12 Re-Reads for 2025

Okay, well, 12 titles... but maybe just a few more than 12 actual books...

Greetings, people of the Internet.

I have to share with you all what The Man and I did on Sunday. A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled onto an article about how The Fifth Element was coming back to theaters around the country for a special event. I thought about investigating further but then forgot about it until The Man made a passing reference to the movie last Tuesday or so. I told him about the event, and he said I should see where it would be playing, and lo and behold, it was in Coeur d'Alene last Sunday!

We made a day of it, and by "made a day of it," I mean that we went to church, attended a church meeting, went to Home Depot and the furniture store, scarfed down some food, then saw the 4:00 p.m. showing so that we could be home fairly early. There was a 7:30 showing as well, but that's too late to start a movie in our living room, much less at a theater an hour away from our house.

We're old.

Let me just say--this movie holds up well after almost 30 years. The music is fantastic, Bruce Willis is perfect in this bizarre world, the story is fun and fairly tight, and Gary Oldman... Is there really anything we can criticize Gary Oldman for?

Anyway, rewatching this movie on a big screen is kind of relevant to this week's blog post...

Some Brief Notes on Re-watching and Re-reading

I confess: I am not really a big book re-reader. I used to re-read more than I do now, but I guess now I feel like there are just too many books out there to "waste" time re-reading old favorites.

But oddly enough, I don't feel that way at all about movies or TV shows. I've seen The Fifth Element probably fifteen times, and I love it just as much every time. Same with The Princess Bride. Same with Pride and Prejudice (the definitive 1995 BBC version, thankyouverymuch), A Knight's Tale, Ever After, Get Shorty, and probably ten or twelve other movies that aren't leaping to mind right now. Plus, I will happily rewatch old episodes of The Office, Cheers, Frasier, Parks and Recreation, and pretty much any episode of the original Law & Order.

So why am I hesitant to re-read books?

The Man is a re-reader. I think he has a few on rotation that he re-reads almost like clockwork. His favorite Tom Clancy book is Without Remorse, and he will probably read that one every two years or so.

The bestie re-reads books, I think. So does my older daughter, who has what she calls "comfort reads," like Anne of Green Gables.

If there's value in re-watching, why isn't there value in re-reading? I can't experience the book again for the first time, but I can enjoy it in new ways, pick up new details, learn new bits of information, or be reinvigorated by storytelling that I love.

As I think about my reading goals for next year, I'm considering just adding one re-read per month. That's twelve re-reads over the year. Here are the ones I'm targeting.

12 Books I Need to Re-Read

1. Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott

I read this book years and years ago, but I see that I never marked it as "Read" on Goodreads. This tells me that I probably read it before I joined Goodreads. I remember thinking this book had a lot of good things to say about creativity, art, and life, but I suspect I was too young and too uptight to really appreciate all the wisdom here. Time for a review and maybe some internalizing this time.

2. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

I tried to get one of my kids to read this book a couple of years ago and started re-reading it at the time, but I think I got distracted by life and never finished. It was just as good and just as funny as I remembered. Really, I need to re-read the whole series. I think I'll need some laughs in 2025.

3. Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

And speaking of needing some laughs... It's time for a re-read of this classic.

4. East of Eden, by John Steinbeck

My relationship with Steinbeck is complicated, but this is one of the best books I've ever read. I think I need to revisit it with my reading notebook and actually make some notes and observations this time.

5. The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley

I admit--one of the reasons I want to re-read this is just to see if it holds up to my memory. I probably read it five or six times back before I had kids, but a lot of things have changed since then, and I don't know if I would find it so engaging in my dotage. But it is a book that has a lot to say about the various stages and states of womanhood, so who knows? Maybe I'll relate to it in an entirely new way.

6. A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

I have not read this book since high school, but last Christmas, my younger daughter gave me a beautiful used copy that she found in a secondhand shop. Even if the story weren't so heartbreakingly beautiful, the gift would be enough reason to re-read it.

7. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury

Pretty sure I've mentioned this book a couple of times recently, but it's one I think of often. I should target a re-read of this one for next October. It's a very October-y book.

8. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

And speaking of the master... There are a few dystopian books that should be read now and then, and this one is high on the list. And listen, I do not want to have the argument about whether this book is about censorship or not, because I will die on the non-censorship hill with Mr. Bradbury. I think it's summed up best in Bradbury's quote: "You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."

9. My Antonia, by Willa Cather

Willa Cather always catches me off-guard. I didn't expect to really like this book when I started reading it, but someone recommended it to me. From the first page, I could not put it down. I've responded similarly to subsequent reads of Cather's work--I pick them up not expecting much and then get sucked in immediately. Time for a re-read of this first one that pulled me into Cather's world.

10. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

I think my first go-around with this book was an audiobook. I have a physical copy, so maybe it's time to soak up the words from the printed page. That seems more on-brand for this story, anyway.

11. The Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis

I am not sure when I last read or listened to this series. I know The Man read all of these books aloud to our kids when they were young, so probably then? My youngest is almost 20, so yeah, it's time. I need to go back to Narnia.

12. Harry Potter series, by J. K. Rowling

And when I get back from Narnia, it's probably time to shuffle off this Muggle coil and step through the brick wall in Diagon Alley...

Now that I've typed these all out, I can see that it's highly unlikely I can read them all in 2025 unless I don't really read anything else. But maybe that's an interesting idea--a year of only re-reading old favorites. Hmmm....

Tell me--what books do you want to re-read? Drop your recommendations in the comments!

I'm off to dig through boxes to find some of these old books... See you all next week!