I have reread the same three novels probably fifteen times between them over the last four years. I have a shelf of unread books I bought with genuine enthusiasm and I keep going back to the familiar ones instead, especially when work is busy. It does not feel like a problem exactly, but it does feel like I am missing out. Do other people do this and does anything help break the loop?
The unread shelf is doing you harm, honestly. A shelf of enthusiastic purchases turns into a shelf of small obligations, and obligation is the opposite of what pulls you toward a book. Move them out of sight and keep two or three at a time on the nightstand. Choosing from three is much easier than choosing from thirty.
Agreed. I boxed mine up and kept four out and started finishing things again almost immediately. The shelf was making every reading session start with a small guilt tax.
Try alternating deliberately. One reread, one new book, and give yourself full permission to abandon the new one at fifty pages. The reread is the reward and the safety net, so the new book stops feeling like a risk. I got through eleven new books in a year this way after two years of reading almost nothing new.
For what it is worth, a lot of people who read a great deal reread constantly and do not think of it as a problem at all. Rereading is how you get to know a book properly. If you are enjoying it and it is not preventing anything, missing out may just be a story you are telling yourself about what reading is supposed to look like.
@margin_notes_mo · last yr. · 3 replies
Very normal, and there is a reasonable explanation for the busy work part. A new book asks you to hold a lot of uncertainty at once: who these people are, whether you can trust the narrator, whether the effort will pay off. A reread asks nothing. When your capacity for uncertainty is already spent on your job, the familiar book is the only one you have the budget for.
Rereading also genuinely gives you something new. You stop tracking plot and start noticing structure, and books you loved at 22 read completely differently at 35.
If you want to break the loop rather than accept it, the trick that works for me is bridging. Pick a new book that is close to one of your three: same genre, similar length, similar mood. The gap between comfort and novelty is smaller and you actually cross it.
Reply
Report
@slow_thinker_sam · last yr.
The uncertainty budget framing is the best explanation of this I have seen. It also explains why I read new things happily on holiday and never in a busy month.
Reply
Report
@swatch_sonia · last yr.
Bridging works. I went from rereading the same three crime novels to reading new ones by finding writers people specifically compared to my favourite, rather than picking from a general best of list.
Reply
Report