TBR-R: To Be Re-Read, someday!

Everyone re-reads, right? Well, everyone I know seems to. My fabulously bookish online community is full of passionate readers, most of whom will take the time to re-read now and again. 

What I'd like to know is, guys...how do you find the time??? I'm forever receiving gorgeous book mail and stacking countless new novels in piles on my desk, adding them to my now endless TBR list...having said that, there are a very select few books already lining my shelves that I'd happily cast the TBR newbies aside in favour of.

And here they are!

The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

I read this book on holiday in Spain, when I had a killer chest infection and a lot of time on my hands. It was honestly the most perfect accompaniment to the bright sunshine and calm warm breezes that swept through the villa...I became obsessed with the story, and actually yearned for something that magical to happen to me someday.

I want to be Clare and have a mad turbulent ridiculous relationship with my own Henry!

I'd love to re-read this beauty because I'd like to see if it still gives me the happy flutters, and the long aching sighs that it did when I first devoured it. I was madly infatuated with my uni FWB at the time (and thus I was very susceptible to romance and general heart-string yanking) and now I'm slightly more cynical and experienced in the field of relationships. Will my heart still melt and my mind race?

How To Be A Woman, by Caitlin Moran.

Well, obviously.

I've written about this fantabulous magical important supremely rad book before...several times. I've written about how it's one of the 5Books That Changed My Life somehow. I've written about the time I wasreading it while sunbathing topless and threw it at the sexist bald bloke who climbed a ladder to peer over the villa wall at me and then made an unfriendly comment...

This book came into my life far too late, and helped me realise that I was – and always have been – a feminist. I can never thank Cat (I call her Cat now, as we're future pals, I just know it) enough for that.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling.

This actually represents the entirety of the Harry Potter series. I am a Potterhead. One very popular phenomenon in the world of re-reading is the great grand Harry Potter Re-Read – which kicks off around Christmas, naturally. I really would love to do that someday!

I'd generally love to experience the HP thing again. To see if it affects me and sets my imagination ablaze the same way it did when I was seven or eight years old, or early tween years.

Or maybe I wish I could read it with fresh eyes...see if I fall madly in love all over again.

I know I know, I'm such a Ravenclaw.

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell.

I believe when I first read this, I was travelling back and forth from uni to home to uni to home, and this read would keep me company and give me warm fuzzies on the exhausting train journeys in and out of London, lugging my overnight bag and the three additional totes...

I actually referenced Attachments last night in the marvellous #ukyachat because Beth and Jennifer struck me as the perfect example of a darn good literary friendship. I thought that the layout of the novel, email email personal email, would drive me mad...but I became utterly absorbed in the girls' emailing their stories, pet peeves and office dramas to one another, while Lincoln the shy IT guy is accidentally privy to all this vital info and thus falls for one girl...! It's the most perfect – if messy and awkward – story of love and friendship.

I'd love to read this again someday, maybe when I'm working at a big time newspaper in an office constantly emailing my bestie and lusting after the mysterious Office Hottie. Yep, that's the dream!

One Day by David Nicholls.

My all-time favourite piece of fiction. I've blogged about it several times, so I won't bore y'all again with my fat load of love for this novel...instead I'll link to previous posts, obvs.

I'd love to read it again, and see if I weep as hard again.

If you ever get a chance to read this book, guys, do it. Don't just sit and watch the film. I did that a year or so after reading the book, and that was when I first considered re-reading the original text. Because the film was so shockingly awful, and I needed a cleanse and a reminder of how perfect the story really was...that Anne Hathaway's appalling accent and the general shitty ambience of the film shouldn't put me (or anyone else) off.

One by Sarah Crossan.

This book was perfection. Gorgeous unique style – poetry and prose muddled together like a yummy yet intense and sharp minty cocktail. Yeah, similes.

I was fortunate enough to grab a proof of this fantastical novel, and I read it on my last day of radiotherapy, actually. It lifted me up but also crushed me, hard.

The story is a toughie – a pair of twins, joined at the hip...literally. Navigating life in their own unusual way; starting school, making friends, dealing with health scares. It's fascinating, beautiful, and heartbreaking.

I'd happily re-read this, because it's such an easy...yet hard...read...y'know? I can sit down and read it within a matter of hours while sipping coffee, yes it's easy in that sense, but my goodness it's intense and makes me feel EVERYTHING all at once. Yes.

So, those are my TBR-Rs. To Be Re-Reads. It's not a time-pressured TBR situation, though, which is nice. It's just an eternal thing. I can pick one of these perfect books up again someday, any day, and see how it reads the second time around. Or third time. Or tenth...

Does anyone agree with me? Are you a re-reader-type human? What would be in your TBR-R list?