On re-reading books

[Faithhopelove24]

I have heard several godly men who I admire talk about how they very rarely reread books or just don't have the time to reread books. I assume because there is so much else to be read. I just feel like there has to be something to rereading books. To me, it makes more sense to have a hundred or so really solid books and reread them throughout your life 3, 4, 5, or more times, and really know them well and be shaped by them. I think that makes more sense than trying to read 2000 books once and gleaning a little bit here and there. What is your take on this? Maybe part of my reasoning in this is that I learn best by repetition? I have a hard time retaining a whole lot on a first read through...

 

[RamistThomist]

I reread the Great Books (50-100). I reread Dante every 2 years. Don Quixote every five or so.

I've read the Summa, but I reread parts of it. A Great book will find itself being reread.

 

[Theogenes]

I highly recommend the re-reading of books. I'll use a different color highlighter or pen with each re-reading. I do that to help me be engaged more in the text. I find going back to a book I read a few years ago is very rewarding in that I don't have to get "re-acquainted" with the book like you have to with a new book. And I usually benefit more deeply from the re-reading. I've read some books several times and plan to re-read them again in the future.
So, again, re-read those "friends" you've enjoyed in the past but always be reading new ones as well!

BTW, on the importance of reading, check this out...

 

[pastorgrumbles]

Spurgeon, "To Workers with Slender Apparatus":

The next rule I shall lay down is, master those books you have. Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until they saturate you. Read and re-read them, masticate them, and digest them. Let them go into your very self. Peruse a good book several times, and make notes and analyses of it. A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books which he has merely skimmed, lapping at them, as the classic proverb puts it "as the dogs drink of Nilus." Little learning and much pride come of hasty reading. Books may be piled on the brain till it cannot work. Some men are disabled from thinking by their putting meditation away for the sake of much reading. They gorge themselves with book-matter, and become mentally dyspeptic.
Books on the brain cause disease. Get the book into the brain, and you will grow.

 

[chicagophil]

I started going deeper into puritan writings about 5 years ago and I started taking notes on the writings and I do that for about everything I read now. (Some books I find aren't very noteworthy, so to speak). I look back over those notes fairly frequently and that sometimes prompts me to reread sections of them. In the past year I have reread three of Owen's works and added notes for each of them. A little over a year ago I reread the Institutes which I had read many years ago. I should not have waited so long to reread it.

For what it's worth

 

[Clemson_Gentleman]

I heard one of my pastors say he reads The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs once every year

 

[Andres]

Books I reread:
The Sinfulness of Sin by: Venning
Holiness by: Ryle
Confessions by: Augustine

Haven’t reread yet but intend to as it was a tremendous blessing to me upon the first reading - Practice of Piety by: Bayly

 

[Faithhopelove24]

Books I reread:
The Sinfulness of Sin by: Venning
Holiness by: Ryle
Confessions by: Augustine

Haven’t reread yet but intend to as it was a tremendous blessing to me upon the first reading - Practice of Piety by: Bayly

Do you check out different translations of Augustine? Or do you have a fav that you always return to?

 

[Yzzy]

I reread the Great Books (50-100). I reread Dante every 2 years. Don Quixote every five or so.

I've read the Summa, but I reread parts of it. A Great book will find itself being reread.

If all I had was Dante, that would be enough!

I wish I could be like Beatrice and be the inspiration for great art!

 

[TheMantis]

I don’t re-read usually. I never have. I probably should. I usually just go back to highlights or notes I’ve made. With so many great books how do the re-readers have time or benefit from the practice?

 

[TheInquirer]

I cannot make it through Rare Jewel even once because the first part is so dense and soul shaping. I have re-read that part many times.

Not many modern Christian books I have found worth re-reading (good commentaries an exception). Good Puritan, theology, systematics I find myself going back to over and over.

The “I don’t have time” is an excuse. Last I checked we all had 24 hours every day. How you use it reveals your priorities.

 

[Ed Walsh]

I reread the Great Books (50-100). I reread Dante every 2 years. Don Quixote every five or so.

I wore out volumes six and seven of Owen's works, and the second two volumes look pretty used. So I'm a big fan of rereading the good stuff. However, I do not read as widely as you have, and I still do.

 

[John The Baptist]

Mortification by Owen gets I read 2-3 times a year usually…. I think I’m due for another.

Other than that I am simply cycling through systematics, with more modern ones get in the cycle every now and again

 

[No Other Name]

Mortification by Owen gets I read 2-3 times a year usually…. I think I’m due for another.

Other than that I am simply cycling through systematics, with more modern ones get in the cycle every now and again

Mortification for me too. And now that Crossway released vol. 15 that includes 3 other treatises on indwelling sin, temptation, etc. I just picked that up to expand on Owen's framing of these Scriptural truths even more. God bless you, brother.

 

[RamistThomist]

Do you check out different translations of Augustine? Or do you have a fav that you always return to?

For me, it depends. I started with the Rex Warner translation and it was good, but it didn't have thees and thous. I later learned that really wasn't that important. Usually, I read whatever translation is at hand.

Sometimes, though, it does matter. For example, in Theological Orations, Gregory of Nazianzus contrasts the monarchia of the Godhead with anarchy and polyarchy. The recent St Vlad's translation renders it "monotheism," not monarchy. That makes it functionally indistinguishable from Judaism and Islam. To be sure, calling it "monarchy" also raises problems--but that is the word St Gregory deliberately used.

Normally, however, a translation doesn't require that much analysis.

 

[Charles Johnson]

I'll read books I'm translating three or four times in the process of translating them.
Besides that I don't do much re-reading.

 

[RamistThomist]

I reread (or listen to) about ten CS Lewis books every year.

 

[No Other Name]

My usual re-reads everyone seems to have as well, except one: Certainty of Faith by Herman Bavinck.

God used that book when I needed clarity the most regarding the role of faith and science. I still feel the intense desperation I felt years ago when reading it. I probably always will.

 

[Solparvus]

I reread the Great Books (50-100). I reread Dante every 2 years. Don Quixote every five or so.

I've read the Summa, but I reread parts of it. A Great book will find itself being reread.

I certainly get Dante. What is it in Don Quixote that makes it worthy of a re-read?

I wonder if maybe Paradise Lost would be one such classic to re-read, but I should get through once first.

 

[RamistThomist]

What is it in Don Quixote that makes it worthy of a re-read?

It's genuinely funny.

 

[Andres]

Do you check out different translations of Augustine? Or do you have a fav that you always return to?

I CONFESS that I haven't given much thought to which translation I read - I just use this one as it's the one on my bookshelf.

 

[TheInquirer]

They aren't cheap, but I absolutely love the readability of the New City Press translations of Augustine.

 

[particularlybaptist]

They aren't cheap, but I absolutely love the readability of the New City Press translations of Augustine.

They have this set at a local university library near me. So thankful- beautifully bound and pleasingly readable.

 

[TheInquirer]

I splurged a few years ago and bought the NCP hardbound, library binding of City of God in 2 volumes. Very well constructed and a joy to read. Wish I had paid a bit more and got the same for On the Trinity (got the paperback) but at the time I wasn’t familiar with the options or the translation.