk about a little bit.
The first one that I found, is just a person's blog, as far as I can tell. So it's just her opinion. And the blog post that I found is called, Why You Should Reread Your Favorite Books and How to Make It Worth Your While. , she rereads with three main purposes in mind, which are to remember the book.
We've already talked about that. That's not just us that can't sometimes remember the details. And she says something that's really similar to what you said, which is that. This is one of her favorite books and so she wants to remember it in detail she wants it to be part of her almost and in order to do that she needs to reread it every so often so that she remembers all of those details like you were talking about with Harry Potter [00:32:00] and then the other thing she says is recapturing the magic And that is really similar to what I was talking about with re reading things that I enjoyed , as a child.
Martha: Mm-Hmm.
Elizabeth: Like that you're sort of back in the place where you were when you first read it. And so it allows you to enjoy that nostalgia like you
Martha: Mm-Hmm.
Elizabeth: And then interestingly, She does say that , the third reason she rereads is to pay attention to technique which like I said is something that I hadn't really thought about before, but she is also a writer, , and so she talks about how that could be really useful. So I just thought that was interesting because she talks about a lot of the same things that we came up with, , on our own so that. I mean, not like we need that validation, but I just thought it was interesting. We're not the only ones who have those thoughts and experiences. , and then I also found an essay on the Penguin, , website, the publisher, Penguin Random House, on the particular pleasures of [00:33:00] rereading. This one was your favorite.
Martha: Yeah, I really loved the quote that they put in there by C. S. Lewis. I'd never be satisfied to limit myself to just one experience each with my favorite people, which we talked about, , and I loved that.
Elizabeth: I know that we did talk about that a little bit, , but I do really love the specific way that C. S. Lewis put that because when you think about it as a friend in your actual life, I don't know why, but for some reason that really does, that hits me different because.
Of course I wouldn't only hang out with my favorite friend one time and then be like, okay, I've had that experience now, I never need to see you again.
Martha: Yeah, totally.
Elizabeth: Even though that person has the same personality every time I hang out with them and maybe even tells the same jokes or we watch the same movies or whatever it is.
It's not like we only ever enjoy having novel experiences.
Martha: Yeah. Well, and , like the [00:34:00] blog post you just talked about where she said that she reread them almost because she wanted it to be a part of her. I could connect that to the C. S. Lewis quote, in comparing them to his favorite friends, because your friends do make an impression on you, and they do become, part of you, and in that way, I think books could do the same thing,
trying to connect those two ideas.
Elizabeth: Yeah, that does really make sense, and it actually also is related to the third essay, which actually was my favorite of the three essays that I found about this which is from the website Literary Hub.
It's called Doesn't Everyone Reread Their Favorite Books All the Time and it's by Natalie Jenner who wrote The Jane Austen Society. Did you ever read The
Martha: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Elizabeth: Oh that's right, yeah, I think we both listened to
Martha: Only once [00:35:00] though, so I couldn't tell you details about it.
Elizabeth: Right, so maybe it's up for a reread, but I really loved that book. , It's a fictionalized version of the group of people that got together , in the early 20th century to start the Jane Austen Society, which eventually, , was able to buy her little cottage that she lived in and turn it into the Jane Austen Museum.
It's a really beautiful book
but anyway, I love Natalie Jenner as an author and, her points about this were really swaying to me. So I wrote down a couple of quotes from this essay that really spoke to me about why I might need to rethink my stance on this. One of the things that she said is that certain authorial voices calm her down, like a child listening to its parent read.
And so she talks about Jane Austen as well, obviously, but also , authors like Edith Wharton or, , like Harper Lee, she reads To Kill a Mockingbird every year. And that there's something about that reading that's just soothing. In the way that you we're talking about as being comfort food.
She talks about it as being [00:36:00] like music or a voice that is, soothing to her because it accesses that sort of lizard brain from the time when she first read it,
and then the other thing she said that I found really interesting Interesting. And also is related to something that you've said before, is that , she rereads different books , during different seasons of the year.
She Rereads to Kill a Mockingbird in the summer when the key events of the story take place because it reminds her of past summers of her life, , when she read that book, or she rereads the same story at Christmas time every year, and it becomes . a ritual for that time of year, which helps her memories of other years during that time.
It connects her to her life throughout the years by having sort of ritualized common experience, which of course made me think about how you do that with Harry Potter
Martha: yeah, Halloween through Christmas. I think that's so beautiful. And that could be so comforting to people who are going through [00:37:00] seasons of their life where, , maybe they're alone one holiday season. And that's not the norm, , maybe they've experienced loss, and they're feeling really lonely.
And , if they have created this ritual where they reread the same books, it can help them connect with their their past experiences and remember, , the good times. And that could, you know, it's not going to fix all your problems, but it could bring you comfort. I think that's just really cool to think about.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I like it too. She also talks about the characters in the books that she rereads as her old friends, which we've covered that, but people like Elizabeth Bennet and Isabel Archer and Holden Caulfield, she thinks of them as people in her life. Obviously, she's a character reader,
Martha: Mm hmm.
Elizabeth: They're sort of old friends that she revisits.
She also talks about the knowing what's gonna happen piece, , in a way that I thought was really funny. She says, usually I can't bear to witness mortification of any kind, but rereading is the one time I [00:38:00] allow myself to get close to social humiliation in total safety, knowing it will all turn out okay in the
Martha: Yeah.
Elizabeth: A different version of knowing what's going to happen, knowing how it's going to make you feel that we were talking about earlier.
Martha: And of course, reading gives you that safe lens to, to experience that through.
Elizabeth: right. And then she does also talk about, , as a writer, Being able in a reread , to catch glimpses of the man behind the curtain, the way that the technique unfolds. And she also talks about , no two readers read the same book in terms of your younger self and your older self.
She doesn't say it that
Martha: Mm
Elizabeth: But he says, I'd like to think we reread in order to recover a sense of the distance traveled between our younger and present selves, and how, despite the passage of time, we can be just as thrilled, moved, and satisfied by the very same things now as then.
Martha: Oh, yeah, that's a different take on it.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I feel like that [00:39:00] is a much more concise and articulate way of saying what I was trying to say about rereading things like Anne of Green Gables or The Wind in the Willows. , I didn't get something new out of them, but it was really satisfying that I still enjoyed them so much as an adult and that they held up. And it put me back in that place of when I enjoyed them when I was a kid.
Martha: Yeah, like even through all your lived experiences, you're not too jaded to appreciate this beloved story from your childhood.
Elizabeth: Yeah, exactly. There's something about the description of that picnic that Mole and Ratty have on the stream in the spring, after the winter, when they, when Mole emerges. That is just, It's the pinnacle for
Martha: adorable.
Elizabeth: I've always wanted that picnic.
Martha: That's like the epitome of cottagecore in my mind.
Elizabeth: Yeah,
Martha: So cute.
Elizabeth: Well, okay, I will say that I feel like this conversation [00:40:00] has convinced me that maybe I need to give it a try.
Martha: Now you just have to identify which book, not just Jane Austen, you want to revisit.
Elizabeth: Yeah, we'll see. I still feel like it's gonna be hard for me because I'm just inundated with so many new books all the time, with my job. , I just got a shipment of books. like 45 new books for the recreational collection, and I'm like, oh my god, I want to read every single one of these.
Martha: Yeah. Yeah. That's another element to it too.
Elizabeth: yeah, but , I'm convinced to at least give it a try.
I won't close my mind to it.
Martha: I like it. I mean, you definitely convinced me. not to finish books. I just, there was just one experience recently I had where I was like, 180 pages in, which is far. It's like a 400 something page book. And I was talking to Michael about it, our brother. [00:41:00] And, Telling him how I wanted to finish it in a certain time, and if I read this many pages a day, I would finish it by this time.
And he's like, what are you doing? , I don't think you like this book if you're giving yourself a daily page goal. And I was like, yeah, you're right. I should probably just not finish it. , I needed that gentle reminder, and then I just started something else, so
Elizabeth: Yeah, if you've set yourself homework for reading the book, I think that that probably is a good sign that
Sometimes you don't know in the very beginning though. I know I made a big thing in the episode of like, you know, I sometimes know in the first five pages, and sometimes I do, but that Mitford murder mystery book I definitely read over a hundred pages of it.
before I abandoned. And I did ultimately abandon it, it was just taking me too long. And I was like, this is my sign that I'm not actually enjoying this book when it takes me
Martha: it's too much of a chore, yeah,
Elizabeth: So sometimes , you don't know in the very beginning, but it's okay to abandon at any[00:42:00]
Martha: hmm, yeah, so you'll have to give us an update, Maybe next season of if you re read and how it
Elizabeth: My rereading? Yeah, okay, I will. I'm happy to do that. Alright, good. Thanks, Martha.
Martha: Yeah, this was a great discussion. I had a lot of fun talking about this one.
Elizabeth: Yeah, me too.
Martha: Well, if you want even more bookish content, you can follow us on Instagram and TikTok at allbooksaloudpod. Send us an email if you want to give us feedback, tell us about your rereading. If you have ideas for episodes, we'd love to hear from you.
Our email is allbooksaloudpod@ gmail. com. And make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode. Leave a rating and review, it helps other people find us and read on my friends.
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