Re-

A great discussion has been circulating around the litblogs concerning books that people tend to re-read. I'm not much of a re-reader myself. I will pick up books that have been an influence on my writing or that have special meaning, whether purely as entertainment or something that challenged me at some point in my reading life. I often re-read to see if the challenge is still there or if a different challenge will present itself. Otherwise I'm too impatient, too ready to move on to the next text to spend time on one that I've already finished. I can only pick out a few books that I've re-read in the last few years:

Catch-22 by Heller
The Joke by Milan Kundera
The Short Stories by Ernest Hemingway
Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
The Stranger by Albert Camus
As I Lay Dying by Faulkner

There are a few more, but I'm a little too strapped for time to list them all.

On a related note I wonder if this same type of thing can be applied to movies? I'm even less of a re-viewer, tending to see a movie for the second time only if it's an absolute favorite or if my wife hasn't seen it. We do have a DVD (and VHS) collection but I rarely pick one out on a Friday night even when there's nothing else on TV and we've forgotten to send in for our next Netflix picks.