On rereading - Spacks, Patricia Meyer 1929- (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011)
Includes bibliographical references and index
Always a stranger? -- Once upon a time -- A civilized world -- Other times : the 1950s -- Other times : the 1960s -- Other times : the 1970s -- The pleasure principle -- Professional rereading -- Books I ought to like -- Guilty pleasures -- Reading together -- Coda : what I have learned
After retiring from teaching literature, Patricia Meyer Spacks embarked on a year-long project of rereading dozens of novels: childhood favourites, young adult fiction, canonical works she didn't like, guilty pleasures. On Rereading records the surprising, fascinating results of her personal experiment and raises a number of intriguing questions