In the last five years, I’ve reread about 40 books on audio. Sometimes I listen to all the books in a series in preparation for a new installment coming out. Sometimes I reread a book for the comfort of it — recently I’ve taken to listening to beloved romance novels as part of my bedtime reading routine, and yes, it helps me sleep. I also like to reread books that are complicated, difficult, and challenging — sometimes listening to a book shakes up my brain in just the right way and helps me get more out of it. There are dozens and dozens of reasons to reread books on audio, but when I look back over all the titles I’ve listened to, a few patterns emerge. There are some books that seem to be made for it. So let’s meander through the books I’ve loved the most on the audio reread. If you’ve read any of these, you might be surprised at just how much you’ll get out of listening to them again. Obviously I think all of these books make for great rereads, but if none of them are your cup of tea, that doesn’t mean audio rereading isn’t for you! Take these principles and apply them to your own reading life. Once you discover the joy of the audio reread, you’ll never go back. There are so many other great reasons to reread books on audio. I listened to both Between the World and Me and The Fire Next Time soon after reading them for the first time. I love nonfiction, but I sometimes have trouble absorbing it. Reading books in multiple formats helps. Certain ideas strike me differently when I hear them out loud. I often relate to the material more viscerally when I’m listening to it. For books like these, audio rereads become a kind of extended study. So many books come into our lives at the wrong time, at moments when we’re not prepared for them. And that can make it hard to want to revisit them. I wasn’t especially eager to pick up my old paperback of Their Eyes Were Watching God, because it brought up memories in sitting in English class, feeling bored and trapped. The audiobook held no associations. It was a fresh start, a new way in. Are there books you have an inkling your younger self was wrong about? Give them a listen, see what happens. If you love comics and graphic novels, you’re in luck, because lots of them have fantastic audio versions! But listening to comics isn’t the only way to expand your ideas about what’s possible. Try listening to Paige Lewis read her gorgeous poetry collection Space Struck, which incorporates piano music. I read and loved a lot of plays when I was younger, and I’m excited to revisit them on audio. Angels in America is at the top of my list. Rereading can be as simple as the act of giving yourself a gift. For some reason, rereading it on audio seemed less scary than reading it again the way I’d first experienced it. It gave me some distance. I didn’t have the same muscle memory of turning pages and crying into them. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover I loved it even more the second time around. I appreciated it in a different way. I’ve grown and changed, and though the book has stayed the same, my understanding of it has grown and changed, too. Listening to it highlighted just how much. I know I won’t have this experience every time I decide to listen to book that was so formative, but doing it once has made it easier to imagine taking the plunge again. I’ve also started using the audio reread as a way to experience new translations. I read Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf in high school and I’ve always loved it. Last year, on a whim, I listened to Maria Dahvana Headley’s new translation and “loved it” doesn’t begin to cover it. It’s a triumph. (As is JD Jackson’s narration.) I can’t imagine anything will ever top it, but people are going to go on translating Beowulf forever, and, honestly, I can’t wait to listen.
