Do You Keep Novels You’ve Read to Reread Later?

So many books, so little time to read

Photo by author, © Barbara Radisavljevic

Do you reread fiction? I’m always conflicted about keeping fiction I’ve already read on my shelves. Unread books are stacked around me in every room of my house. In addition, I have two kindles holding many other unread books I want to find time for. Every book I reread is one less unread book I’ll have time to read before die.

Life is busy. Realistically, judging from how old my parents got to be, I’ve about eleven years left to read. I’ll never get through my piles of unread books even if I have twice that time and never stop reading. So now I have to be pickier. Only in the past couple of years have I allowed myself to abandon books I’ve started.

I read fiction for entertainment. I prefer it to movies. My reading diet is varied. I’m often in the middle of several nonfiction books at once. Those are most often devotional works, memoirs, and nature-related books. They are easy to read in small portions. I can put them down to finish later if I need to without being upset.

I get very upset if I have to put down a novel, especially a mystery or suspense novel. I’m racing to the end to see if the author and I come to the same conclusion about where the clues scattered through the text lead. Did I correctly guess who the killer is? Will the two characters the author introduced overcome the obstacles she’s put in their way and wind up together or not? Will the characters’ conflicts be resolved?

Sometimes I snack on light romances. I do that mostly when I’m ill or too tired to concentrate on heavier fiction, which I consider a complete meal. I enjoy humor for dessert.

The genres I read most for leisure are detective fiction and legal thrillers. Since those are often driven mostly by their plots, I’m not tempted to read them again after I’ve already seen the mystery’s solution.

The time I’m most likely to reread a book is when I’m writing a review. That’s when I discover how much I’ve missed or already forgotten in a book I loved.

Which novels have you reread? Which ones would you like to read again? Or would you rather just pick up the next book on your TBR stack?