The Books I’ve Reread on Audio (And Why You Should Reread Them, Too)

I first read Their Eyes Were Watching God in high school. Maybe it was the class, maybe it was my age, maybe I was just impatient and only wanted to read fantasy (fair). Whatever the reason, I didn’t like it, which it pains me to admit now. I can’t remember why I decided to give the audio a try, but I did, and I was promptly swept off my feet by the earth-shattering force of Ruby Dee’s narration. Look, I know this is a good book in any form. But when Ruby Dee reads it aloud, it turns into a poem, a song of rage and joy, a musical masterpiece whose rhythms I can still hear echoing years later. I got shivers. I did a lot of crying. I was completely dazzled.

So many books come into our lives at the wrong time, at moments when we’re not prepared for them. And that can make it hard to want to revisit them. I wasn’t especially eager to pick up my old paperback of Their Eyes Were Watching God, because it brought up memories in sitting in English class, feeling bored and trapped. The audiobook held no associations. It was a fresh start, a new way in. Are there books you have an inkling your younger self was wrong about? Give them a listen, see what happens.

If you’re not listening to graphic novels and memoirs on audio, you’re missing out. When I decided to reread Good Talk on audio, it was partly because I just wanted to experience the book again. It’s brilliant. But I was also curious about what it would feel like to listen to a book with such an important visual component. Well, it felt incredible! Jacob’s memoir is about conversations she has with her son, her parents, her husband, her friends. It’s right there in the subtitle: a memoir in conversations. Hearing those conversations aloud is powerful and intimate. There were moments it was even too much, and I had to pause the book and take a breath. Rereading this beloved graphic novel taught me new things about the book itself, and also about reading. Stories are translatable across many forms, and that’s remarkable.

If you love comics and graphic novels, you’re in luck, because lots of them have fantastic audio versions! But listening to comics isn’t the only way to expand your ideas about what’s possible. Try listening to Paige Lewis read her gorgeous poetry collection Space Struck, which incorporates piano music. I read and loved a lot of plays when I was younger, and I’m excited to revisit them on audio. Angels in America is at the top of my list.

There is absolutely no reason why adults shouldn’t read picture books and kidlit, but sometimes that’s hard to remember. I mean, there are so many amazing adult books out there I couldn’t read as a kid! Yes, I loved Charlotte’s Web when I was little, and yes, I have a battered old paperback on my shelf, but it doesn’t exactly tempt me to pick it up every time I walk by it. But when a new full cast audio version came out in 2019, it did tempt me, and friends, let me tell you: the four hours I spent listening to this magical audiobook are still some of the best of my audiobook-listening career.

Rereading can be as simple as the act of giving yourself a gift.

I know I’m not the only reader to be haunted by the question: “Will I still love this book that was so important to me once upon a time?” I was 20 when I first read A Home at the End of the World. It is the first book I can consciously remember reading about queer family — not coded queer family (like so many sci-fi and fantasy series I loved) but textual queer family. At the time, it felt revelatory. I couldn’t believe it was real. Happily, in the almost two decades since then, I’ve read dozens of books about queer family, many of which I love more than I love this one. But you never forget your first, right? So I decided to reread it.

For some reason, rereading it on audio seemed less scary than reading it again the way I’d first experienced it. It gave me some distance. I didn’t have the same muscle memory of turning pages and crying into them. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover I loved it even more the second time around. I appreciated it in a different way. I’ve grown and changed, and though the book has stayed the same, my understanding of it has grown and changed, too. Listening to it highlighted just how much. I know I won’t have this experience every time I decide to listen to book that was so formative, but doing it once has made it easier to imagine taking the plunge again.