To reread or not to reread, that is the question!

If you're in a book club, I'm sure you've experienced this. You've read a book. You've loved the book. You'd love to discuss the book. It's that good. You wish your book club would decide to read it. And they do. But it's six months, or even a year later. The problem is that all you can remember is how much you loved the book. And you probably can remember the big idea. But you can't remember the details. Do you reread or not?

This wasn't so much of an issue back in the days when I bought my books. I'd pull the book off the shelf, skim through the book, find a few passages I want to discuss and be set to go to the book club meeting and discuss.

But now, for the past many years, I've tried to get most of my books from the library. Whether they're real paper and ink books or e-books, they aren't books I have in my possession. Especially now, when the book club members of both my book clubs borrow books from the same library system, the books are scarce and it's next to impossible to get a copy of a book that close to book club meeting time.

This has happened over and over. It has happened with The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. For that book I remembered some pesky issue I had with the main character using the internet before I was using the internet - and I was an early adopted! It happened with One Thousand White Women. It happened with The Kitchen House. Oh, wasn't there a white slave in that book? To date, the only two books I can remember rereading for a book club are The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and Catcher in the Rye. Otherwise, I am not a rereader.

Maybe this goes along with the saying Too many books, too little time. Maybe it's because as I read, I do remember things and don't find the book as engaging as I did the first time.

At this Tuesday's book club meeting, we'll be discussing Sue Monk Kidd's Invention of Wings. I love historical fiction. I love Sue Monk Kidd. I read this one shortly after it came out. And now in just two more days I will be discussing this. What to do?

I've thought about taking notes - just in case - but I never do. Besides, that would take the fun out of my pleasure reading. How many times did my fifth grade students tell me that when I assigned them some sort of reading log assignment? When I'm reading a paper and ink book, I do tend to read with post-its, whether I'm reading for book club or not. I want to capture the truly great lines in any book. With the e-reader apps I use on my iPad, I just don't seem to do that. In fact, I'm not even sure I can do that!

Someone else is facilitating our discussion on Tuesday, but I've promised her that I'd write up a few notes about the Grimke sisters, the main characters in Invention of Wings. Perhaps that will jar my memory a bit.

Do you reread or not? I want to know.