Hearing Something Different
After a few months of walking to television shows, ChickieNob and I returned to first-person walking videos (on mute) coupled with audiobooks. The first-person walking videos make me feel like we’re going somewhere. Television does not.
We listened to Lesley Manville read the first Thursday Murder Club book. We both read it years ago but had no memory of the mystery solution. I mean, I remembered one tiny part, but everything else slipped out of my head in the intervening years.
I got to experience the book practically for the first time again. But I reacted differently to the parts I remembered. I’m a different person now, which comes into play when reading a book a second (or third or fourth) time.
Afterward, we were going to go on to the second book in the series, but we opted to play The Magicians instead. It’s our comfort read (or, in this case, our comfort listen), and we immediately settled into reciting our favourite lines from the story as we figuratively walked through Mykonos. Again, we’re both different people each time we read or hear it, but it was like getting coffee with a good friend and realizing how much you both still feel connected to one another.
Thank you, books.
3 comments
You are so right about being a different person when you read a book a second time. I was just talking about this with a friend. He shared he never takes book recommendations from me because years ago I recommended a book he hated. I tried to explain that, as a different person now with different experiences, kids, etc, I would not recommend that book. He didn’t understand.
Ooh, I love this too. We ARE different people when we read a book a second time. I need to think about that.
Also, I’ve been meaning to ask. When you and ChickieNob walk, I’m assuming you each have a treadmill?
I don’t often re-read books these days, especially if I’ve only just read them recently, but I just read “Killers of a Certain Age” for the second time since December, and still enjoyed it immensely. I find you pick up on things you didn’t notice the first time around and because you know the characters and the arc of the story better, you can pay more attention to the little things going on.
It’s been fun revisiting Lucy Maud Montgomery’s books with my Facebook group — I’ve read them all many times since I first read then as a kid, albeit it’s been quite a while since the last time I read a lot of them. Several of the people in the group have commented on how different it is reading them as adults vs when we were kids! and in particular how differently we view the character of Marilla (and notice her sense of humour!).
I haven’t re-read any of the Thursday Murder Club books yet, and I’m generally not into audio books — but I like the idea of a re-read via audio. I love Lesley Manville as an actress and she would be perfect as a narrator for these books! 🙂