[jamesli]

> You're a different person than you were 5, 10, 20 years ago, and you'll experience the same book differently as a different reader

Besides, good literatures are of multi layers. One might miss some the deeper layers in the first few reads. There are also some subtle points the authors try to convey. They usually requires multi reads for most readers to get them.

My wife reads some classic novels many times. I think I am a very good reader. But she has much deeper understanding than I have, explaining to me what other meanings a plot conveys, why a sentence is constructed this way rather than another, although they sound the same for normal ears, etc. in literatures both in English and in our native languages. She always finds something new each time she re-read a classic.

[tjradcliffe]

My g/f is currently reading a lot of classics for the first time, and talking to her has reminded me of how little I have left of some of them after a decade or two (or three...) A good book is worth coming back to a few times at least, over the course of a long lifetime.