The only thing better than reading a wonderful book is re-reading it. Sure, there are plenty of good books I haven’t even read once—but a new book is a risk while an old one is a comfort.
So I pull Wallace Stegner’s novel, Angle of Repose, off my shelf. I can’t remember how many times I’ve read it, but I vividly remember the first time.
I was nine months pregnant and signing up for a college course in American Literature. The woman behind the desk gazed at my enormous belly and asked if I was sure.
We had to read ten novels in ten weeks—so I always had a book next to the rocking chair where I nursed my infant daughter. Day and night, every hour or half hour, we would be there together—Sara and me and the Great American Writers.
In Angle of Repose, a college professor tells the story of his artist grandmother who follows her husband west in the 1870s. Since the narrator already knows how it turns out, he does not have to hurry but can savor the details, ponder the meanings.
Which is the way to re-read a wonderful book. Also the way to live your life.