I’m like Mitch, I find that I don’t re-read the most significant books as often, simply because it took serious consideration to get through them the first time. My one exception is my Bible, which I’ve had to replace more than once, but that’s in a different category — not unlike the calculus textbook we used for three courses in college. Some things are just necessary for life.
The book that raised the question was one of James Herriott’s veterinary collections. I know I’ve read All Creatures Great and Small at least a dozen times since I discovered it in the sixth grade. There are phrases we’ve rediscovered over and over, like his experience giving oral medication to a recalcitrant horse, finding an echo as we dosed a fussy infant — “Well, I reckon th’ hoss got some of it, any road.”
My sons have wreaked final havoc on my old paperback copy of Swiss Family Robinson, which — to bring the circle back around — I used to read every year when I went to the beach. It was just a personal tradition.
And I think we’re on our third copies of Mennonite Country-Style Recipes & Kitchen Secrets and The Joy of Cooking, both of which were wedding presents the first time around.
