What will you read over the summer? The newly announced Booker longlist? A selection of books from newspaper and magazine summer reading lists? A book that a Spectator columnist is taking on holiday? There are so many good new books to read – if not newly published, then at least new to you – and now is a good time to get stuck in. Why not, however, also choose something to re-read this summer?
There is something about summer and its particular feeling of stepping off the treadmill and slowing down that makes it ripe for taking the extra time to re-read a book. It’s a good moment to look back over what we’ve read and pick out a lucky book or two to revisit.
After all, how can we really know a book if we’ve read it just once? Think how many times we listen to a piece of music before we say we know it.

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