Why re-read favorite novels?

By Julie

This week, I've been doing something I never, ever, ever, ever do. Or at least not since I was kid, when I did it all the time because I didn't think I'd ever run out of time and there seemed to be a limited number of books.

I've been re-reading a favorite novel of 2013. (Yes, it was in our 2013 roundup!)

Earlier this week, I'd finished whatever book I was reading (I honestly can't remember what it was--scary, and that's going to bug me!), and was hunting around on my iPhone ebook apps, trying to decide on something new. But something else caught my eye. I decided I'd -- just for a few minutes -- go back and read part of Eleanor & Park, by Rainbow Rowell. It's young adult fiction, which I hardly ever read, and that makes the next part even harder for me to believe.

Instead of spending just a few minutes on the first chapter, or scanning here and there, I got sucked right back into the story of Eleanor & Park, and I'm almost finished reading it for the second time.

And guess what else? It's taught me a few lessons about what makes a good story and why someone would want to read a story more than once.


I've received flattering emails from readers since Calling Me Home released last year, and sometimes the sender mentions they've read it more than once, or plan to buy it even when they checked it out from the library so they can re-read it when they want to. One record-setting reader told me she'd read it three times that week. I was blown away. I thought, "I never re-read books. Do people have time to do that? Why??!! There are ... SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME."

Finding myself in that situation this week, I had to analyze it. If you know me well, I'm sure you're not surprised. I like to analyze everything, sometimes to the complete annoyance of my family and friends, especially my long-suffering spouse, not to mention my wonderful literary agent.

Here's what I came up with.

Three reasons why you'd re-read a novel, and specifically why I have not struggled to re-read Eleanor & Park at all, even though I never, ever re-read books:

1. You miss a lot the first time.
   Because I loved it so much, I read it so quickly the first time around that I don't remember lots of the details and the "what happens next." I know how it starts, the general gist of the story, certain details and scenarios, and the end, of course, but so many of the layers are new to me again! In fact, I'm not even sure I noticed some the first time around. And I actually couldn't wait to find out (remember) what happened next. Which leads to...
2. Re-reading a favorite book is like spending time with a good friend.
   If you really click with that person, the more time you spend with them, the better you like them, and the more you want to read between the lines and learn their quirks and nuances and inner beauty.
3. As a writer, or aspiring writer, it's important to learn from other authors.
   It's the best school there is. If you're not reading, you're missing the best lessons around--good or bad. And if you are studying a subject and are a good student, you are likely going over the details more than once to fully understand the lesson. Which leads to ...

Three things I learned re-reading Eleanor & Park:

1. A good beginning is a good beginning, and can't be underestimated.If the reader is sucked in at the beginning of the novel, it's going to happen again the second time, and maybe even more times beyond that.  This is why agents often only want the first five or ten pages in a query, or the first 30-50 pages in a partial request. 
2. Characterization is key.
   I mean, it seems obvious, but. I had such a clear picture of Eleanor and Park as people in my brain, having never seen anything of these two but the cute little drawing on the cover of the backs of their heads, and the words and details and dialogue Rainbow Rowell used to make these characters climb into my brain and live there. Forever.
3. Finally, and most important:
   It's about the story, stupid.
   If you spent much time around me, you've heard me say this. As writers, we spend so much time analyzing (that dirty word again) WHY a story is commercially successful. I mean, sure marketing and publicity and other things can make a difference in how a novel makes an initial splash, but novels that sell year after year after year, or millions of copies? It's about the story, stupid. And sometimes as authors we shake our heads. Especially if we disagree. Especially if we think the writing is just plain bad. "WHY THIS STORY?" we say, gnashing our teeth and yanking ourselves bald. Right after I gnash and yank, I shrug. The story struck a nerve, somehow, somewhere, with a large enough group of people with big enough mouths they talked about it and couldn't stop talking about it and before you knew it, it was a publishing phenomenon. So, Eleanor & Park. Here's a Tweet I favorited, then retweeted not long ago.
   
   
   
   Why? Because ... Eleanor & Park!!!! That's why. Plainly, this story wormed its way into my conscious and it's not leaving. Eleanor and Park are real, the story is real. No matter that it's fiction. It's like the Velveteen Rabbit. Sure he was made of stuffing and velveteen, but he was real to the boy. In the same way, when a story is that good, it becomes real and people can't stop talking about it.

I'm so glad I took the time and jumped in when there were loads of other books I haven't read yet. I feel like there are many more lessons here. Maybe you know some of them.

Readers, why would you re-read a novel, and what have you learned doing that? Which novels have you read more than once?

Just One Book

By Elizabeth

The library makes me greedy. Confronted with thousands—probably hundreds of thousands of choices as my city's vast catalogue can be delivered to my neighborhood branch with the swipe of my card—confronted with unreadable-in-my-lifetime options, I check out tons of books. Books I’ve hankered for; books friends recommend; books with nice covers. Books I doubt I’ll read but will try a few chapters. Books my kids bug me for; books I think my kids ought to read. The sheer abundance makes me greedy, nearly ready to throw my acquisitions on the bed and roll in them like Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson in Indecent Proposal.

And then I hear of people who don’t read. At all. Not just some unfathomable fake person invented by politicians or the media, but actual humans. With no effort I can conjure the names of two I know personally. And again, these aren’t underprivileged people with sad or scary back stories—no, these are both college-educated, middle class women much like me. And yet they don’t read. Now, that’s not strictly true. Both happen to be magazine readers. But reading for enjoyment? Novels? Nope—not interested. Not even once, in one woman’s case. Not one book read for pleasure, ever.

Reading has been perhaps the single most sustaining delectation of my life. I was in the third grade when I dethroned my sister as the family bookworm. I well remember Little Witch by Anna Elizabeth Bennett. I still have a copy of Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, by E.L. Konigsburg, and all the Little House books. (And if you’re detecting a hint of narcissism in my choices, I might as well admit that Laura Ingalls Wilder’s middle name is Elizabeth.)

There’s been only one exception in my ongoing read-a-thon since then. The year after my very needy son was born, I literally had no time to read, and I missed it horribly. I remember holding my baby and glaring with envy at my husband as he read the newspaper over a bowl of cereal, my hungry eyes denied by my own silly mother guilt. Long nursing sessions should have provided time for dozens of books, but I was derailed by an awkward two-handed technique. (Seriously, don’t ask.)

After that first year, I couldn’t bear the loss. Somehow I found time, even when I had none. I polished off Harry Potter one through four in thirteen days when my son was two and my daughter under a year—the first movie was coming out, I knew I’d want to read the book before I saw it, and then couldn’t put them down. I find my eyes roving for the printed word when I have nothing to do, like an actual physical craving. So far this year I’ve read about fifty books, mostly novels—and it’s been a busy year.

My son became a bookworm in a single day. Mother’s Day, to be exact: 2006. We were at my mom’s house, and she had twenty or so Secrets of Droon books, Tony Abbott’s chapter series. My first grader picked up book one and about ten days later put down the last, and we barely saw the kid’s nose in the interim. From reluctant reader to addict in one afternoon. Because he found the right book.

It’s no secret there’s a fair bit of snobbery about genre fiction. I still puzzle over my husband’s fondness for fantasy and sci fi, and literary readers are stereotyped for rolling their eyes at bodice-rippers. But clearly all these books have passionate fans. Fans who read.

Not everyone is going to love my books. I know that. But I think of my two non-reading friends, and consider one’s interest in fitness, and think she might like my manuscript about kickboxing women. The other is the mother of a young girl, and I wonder if my middle-grade work would be something they could enjoy together. Just one book. One chapter, one day, and the library can morph from another big box to a bottomless treasure chest, the source of a lifetime of delight. And that book, that life-changing tome, might one day spill from the labors of my pen.

That’s not why I write. That’s a much more complicated issue, and not something I’m sure I could even explain. But it’s a really nice by-product to contemplate.

One book, one life. Changed.

Contributors' Weigh-In

As a way for our readers to get to know us (somewhat like those annoying 20 questions your friends forward to you), I posed ten questions to the women who are contributing to this blog. Here are their responses. --Pamela

1. Some cities host a community-wide reading event where the author comes and presents to a large group. Suppose the mayor calls and asks you to organize it. What book do you choose? And will the fact that you get to take the author to dinner the night before influence your decision?

KB: I’d probably pick Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts. It’s beautifully written, touching, takes place in the same general area of the country, and most people could get into the story. (Even my husband, who is not a romantic, liked the movie). Billie Letts is also an entertaining speaker. Oh, and yes, I would love to go to dinner with her!

PH: I think I’d pick Columbine by Dave Cullen. I just bought it and am eager to read it after reading about it through some other blogs. Even read about the artist who designed the cover. And since he got bumped from Oprah after taping the show, I’d like to see Cullen get some additional press for his ten years of research. And no, the dinner deal didn’t influence me.

SIP: I would choose Sue Monk Kidd, except that her best work, The Secret Life of Bees, is several years old. And, yes, I would love to have dinner with her! Another good one is Kim Edwards, who wrote The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. I consider both of these to be “new Southern classics.”

JK: I have to pick one? Dinner probably wouldn't matter. I can be pretty chatty when necessary! (Hide your surprise.) How about my top five, including some timeless books and some from emerging authors: Khaled Hosseini/Either book, Sara Gruen/Water for Elephants, Sue Monk Kidd/The Mermaid Chair, Kristy Kiernan/Matters of Faith, Carleen Brice/Children of the Waters (which I haven't read yet!). If we could bring ghosts, how about Bebe Moore Campbell/Your Blues Ain't Like Mine or Kate Chopin/The Awakening.

EL: I’d try to choose something I’d loved that got too little press, I guess, something that deserved more readers but was still highly accessible and fun. And of course the dinner with the author would make a difference! Hm, what book, what book? Looking over books I’ve read this year, I might choose This Must Be the Place by Anna Winger, about the German “voice of Tom Cruise” and an American woman; or The Flying Troutmans, a quirky funny sad read about quirky funny sad people, by Miriam Toews. Or maybe Isaac’s Storm, by Erik Larson, just so I could pick his brain about history (he wrote The Devil in the White City, too, so it’s a twofer).

JM: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield or Her Fearful Symmetry: A Novel, the soon-to-be published Audrey Niffenegger title. Yes, I’d love to have dinner with both of them.

2. What classic are you ashamed to admit you’ve never read and probably never will?

KB: The Great Gatsby – And after slugging my way through A Farewell to Arms, I’ve decided I just can’t get into Hemingway either. Or James Joyce, though he was forced on me in college and grad school. Since I was a British Lit major I could avoid Hemingway.

PH: The Lord of the Rings. Didn’t see the movie either. And come to think of it, neither admission really shames me at all. Also, have tried to read Jane Austen and just can’t. I guess my brain is not literary enough.

SIP: I will never like James Joyce. I have tried and failed.

JK: Most of them. I loved the modern lit classes when I was getting my degree – Southern lit, Southwestern lit and folklore, and so on. I tolerated the others and took as few as I could get away with. But ... Moby Dick?

EL: Let’s see…The Hobbit, I guess. Yeah, I know.

JM: Great Expectations.

3. Best book-to-film adaptation, in your opinion:

KB: Where the Heart Is (by Billie Letts). Yes, they condensed it and had to leave some things out, but they kept the emotion exactly, and the casting was great.

PH: The Green Mile (Stephen King) or The Cider House Rules (John Irving—who also wrote the screenplay, which I’m sure helps).

SIP: I don’t watch a lot of movies but would say that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was fantastic at being true to the original novel. The Secret Life of Bees was a great adaptation as well.

JK: Still waiting! But, The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks) and Tell No One (Harlan Coben) were pretty darn good.

EL: The Shawshank Redemption was beautifully done. Stand by Me as well (yes, I’ve read The Body). The whole Harry Potter series, particularly the casting. Oh, and maybe my favorite book of all time, Persuasion—the Amanda Root version was pretty much perfect.

JM: Sense and Sensibility.

4. You would consider it a huge compliment if someone were to compare your writing to ___________ (a contemporary author).

KB: Someone once DID compare me to Jane Urquhart. Not being a Canadian, I didn’t get what a compliment that was, particularly since he knows her, until after I read The Underpainter. She’d still be about my top choice. Sue Miller, Susan Vreeland or Anita Shreve wouldn’t be bad either. ;-)

PH: Elizabeth Berg. Her writing comes across both effortless and memorable.

SIP: Sue Monk Kidd and Kim Edwards (both prior mentions). This would be a huge stretch, but I love Pat Conroy’s writing and would love to be compared to him!

JK: Jodi Picoult, Anita Shreve, and Jacquelyn Mitchard, all rolled into one.

EL: Anne Tyler!! Real, heartbreaking, funny, gorgeous. Hard to get much better than that.

JM: Diane Setterfield or Amy Tan.

5. Favorite author to have lunch with:

KB: Probably Susan Vreeland because we could talk both writing AND art. But Jane Urquhart would be fun, too, especially since it would give me a chance to go to Stratford, Ontario. Hey, it could be a research trip!

PH: Stephen King. Although I haven’t read everything he’s written, I value him as a timeless genius as well as someone who cares about the creative process. Plus I think he’d be a great conversationalist. Harlan Coben and John Irving are a close second and third.

SIP: Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the memoir Eat, Pray, Love. I think she’s great.

JK: Diane Chamberlain or Barbara Samuel.

EL: I’ll bet Maeve Binchy would be a hoot. Plus, I’d have to go to Ireland to meet her, and that would hardly suck.

JM: Adriana Trigiani. She’s a hoot!

6. Your publisher wants to send you on book tour. Budget is tight so she asks if you will sleep on friends’ sofas to save money. How many states can you visit if you employ this tactic?

KB: Fifteen: (Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Virginia, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Maine). I could also go all over Ontario, which would be important for my book. At the moment I could also go to Italy, Thailand, and Dubai.

PH: Thirteen if people are generous. Plus I could stop in Holland and stay with cousins. I guess that works if my book is translated into Dutch. But all my family over there reads English, too.

SIP: Fourteen, off the top of my head. Probably three to four additional countries (England, Mexico, Spain, and Greece) as well, if I were to push my welcome!

JK: Maybe twelve?

EL: Wow, a lot. Is there a way to go on tour and NOT sleep on couches? Offhand I can do NY, IN, PA, CO, NC, SC, FL, CA, AZ, OH, RI, NH, VA, ID, MA, CT, AL, LA, MI, UT, OK, MO, MD—that’s all I’ve got now, but I’m sure I missed some.

JM: I love this question! Let’s see: Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Florida, Maryland, Virginia, DC, New York, Rhode Island, Illinois, North Carolina, California, New Mexico, Oklahoma, West Virginia. 15, wow!

7. What’s your crutch word, one you constantly overuse when writing?

KB: At one point I had too many eyebrows raised…but I seem to have lowered them now. My critique partners may know the answer to this one better than I do. Once I am aware of a pet word I try to shoot it down quickly.

PH: Back, as in, “she turned back around” or “he placed it back on the shelf.” I’ve also been known to use “hand” too often, especially during an intimate moment. Gotta know where those hands are!

SIP: I really don’t know. Probably something like ‘shrugged,’ she shrugged.

JK: In dialogue, really. In narrative, some. I think.

EL: Actually, it’s probably actually. Or maybe probably. Maybe maybe. Probably one of those, actually.

JM: Breathe.

8. Name a genre in which you could never see yourself being published:

KB: Horror.

PH: Not fantasy. Also, if I wrote a thriller it probably wouldn’t be so thrilling. More like a snoozer. Is that a genre?

SIP: Sci/Fi or horror.

JK: Sci-Fi/Fantasy. Never. Ever.

EL: Science fiction. Just don’t see it. Or fantasy. Or thriller, either.

JM: Sci-Fi.

9. While you write…music or silence? …early bird or night owl?

KB: Silence if possible, but I have been desperate enough to whip out a pivotal scene while my husband is playing Rock Band in the next room. Night owl, definitely. My brain does not turn on before about nine, even if my body has to before then.

PH: Music if it’s not loud and not something I can sing along to. Love pandora.com. I like to write at night when the house is quiet.

SIP: Silence, and I prefer the night life, staying up late: usually midnight to 2 or 3 a.m. Yet I have found that if I am writing articles for someone else (not the novel), I prefer getting up at 4 a.m., churning it out, and heading out to work from there. Regardless, very little writing gets done during the day, mainly because of too many other obligations.

JK: Generally silence. In public, music. Night owl all the way.

EL: Silence please. And time isn’t really the issue, but I am more likely to write in the mornings, but that’s mainly due to my family schedule.

JM: Silence. Early bird.

10. What is your biggest distraction when it comes to meeting a writing goal or deadline?

KB: My children, but I can’t do without them.

PH: My freelance work, e-mail and the Internet. One minute I’m researching and the next thing I know I’m reading about Heidi and Spencer or Lindsay Lohan. And I don’t even care.

SIP: Other obligations: home, children, spouse, and “job-job.”

JK: Feeling like I need to spend more time with my kids, but I am pretty focused with my writing. I may not come in early, but I'm always right on time. (Like this Q&A, right, Pamela?)

EL: The Internet. Such a help and such a bother.

JM: E-mail, blog reading, cooking dinner.