No

Too much to read and see, so little time to sample it all.

patricia

Princeton, NJ

Yes

I am a rabid re-watcher/re-reader. I am mad for the book, Babbit, by Sinclair Lewis, and have read it repetitively over the years. If you haven't read it once, read it, then read it again. I used to be a public high school teacher in Philadelphia and one year, I had the opportunity to use Babbit to teach the Gilded Age; the book covers everything from provincialism, conspicuous consumption, fads of the day, Social Darwinism, and good old-fashioned bigotry. I was like, "Eff Great Gatsby." It felt so deliciously subversive. To use it to teach, and not to read it just for pleasure? It's like knowing how to use wine. Sancerre by itself is pleasurable, Sancerre + a perfectly aged Clochette goat cheese from Loire, will change your life. It's so powerful.
I was always always re-reading it because I was constantly picking up something new and I loved the way Sinclair worded things. One of the biggest pleasures in my life was when my roommate's mother, Shaula, got a Master Violet Ray "off the trash." It was a fad in the time of Babbit. Basically, it was an electroshock therapy piece of quackery. AND, it was in working order. Old girl charged me $90.00 for something she got off the trash. My Master Violet Ray came with several attachments: the general electrode, the double chin electrode, the hair rake... the booklet said that I could have purchased the anal electrode, the vaginal electrode, and my personal favorite, the double eye electrode... Depending on the electrode, it treated everything from gleet, lumbago, vertigo, syphilis, dandruff, falling hair, wrinkles, female troubles, and fat necks...
A while after I had made the purchase, I re-read Babbit. A new scene had come to life and I UNDERSTOOD the mockery much better. Babbit goes to a fussy beauty salon and felt guilty as he walked by a sensible barber shop. But, he wanted to feel like one of the pretty people and hey, he had the money to burn. In passing, Sinclair mentions him walking through a room full of men getting Master Violet Ray treatments. I burst out into laughter at the room of collective male vanity and conspicuous consumption. And I laughed even harder because I know the Master Violet Ray hurts! I once held my little brother down to "treat him for carbunckles," until I smelled burning skin.
If I hadn't have re-read the book, I would not have "gotten" that detail, which made it so much more wry and funny. And then, I got to take my machine to class and bring the book to life. "Who wants to try this thing out on Miss Billick?"

Andrea

Cherry Hill, NJ

Yes

Well,

AS the saying goes..." Once is not enough".

For me musically I have gone back and forth between Abbey Road and Welcome, by Santanna, yet if you had to press me...Welcome, it is. Flowing rhythms, fantastic beats making my heart and body feel alive , and a smaple of vocals
that say...Lets be together.

Bookwise, well it's Micheal Crichtton's "Time line". Adventure, a beautiful babe, science dipping to use for good or bad...greed and being able to do what has to be done withboth personally and with a team. The quote from at the end of book on the head stone... "Companions whom I loved, and still do love...Tell them, my song."

Had trouble with the upload re the pleasure reading of the book or movie. Yet, the movie...Saving Private Ryan. How's that for a trial by fire, and remembering to be thankful for those around you nand for every breathe there is to take/make.

John

Moorestown NJ 08057

Yes

The Wind in the willows

and for entirely different needs
The waves by V Woolf

And poems. Doesn't everyone?

For me it is a kind of split between the new, and reading something I remember loving again. As you find it odd to reread, I find it astounding to not read something a 2nd and third time.

Mara

kerhonkson, NY

No

Go ahead Kurt, I DARE YOU. Just try to reread Barbara Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror." I've tried, lord knows, half a dozen times just to get through it ONCE. I know it is an IMPORTANT book. It is actually quite absorbing, up to a point (about two thirds of the way through). But then, I bog down. Every time. And I feel guilty. Afterr all, how many college texts did I get through that I actually despised? (The secret is, I had to.) I really could do it....but NOOOOOOOOOO. I put it aside, and it may several years before I try again. Now, once, someone told me it is OK not to finish a book. And that assuaged the guilt somewhat - and may be the real answer to your reread dilemma. So pick up a book you read once, reread as much as you like, as Anne Fadiman suggests go ahead and skim, and be certain that you are NOT compelled to read every word or even to finish it. Nor to find anything in it that you didn't see before. There is no test you are preparing for... only you will know!

Susan

Philadelphia, PA

No

LIfe is way too short to re-read books & re-watch movies. I'm too busy, and there are so many books I want to read and movies i want to see before I die. Maybe if I was a millionaire & had a private island, and didn't have to work, I would .....LOL

Mike

Newark, DE

No

Rereading has seemed pointless when there's SO MUCH to read. My 17-year old daughter, however, constantly rereads her favorites. I'll need to give it a shot after listening to your story.

John

Madison, MS

Yes

I love Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. I make a ceremony of re-reading it each year...followed by the rest of his oeuvre!

Heather

Philadelphia, PA

Yes

For thr memories favorite book to re read.... Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.. There will be times when I just think of a part in the book and want to re read it same for movies I love to laugh!!!

J

Baltimore

Yes

I am a different person every time I reread a much loved book or view a movie. Where there was once a girl who skipped ahead or missed the point, there is now a wiser woman who catches the details and understands the nuances.
And yes good literature and good films are art made to be re-appreciated with each visit. And there is the need for the subconscious to soak in the rich meaning inherent in these art forms.
To Kill a Mockingbird is my most read book, and Sense and Sensibility (Emma Thompson) my most watched movie.

Joanne

Albuquerque

Yes

Why? Because either there's something new every time I re-read, or re-watch, or they're so beautifully written or directed/acted that I can't get enough inspiration from them:

Books: Moby Dick, Farewell my lovely (or any Chandler), The Turn of the Screw, King Lear, Macbeth, Lies my teachers told me, The Beast Within (and other Zola, and better in French edition), Our Man in Havana.

And movies: Anatomy of a Murder, The Birds, Bringing up Baby, His Girl Friday, Citizen Kane, Gloria (the Cassavetes version!), Dr. Strangelove, Atlantic City, It happened one night, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Farenheit 451, A fistful of dollars, Bladerunner, Love in the Afternoon, High Noon, My Man Godfrey, The Baker's Wife, Trouble in Paradise, Touchez-pas au grisbi, Chicago,... (and I'm editing, there're more!)

(I know it seems like a lot, but I really do keep these handy all the time, because I may want to watch them or read them at any time. Please feel free to use my movie list as a to-do list, they're all wonderful and iconic movies!)
The image I'm uploading is my own drawing done for fun.

carolita

NYC, New york

Yes

There are 2 major reasons I will reread a book.
1. The language is crafted in such a beautiful and poetic way, that some sentences, paragraphs, or pages, put me in a type of a trance that is equivalent to a lover of sculpture watching the David for hrs and hrs and hrs.

2. The book has serious emotional impact that speaks to me in some important way. It provides insight into the way I feel, and situations I have experienced.

This also happens with movies - but not as often.
An example of a book that I reread is any Ray Bradbury - like the Martian Chronicles.
There are a few TV shows that i watch over and over, like the West Wing.

Torquato

NJ

Yes

Every time I revisit either a book or a movie, something previously unnoticed jumps out at me. So I have a different experience of the work and a deeper understanding of it with each new go-around. Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter is a different (but always great) book each time I re-read it.

Angela

Brooklyn, NY

Yes

I have found that the second or third time through, i remember interesting things and even notice or realize new things.

Murray

OH

No

I revisit movies more often than books, if only because that's usually less an investment of time. Although I've also been known to revisit favorite television series, sometimes dipping a toe into a fondly remembered episode (maybe while I do a crossword puzzle or fold laundry) or sometimes even watching the whole series again front to back. And that's easily a bigger investment of time, depending on how deeply I wade back in.

Yet I wouldn't say I do any of these things particularly often, and with books almost never. I think my reasons are largely the same as Kurt's; there's just so much new art to be discovered, especially with books -- which, let's face it, have several centuries of a head start against movies and TV -- that spending my time with something I've already read seems somehow...counter-productive.

But I envy people who do this, who curl up with an old favorite time and again, revisit a favorite novel from their childhood, either to discover new treasures or just splash around in nostalgia for a while. Because I've found there's much to be gained by revisiting a work of art, appreciating it anew with older eyes. On the rare occasion when I have re-read a book, I've always been glad for the experience and found it rewarding in unexpected ways.

Even if, at the same time, I've kept one eye squarely on the piles of other books still waiting to be read.

Fred

Westbury, NY

Yes

I'm not sure if I have a favorite work to revisit, but I do have a story about watching "Koyaanisqatsi." Back in the days of VHS tapes, I checked out the movie from my college library, and watched it alone one afternoon. As the movie was ending, one of my roommates came home. "Oooh, Koyaanisqatsi! Oh, but you're at the end," she said. She sat and watched the last few minutes with me, and then we rewound the tape and I watched it all over again with her. To this date, it's the only movie I've ever watched two times on the same day.

I've since seen the movie about six or seven times, twice in a theater, once with live accompaniment by the Philip Glass Ensemble. Each time has been a unique experience. Though I notice new aspects of the film each time I see it, I'm always struck by what a marvelous burst of energy into the system it provides, despite its supposed criticism of modern life. I'm actually just as awed by the cityscapes and swirling traffic during the film's climax as I am by the majestic shots of the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley that open the film.

Nathan

San Antonio, TX

Yes

The comfort of revisiting old friends.

Favorite is the Belgariad series written by David Eddings.

Sonia

Los Angeles, CA

Yes

Rarely books more than 1x, but some movies are nearly perfect and give me feelings I like to revisit. All About Eve. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Auntie Mame. Alien (Ridley's). All The President's Men. Shampoo. Jaws. Blade Runner. Almost any Hitchcock and Kubrick. Many others...

George

New York, NY

Yes

Best re-read so far was The Fountainhead. In my early 20's all I got was the love story. In my 30's it was so much more.

JJ

Tulsa, OK

Yes

I reread books pretty often, but movies… As a kid I went to see "Star Wars" every time it was re-released. As a college student I went to see "Lawrence of Arabia" in 70mm as often as I could. Digital media has made being a cinephile both a blessing and a curse: I can cue up almost any thrill or swoon or surprise. Re-experiencing those scenes, those performances, is not diminished by it's repetition, but by the small and solitary experience of digital media's venue: I'm both in awe and saddened to see "Earring of Madame de… "on the iPad as I ride the bus to work.

Enrique

Mill Valley, CA