I love rereading books. To me, it feels like catching up with an old friend and remembering youthful shenanigans together. Especially physical copies of books (don’t get me wrong, I LOVE e-books!) but when I reread a physical book, I’ll see a dog-eared page and remember I got caught reading under the dinner table, or I’ll see a stain and remember that I was eating chips and guacamole the last time I read it. Rereading isn’t just about the book for me, but about my journey since the last time I read it.

My favorite reason to reread a book is for comfort. Yes, the first read through is always exciting–you don’t know what twists and turns are coming, or even if the “good guys” will win the day. But rereading something doesn’t really take that excitement away for me. I love picking up the hints I missed the first time through, or stopping to note particularly beautiful prose. I think the books I’ve reread the most times are the Harry Potter books and the Tortall series by Tamora Pierce. Honestly, I don’t know how the pages of The Lionness Quartet even still have ink on them for how many times I’ve reread them.

The other reason I reread books is because a sequel is coming out and I want to go into it already in the mindset of the world. Currently, the series I do this the most for is Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives. Each book is huge and packed full of blink-and-you-miss-it details. So whenever the new Stormlight book is coming out, I set aside time to refresh myself on the universe and remind myself what all the characters have been up to.

There are so many amazing books coming out each month, it’s difficult to find the time to read all of them, but even so, I think rereading old favorites or freshening up on a series is something most readers take the time to do. I hope you’ll take the time to reread one of your old favorites the next time the mood strikes you!