Rethinking Rereading

When I was in first grade, I toted Louisa May Alcott's Little Women around with me wherever I went. I read the words and pretended to understand what they meant. I asked my mom to read from it every night.

Very slowly, I started understanding different parts, but they naturally meant different things to me then. The biggest take-away for me at the time was that I absolutely had to find a way to trade my three brothers for sisters like the Marches. Reading it now, as an adult, I can thankfully see the bigger world surrounding the March family, while still remembering why my six-year-old self desperately wanted to be a part of it. I can appreciate the language, while still hearing my mom's voice pronouncing some of the words, and explaining to me what they meant.

This fall, Harvard University Press is publishing On Rereading, by Patricia Meyer Spacks, a former literature professor, National Book Award finalist, and former president of the Academy of Arts & Sciences. Her book is her argument in favor of rereading books, which she finds to be, above all, an intensely personal act.

In preparation for the launch of this book, Harvard University Press hopes to build something communal from the personal experience of rereading books. The press is asking booksellers to email their anecdotes, stories, or video messages that address some or all of these questions:

• Is there a single book that you revisit over and over?

• What is it that brings you back?

• Have you had a particularly affecting experience with rereading, in which you had a surprising new response to a book that forced you to consider the ways you’ve grown?

• What’s the most shocking thing you’ve learned about yourself by rereading? The most disturbing?

• What do you feel when you reread?

For some ideas, watch the staff of Harvard University Press talk about what (and why) they reread.