Friday, June 8, 2012

This Is Your Brain On Age

The last three library books I have started to read are ones that I realize I have already read before but...
no worries- I have no memory at all of what happens in them.

Good Lord.

Before too long, I'll just be able to read the same book, over and over and over again and it'll be like new, every time.

9 comments:

  1. Well, if Jesus wept about it, there's no way I'm going to watch that video of Ms. Turner! Thanks for the heads up. Have fun in Perry, GA.
    Lucy

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  2. I have done this many times - I read books quickly, much of it in the middle of the night when I can't sleep - and quickly move on to the next book when one is done. They don't hang well in the memory. So I can pick up a book a few years later and while I remember it was good and it's familiar as I read, the details and the ending are just as much a mystery as they were the first time. If anything, I might enjoy it more the second time around because I know I liked it the first time. Like the feeling as a kid of having the same story read to you again and again except that you don't know exactly what's coming next.

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  3. New friends every day! I'll be spouting off outlandish ish all the time, just makin like i don't know any better any more. For sure. I already have the rocking chair and crossword puzzle bits down. Bring on the dotage! (Although, i don't know if i'll ever be good at going slow. I think the whole 'slowing down' deal is really gonna piss me off something fierce.)

    I broke my tailbone once and had to shuffle everywhere for a few weeks. It occurred to me that's why some older folks can be such ogres- it takes forever to get anywhere and it hurts.

    Sorry to ramble. It's rainy here. A rambley, rainy day. You're fabulous. Cheerio.

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  4. I do it all the time....even when I was younger and not at all in the clutches of dementia.

    Why not? If we have come to adore the characters the author has created, it is like being able to visit with an old friend again.

    Hell, I can even reread mysteries and not remember whodunit.

    I hate it doubly it when a beloved writer dies because you not only lose the potential creator of delights, but the further adventures of the characters you have me to love. I still mourn and miss Robert Parker's "Spenser".......sob.
    Thank heaven I have a shelf full of him to revisit.

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  5. I do this a lot too. I'm only 34, I hate to think what it will be like in 20 more years. I don't mind much though. I keep a list of books that really moved or excited me, and re-read them and get moved/excited all over again.

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  6. Ha ha ha, you are not alone. I keep a reading log for just this reason. Voracious readers just read too much to keep it all in their heads. What I really hate, as I do not live within a library district and get most of my books at the goodwill, is when I buy one that I already have at home. That's sad.
    I hope when you get to reading the same book over and over that it's a good one. I'm currently planning on getting stuck on something by John Irving or maybe Steinbeck's East of Eden.
    And at least we're reading, right?

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  7. Some books are worth reading again and again!

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