My philosophy has always been that there are too many books out there to spend the time to re-read.  I’ve only consciously made a couple of exceptions to this rule.

A few years ago I re-read Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land.  In my opinion, this is one of the classics of science fiction and it was one of the first books that I remember having an effect on my world view.  In other words, it made me think.  I probably read it in my early teens and I decided to read it again as an adult to see if it still elicited the same response.  It is still a powerful book, if you grok Heinlein.

I have also read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius a few times, and will probably read it again.  There are few books worth the time to read them repetitively, and this is the one I choose.  Marcus Aurelius was a roman emperor and a Stoic philosopher.  This is a great combination as far as I’m concerned because I have always been interested in the Roman Empire, and I’m pretty much a Stoic by nature and inclination.  If you are looking for words to live by, look no further than:  He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.

These are the only two books I have purposefully read more than once, but the list grew by two more in the last year.  The titles don’t really matter because it was more a result of my mind slipping with age than a conscious decision.  So twice in the last year I found myself reading a book that I had read in the past.  Maybe you’ve had that feeling a few chapters into a book where you realize you’ve read it before.  What do you do?  To quote Marcus Aurelius:

Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.

In other words, just go with it.  I recognize that I have to accept this occasional slip as I get older.  Also, a little flexibility in my book reading philosophy isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I have a feeling the universal nature is not done with me yet, so I might as well accept what comes next.

An exception to this rule, of course, is my own stories.  We call them revisions, but it’s pretty much re-reading the story multiple times to find errors and make it better.  Maybe if I call it re-writing it will make me feel better about it.