Have you ever read a book that you’ve already read but had forgotten you read it? It’s a strange experience in which it feels like the book is vaguely familiar, yet, you can’t put your finger on why. It’s not only until you reach a certain point in the story that you figure out why it’s familiar, and then you wonder why you didn’t remember you had read it in the first place.
Perhaps you had forgotten about the story, or you hadn’t thought deeply about it after you had first finished it. Either way, the second time reading it can be an enjoyable experience, one that brings new insight into the story. It’s as if you’re experiencing it from a new mindset given all that has changed since the last time you read it.
It can be like rereading a book from high school and discovering things about it that you weren’t aware of before. Back then, reading the book was more for the grade–to know what will be on the test. But reading it now, it has more to do with curiosity (why else would you be reading it?) than for extrinsic reasons. Rereading a book can bring back old memories and create new ones at the same time.
Fallton Havenstonne 