No

I totally agree with Anne Fadiman that the true pleasure of a Beethoven symphony only comes after repeated listening. But with books, because they require such an investment of time, there's more of a cost-benefit tradeoff than with music. Every book that I re-read comes at the expense of discovering other great literature. There are some books I loved so much that I've promised myself I'll read them again, but for the meantime, there's just too much great stuff waiting to be read.

However (and call me a purist), I disagree with Anne's premise of making literature "ours" by skimming, reading out of order, etc. Of course, we're all free to do it, and it beats not reading at all, but I'm of the mind that authors have a lot to teach us, and that the very best literature is much more than one exciting episode after another. I think we do their work a disservice (and we ourselves miss out) by only reading passages that we think will hold our attention and skipping the rest.

Mike

Washington, DC