Ten Books I Wish I Could Read Again for the First Time

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week's topics is books we wish we could read again for the first time. With great books, there's always the option to reread, but some books will never have the same feeling on a reread that they did when you were on the edge of your seat to find out what happened next the first time. Here are ten whose rereads will never live up to the first time through!

1. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

2. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

3. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

4. The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

5. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

6. Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

7. The Secret History by Donna Tartt

8. Still Alice by Lisa Genova

9. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

10. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

What books do you wish you could read again for the first time?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: Untamed and The Color of Law
Five years ago I was reading: Oh Crap! Potty Training and A Prayer for Owen Meany
Ten years ago I was reading: Scale Development

Ten Books I’d Want With Me While Stranded On a Deserted Island

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

Today we're talking about books we'd want with us on a deserted island. I decided not to go the uber-practical route of books for surviving or escaping from a deserted island, and in this scenario I'm going to imagine that I'm all by myself with a solar-powered Kindle so I just have unlimited reading time. These are some books I'd want to have on that Kindle!

1. 168 Hours by Laura Vanderkam
As long as I'm going to be stuck on this island, I might as well put some thought into how I want to spend my days. Vanderkam's book assumes that your life is so busy that you don't think you have time for the things you want to do, but it's just as important to be mindful of how you spend your time when you have no outside obligations!

2. The Art of Happiness by Dalai Lama XIV and Howard C. Cutler
As much as Cutler's writing annoys me in this book, I found the underlying messages from the Dalai Lama to be valuable. If I'm alone with my thoughts and an uncertain future, then reflecting on the power of my own attitude seems like a good way to spend some time.

3. The Bible
If I have a limited number of books with me for an indefinite amount of time, then what better to have than a book that is actually a collection of many books, each of which has many layers to explore and ponder?

4. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
This is a favorite book but it's on the very long side, so having lots of time on my hands would be a great time to revisit it. Plus it contains an epic escape!

5. Far from the Tree by Andrew Solomon
This is one I haven't yet read but have seen recommended frequently. It's a thick book that seems to have a lot of content to dive into and reflect on, so it would be good to read when I have a lot of uninterrupted time.

6. The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
This continues to be my favorite book of all time, which I've liked as much on reread as the first time, so I'd definitely want this one with me.

7. The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
This is also up there as one of my favorites, and I'd imagine in such a dire situation I'd want a dose of the whimsy this book provides, coupled with the inspiration of the characters' problem-solving prowess!

8. The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
When dealing with uncertainty and isolation, having some wisdom of the ages definitely wouldn't hurt.

9. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
This is a favorite book that, like the long books above, would be an investment of time to reread, and also it left me with a peaceful feeling and an appreciation of nature that I feel like could be valuable in this situation.

10. Ulysses by James Joyce
This is another one that I haven't read because it's both long and dense, but if I had nothing but time it would be a good chance to dig into the many layers that this book has to offer!

Which books would you want with you on a deserted island?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: Piecing Me Together and Lovely War
Five years ago I was reading: Prototype and A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare
Ten years ago I was reading: For Better

Top Ten Books I Want to Reread

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

Way back in 2014 I shared some of the books I wanted to reread, and no surprise to anyone, I still haven't reread most of them. It's just hard for me to prioritize something I've read before over all the many titles I have yet to experience. Usually I only reread books if they're chosen for one of my book clubs (and sometimes I'll nominate books I want to reread for this reason!). These are ten I'd still like to reread.

1. 168 Hours by Laura Vanderkam
I was just telling a friend how helpful this was for figuring out how I wanted to spend my time, and it led me to revisit my "List of 100 Dreams," many of which I've now accomplished. My daily life looks a lot different than the first time I read this book, and I'd love to revisit it.

2. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
I've read much of what Kingsolver has written, but this was the first. I read it in high school and have never returned to it since then, but I'd like to experience the story again as an adult to see if it resonates with me in the same way.

3. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
I haven't read this since middle school, though I did finally watch the movie in the past couple years and it reminded me how good this story is. It's a long one, though, so it would be quite an investment of time to reread it, which is why I haven't picked it up yet.

4. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
This is another one that I read in high school, and I don't remember anything about it. I was dating a white guy from South Africa at the time, and I wonder if I would have a different perspective on the book now.

5. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
I've admittedly been disappointed in some of E. Lockhart's recent works, but this is still one of my favorite books. Given how much I recommend it, I think I should reread it and see if it's as good as I remember.

6. The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield
This book is one of the most beautiful works of fiction I've ever read, but I rarely see it mentioned; it doesn't seem to be well known. I've recommended it to one of my book clubs to read, and I'm looking forward to the chance to revisit it.

7. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
This is another classic I read long ago when I was in school, and I'd like to have a fresher perspective on it, but it's also quite long and I'm not sure I'll ever make the commitment to rereading it.

8. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich
I read this one for a college English class with a teacher I really didn't like, and that surely colored my reading of this. I've had so many other Erdrich books recommended to me since then, and I'd like to read those, but I also think I should return to this one at some point.

9. Parent Effectiveness Training by Thomas Gordon
I read this before becoming a parent, and I've said forever that I need to revisit it, but I still haven't. Now that we have a second child, this might be a good time.

10. With Burning Hearts by Henri J. Nouwen
This is a powerful little book, and I knew after I finished it that I would want to return to it in the future. I think once the pandemic is over and our church reopens, I might want a reminder of all there is to love about the Mass.

What books do you want to reread?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: Demon Lord of Karanda, The Next Evangelicalism, and Airships
Five years ago I was reading: Middlemarch, On heroes, lizard and passion, and A Snicker of Magic
Ten years ago I was reading: The Happiness Project

Ten Books I Could Reread Forever

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

I don't do much rereading — it's limited almost entirely to when my book clubs pick books that I've already read — and I've also thoroughly weeded down my physical book collection, but there are certain books that I own or would like to own because I think they're worth revisiting. Either they're just so enjoyable that I want the experience of reading them again, or they have more wisdom that I could possibly absorb in a single reading. Here are ten books in this category.

1. 168 Hours by Laura Vanderkam
Vanderkam has a number of questions and exercises that are worth revisiting at different times in one's life. I did a time diary for a week when my son was a baby, and then I did it again when he was a toddler to see what had changed. Now that I'm looking at getting a different job, it would be worth going back through this book to revisit some of the questions about priorities and structure.

2. Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
I've read this twice now, and I found it just as engaging and useful the second time through. Gawande, in the midst of a more straightforward journalistic narrative about end-of-life care, introduces a number of opportunities for the reader to reflect on what makes life worth living for them and for their loved ones. It's one that's worth reading once for the overall message and then revisiting at different stages of life — when parents are getting older, when a loved one has a terminal illness, when one is faced with one's own end-of-life plans.

3. Daring Greatly by Brené Brown
I've only read this once, but I remember finding the book's message valuable and powerful. Given how little I remember of it, though, I think the lessons about vulnerability and courage are ones that I probably need to revisit on a regular basis.

4. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
I've reread these books more than any other books (I mean, not counting the picture books I've read to my son a bajillion times). I'm hesitant to start another reread just because there are so many other books I want to read and these take a long time to get through them all, but I do miss being immersed in that magical world.

5. The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
This is my all-time favorite book, though I've only read it twice. When I reread it (for a book club, of course), it made me cry again, even though I knew what was going to happen! It's such a beautiful story and masterfully written, and I wouldn't mind being stuck on a desert island with it.

6. Matilda by Roald Dahl
This is another one that simply brings me joy, in this case for my feeling of connection with the main character. I look forward to reading this with my kids someday.

7. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
This one I also reread in the past few years for book club, and I enjoyed it just as much the second time through. I love the conversational tone of the narration, the colorful characters, and the many themes to unpack about identity and culture. I think I could probably find something new each time I read this.

8. Parent Effectiveness Training by Thomas Gordon
I keep saying I need to reread this and I haven't yet! Ah! I read it before I was a parent and while I now try to apply many of his principles, I'm sure I could use regular reminders. This and the Faber/Mazlish books are worth coming back to again and again.

9. Pastrix by Nadia Bolz-Weber
I absolutely adore Nadia Bolz-Weber and just about lost my mind when I got to spend an entire weekend in the same room as her during the recent Q Christian Fellowship conference. (I was too nervous to actually go up and meet her.) Her books are compassionate no-nonsense messages that essentially boil down to: "Christians suck a lot, but that has nothing to do with whether God is real" and "People in general suck a lot, but that doesn't give you an excuse not to love them." That's something I could be told every day and still struggle with.

10. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
This book makes my little word-nerd heart happy. I can't wait to read this one with my kids, except for my fear that they won't love it as much as it deserves to be loved.

Which types of books could you reread again and again?

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Thanks for supporting A Cocoon of Books!

Review of 2015 Reading Goals

Happy New Year! The start of a new year is always a good time to set some goals, and I'll be sharing my 2016 bookish goals very soon. But first, it's important to look back at last year's goals and see how things went!

Below are the goals I set for 2015, and how I did with them.

1. Read some fun books I've put off
I read all of the fun books I'd planned on reading (Hyperbole and a Half, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, Anna and the French Kiss, and Yes Please), as well as some other fun reads, like The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet, The Rosie Project, and The Mysterious Benedict Society. Not all of them were as enjoyable as I'd hoped, but none of them were awful, and it was a nice change of pace from the heavier stuff I tend to read.

2. Read at least 100 books again
I wasn't sure when I made my goals in late 2014 whether I'd become a parent in 2015, and how that would affect my reading. As it turned out, we got the adoption call just a few days into the new year, and I exceeded my count from 2014, reading 129 books total in 2015. This was partly due to listening to many classic children's book on audio while feeding my son; now that he's more independent, we'll see whether I can keep up the same pace in 2016!

3. Rate and review every book I read
I accomplished this, except for intentionally choosing not to rate religious texts (#7). I also wrote a brief review/explanation for books I abandoned, though I didn't rate them either.

4. Read books recommended by people I know
I got through a ton of recommended books! Anna and the French Kiss, Boxers and Saints, Me Before You, Gilead, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, The Crossover, The Princess Bride, The Girl with All the Gifts, Brain on Fire, The Other Wes Moore, Invisible Cities, and The Unthinkable were all reads based on recommendations! And that's not counting recommendations from people like John Green and Anne Bogel, who both recommended several of the books I read this year.

5. Finally finish the "classics" list I've been working on since high school
Complete! It took me 15 years, but I read all 88 classic books featured on my middle school English teacher's classroom border. The last four I finished this year were The Canterbury Tales, Little House on the Prairie, The Miracle Worker, and Flowers for Algernon.

6. Read more classic children's literature I've overlooked
Thanks to the plethora of audiobook options available on OverDrive from our library, my son and I listened to a ton of classic children's books I'd never read before, including The Cricket in Times Square, Ballet Shoes, All-of-a-Kind Family, A Little Princess, Heidi, Because of Winn-Dixie, Mary Poppins, George's Marvelous Medicine, The Tale of Despereaux, Betsy-Tacy, Caddie Woodlawn, and Stuart Little, as well as some newer books, like How to Train Your Dragon, Fortunately, the Milk, and A Snicker of Magic.

7. Read some other religious texts
This is one goal where I failed pretty badly. I only got through the very short Tao Te Ching in 2015. I started The Qur'an and am halfway through now. Still on my to-read list are the Book of Mormon, the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita.

8. Read some graphic novels
I no longer have to say that I've never read a graphic novel! This year I read Boxers, Saints, Persepolis, Maus, and Blankets. Watchmen is still on my to-read list.

9. Reread at least one book a month
I am so averse to rereading that I couldn't quite get myself to do this, but I did use baby-feeding time to listen to some audiobooks of children's books I read in school a long time ago and remembered very little of. These were Summer of My German Soldier, Pippi Longstocking, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective, Sarah, Plain and Tall, Mr. Popper's Penguins, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and Number the Stars. I also reread The Glass Castle for book club. With nine books total, I didn't quite make my goal of one per month, but that was more rereading than I'd done in a long while!

10. Continue diversifying my reads
This was a pretty vague goal, but I did manage not to read only books by white Americans in 2015. (After avoiding them in 2014, I was afraid that's all I would read in 2015.) It certainly helped that one of my book clubs did a "year of reading around the world," with a book from a different country every month, so that's why I read The Garlic Ballads, The Book of Chameleons, Nervous Conditions, The Good Muslim, Death in the Andes, and On heroes, lizards and passion. Some books from other countries I read on my own were Persepolis (and Persepolis 2), Madame Bovary, A Small Place, The Death of Ivan Ilych, Annie John, and Invisible Cities. I also read a number of books by and about black Americans, including Sula, Between the World and Me, The Other Wes Moore, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, Twelve Years a Slave, Brown Girl Dreaming, and The Crossover. Certainly, though, the majority of the books I read were by white Americans, and I'm hoping to swing the pendulum back in 2016.

All in all, I think I did pretty well! My goals did what they were intended to do, which was challenge me and push me a little outside my comfort zone. I look forward to sharing my 2016 goals!

Did you accomplish your book-related goals this past year?

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Thanks for supporting A Cocoon of Books!

Top Ten Books From My Childhood That I Would Love To Revisit

I'm linking up with The Broke and the Bookish for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week's topic is books from my childhood I want to revisit. A few of the books on my list of books I want to reread are books from childhood, but now that we have a kid the day is just around the corner when it will be time to revisit many of my childhood books. I've picked out some that I look forward to reading again.

1. The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
I loved the Boxcar Children mysteries growing up, but I always thought the first one (which doesn't have any mystery) was kind of boring. I reread it to my sister when she was little but I don't think we ever finished it. I remember reading something recently by someone who revisited this book with their kid and ended up having a whole conversation about how the children conform to traditional gender roles even when they're on their own. I would be interested to reread this now and see what I think.

2. Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
I've loved mysteries for almost as long as I could read, and the Encyclopedia Brown books were some of the chapter books that got me hooked (along with the Boxcar Children mysteries and the Babysitter's Club mysteries). I still remember some of the clues that gave away the culprits, including a few that I thought were pretty flimsy at the time and still think aren't very compelling. I wonder if these would hold up for an adult reader.

3. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
This was one of the ones I mentioned wanting to reread because I remember liking it — and I know a lot of people like it — but I remember so little about it.

4. Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater
I read this in school — maybe fifth grade? — and don't remember particularly liking it, but it's been popular for a long time and made into a movie by now, so I would reread it with my kids to see what makes it a classic.

5. Muggie Maggie by Beverly Cleary
This was one of my favorite Beverly Cleary books, so I was surprised to find that the reviews of it aren't great. A lot of people say that kids who can't read cursive will miss out on important parts of the story, and by the time they can they'll have outgrown the story. Maybe I liked it because I could read at a younger age than most, so my comprehension and age happened to be in the right spot. Now that a lot of schools are abandoning cursive, I'd be interested to see how the story holds up.

6. Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
This is another book that I'm pretty sure I liked, and I know a lot of people like, but I remember very little of it. I'm sure it's a classic for a reason, so I'd love to reread it.

7. Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar
I adored this series growing up, but when I think back on some of the stories I'm surprised how much I liked it because it doesn't seem like my kind of humor, so I think it was the writing and the wordplay. (I love wordplay... The Phantom Tollbooth is one of my favorite books of all time.) I flipped through this book recently while rereading Catch-22 because I think the tone is similar (one a satire of the bureaucracy of war and the other a satire of the bureaucracy of school) and was reminded of some of the clever stories. I want to reread this series with my kids to see if they like it as much as I did.

8. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
Another planned reread because of how much I loved this when I was younger.

9. The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White
I remember almost nothing about this book except for the part where the swan's webbing gets sliced so that he can operate the keys on his trumpet, which was and remains a horrifying image. I presume the rest of the book is great, but I would have to reread it to remember why.

10. The Twits by Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl's stuff is pretty dark generally, but this one, if I remember correctly, is basically about a husband and wife doing horrible things to each other. I seem to remember liking it as a kid, but I wonder if I would have a different perspective reading it now as a parent and deciding if/when it was appropriate for my kids to read.

What books from your childhood would you like to revisit?

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Thanks for supporting A Cocoon of Books!