So. I mentioned this in my last review, what is it?
Well, you may have noticed that recently I’ve made reference to my less-than-great memory. I do feel like it’s not as good as it was and when it comes to reading I seem to forget more easily what’s going on (one reason to try to read books more quickly).
Also, I tend not to re-read as much as I used to. I tend to put this down to two things:
- I have access to more books than I used to (both because of the internet and because I have enough money to not worry about buying them (I can afford to buy them far quicker than I can ever read them))
- There’s simply so many to choose from (boy-with-too-many-sweets syndrome)
I was also pondering the fact that I seem to be able to remember a fair amount about books I read a long time ago. Is this because I laid down memories more permanently back then? Is it because I re-read more often and the ones I remember are one I read more than once? Is it a perception thing and actually if I try can I remember the more recent ones too?
So I’ve decided to do a little (hopefully fun) experiment. I created a little shortlist of 20 books I wouldn’t mind re-reading. They all had to be relatively short, enjoyable reads or there’s no point but other than that they vary according to how many times I’ve read them, how long ago I read them first, whether I feel like I can remember a lot about them or not. In order to not bias the experiment too much (the act of choosing a book involves a little bit of trying to remember things about it) I decided to choose at random from the list. The experiment will be done once I’ve read ~5 books. I’ll intersperse them with the books I am reading anyway and review as normal however when I do a re-read book I’ll:
- Roll some virtual dice and choose the next re-read title
- write down as much about it as I can remember
- read it
- write down what I got wrong, any major plot points or ideas I missed and so on.
Once I’ve done the 5 or so I’ll write up a summary and see how I did. I don’t want to do this as part of the reviews themselves so I’ll keep that separate.