The Beauty of Rereading

I love rereading books.

If a book impacts me enough the first time I read it, I revisit it — sometimes A LOT. I want to embody and immerse myself in it; I want to know why I think it’s life-changing.

The average retention rate of reading is a mere 10%: I’d rather read 10 books 100 times each than 1,000 books once.

Heraclitus captures the essence of rereading for me,

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man.”

I know the books below inside and out, and I don’t know them at all. The same passages I’ve read multiple times now carry a new meaning. I’m no longer the same man I was when I first read them, or the second or the third time.

Life, if lived well, is a constant evolution.

When I reread the books below, I stop and pause after each paragraph. This is because I need to absorb what I just read.

My world and, in turn, my life open a little more every time I read them.

It’s not always about reading them cover to cover every time.

Sometimes I flip to a highlighted passage and just read that. It’s reading a random paragraph that now all of a sudden clicks with me.