Centireading. Have you heard of it? Me neither but it’s officially a thing now because it’s on the internet. A gent in the UK named Stephen Marche invented the word and you can read all about it at the Guardian (via).
What is centireading you ask? Why reading a book one hundred times of course. Since my response was why on earth would anyone want to read a book 100 times, I am not a good candidate for centireading. Marche says that it
belongs to the extreme of reader experience, the ultramarathon of the bookish, but it’s not that uncommon. To a certain type of reader, exposure at the right moment to Anne of Green Gables or Pride and Prejudice or Sherlock Holmes or Dune can almost guarantee centireading.
Extreme sports I can understand, but extreme reading? Nope (unless it involves reading in strange, possibly dangerous, places then extreme reading makes sense to me). I’m not much of a rereader to begin with. I only ever reread one to three books a year and sometimes none. The most I have ever read a book is six times. The honor belongs to Pride and Prejudice. I can imagine reading it again one day, but I would be surprised if, at the end of my life, the total times I’d read it reached ten. Still, I suppose one never really knows. Perhaps one day I will be snowed in somewhere and have only one book to read and one thing will lead to another and before I know it I’ve read it 99 times and once you get that far you have to read it one more time just so you can say you read it 100 times.
Marche has only read two books 100 times, Hamlet and The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. Yes, after reading a book so many time you are on the verge of having it memorized. And yes,
By the time you read something more than a hundred times, you’ve passed well beyond “knowing how it turns out”. The next sentence is known before the sentence you’re reading is finished. […] Centireading reveals a pleasure peculiar to text lurking underneath story and language and even understanding. Part of the attraction of centireading is that it provides the physical activity of reading without the mental acuity usually required.
So it seems eventually after a certain point, even Hamlet becomes a sort of comfort read. Still, you’d have to really like a book a lot to read it that many times. And what about all those other books you don’t read because your are reading that book again?
A faint tang of guilt can sometimes follow a bout of centireading. Life is brief and there is so much to read. But I cannot imagine that I will find another book to read a hundred times in my life. You can be acquaintances with many books, and friends with a few, but family with only one or two.
What is the most times you have ever read a book? How likely is it you will ever be a member of the centireading club?
I could imagine doing that if I were incarcerated or in a gulag. Providing that is allowed it.
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Foghorn, exactly, only if there is no other choice. But 100 times just because? No way.
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I’m not a counter, but I’ve read Othello and LOTR and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe in bits for 20 years, probably 3-4 times each year. That’s not 100, but it’s getting close. Maybe I should make more of an effort. Does it count as reading if you say the lines to yourself? “It is the cause…”
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Jeanne, keep going, you just might make 100 for each of them eventually! Saying the lines to yourself doesn’t count as reading though, you need to move your eyes across the page of the book 😉
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I suppose I need to bump up The Restaurant at the end of the Universe… But I know I will only ever read it once.
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Reblogged this on BookIdeas and commented:
This is crazy! I haven’t heard of Centireading, but I can say with absolute certainty that I will never read one book one hundred times. Thank you, So Many Books, for sharing this very interesting concept!
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Jess, yup, definitely crazy 🙂
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Having just dragged my way through a book that was just too long and ordinary for my tastes for a reading group (all the time thinking of what I could be reading but determined to finish), I cannot think of a single book I have read that merits 100 readings. Three or four maybe but 100? Yikes! Too many good books for that.
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roughghosts, ooh sorry about the book club book, that’s one of the prime book club membership dangers. Definitely too many books to read one 100 times.
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I suppose the books I’ve read the most were childhood favorites (back in the day when I had no concept of so many books…). I’ve probably read things like Little House in the Big Woods and Ramona the Pest five or six times. Since reaching adulthood, though, I don’t think there’s anything I’ve read more than 3 times. Can’t imagine getting to 100 with anything, although there are plenty on my TBR-R list. How on earth does one make time for those when there is the entire TBR tome begging to be gotten through?
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Centireading? I don’t think so…..God, imagine being snowed in with only Fifty Shades Of Grey to read 100 times!!
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Oh Ian, I shudder at the thought!
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Emily, crazy, isn’t it? It’s like being stuck on a desert island with only two books except you aren’t really on the island. I suppose it takes a special kind of person.
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What a preposterous idea. I would challenge anyone to do this and truly read the text rather than skimming because it is so familiar. The most times I’ve ever read anything outside a book I had to study is Middlemach (6 times). It easily warrants as many rereads in the future. But reading one thing 100 times means there are 99 others they would just be piling up on the TBR stack.
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BookerTalk, Maybe you reach a certain point where you can’t not read the book again? I dunno. I can’t imagine it myself.
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One of the things he doesn’t mention at all in his article is that so many books just fall apart if they’re read too many times. A book has to have a really solid underlying structure for it to hold up to one hundred consecutive scrutinies. Even some good stuff–i.e. LOTR, Douglas Adams, Othello, as Jeanne said above–surely will start to show irritating weaknesses after all of that!
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Elle, he mentions he has several really beat up copies of Hamlet but you are right, he doesn’t say if he has had to replace any of the books at all. Even if you are a very careful reader after that many readings the book is bound to fall apart!
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Haha–I actually meant plot structure! But yes, a physical copy is bound to break down too 🙂
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Oh that’s funny!
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100 times?? Read the same book? I’m not joining that club!
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Helen, I’m going to pass on membership too 🙂
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There are too many books I haven’t read and time on this earth gets shorter each day, so why would I waste any of it re-reading books? My favorite books are the Alice in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass books and I admit to having re-read both of them several times and parts of them many, many times.
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Joan, that’s the trouble with any kind of rereading isn’t it? The unread books always outnumber the books you might want to reread. Though if instead of just reading parts of the Alice books you start reading the whole thing each time you just might make the centireading club or go insane trying 😉
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When you teach literature you inevitably find yourself re-reading set texts multiple times, although I’ve never actually counted. I do know, though, that theatre directors cut certain Shakespeare texts at their peril because I am quite likely to fill in the lines that they have omitted!
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Alex, woe to those theatre directors! I can imagine you standing up in the audience and shouting, no you forgot to say … !
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I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d read Matilda 100 times… I used to re read loads as a kid!
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anarobots, you’ll have to read Matilda a few more times as an adult just to make sure 😉
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I’m sure I will!!
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If I love it, I might re-read it again and again. I’ve re-read Les Miserables (I can’t imagine living long enough to read it 100 times, though. Nope. But I would probably be buff just from the exercise I’d get carrying it around), To Kill A Mockingbird, The Hound of the Baskervilles, probably 5 or 6 times each. There are poems I’ve probably read 100 times. I could read Robert Frost’s Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening every day of my life without growing tired of it.
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Grad, I can imagine there are poems I’m approaching the 100 mark for but somehow that seems different than entire books. If you manage to read Les Mis 100 times you will be muscled in arm and mind! 🙂
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Hmmm. I do think a hundred is in the extreme but I’ve definitely done my fair share of rereading. What happens is I’ll remember a line or a very memorable scene will come to mind and then I’ll have to find it….and then I end up finishing the book. If it’s a series of books like Potter or LOTR, the accidental reread could possibly spill into other books.
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Sam, I can’t say I’ve ever accidentally reread a whole book or even a series but I can see how it could happen! You never know, you just might accidentally find yourself having read a book 100 times 😉
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Ah, as Alex says, I guess people could read books 100 times professionally but since I’m not a teacher, actor or director, I don’t have that issue. I’m like you, Stefanie, I generally don’t reread but do occasionally. Some years, like you, I reread two or three, some years none. Last year, none.
I do think there is value in rereading and I once read that reviewers should reread the book they are reviewing. They probably should – but being an amateur I guess I can set my own standards!
The book I’ve read most is Pride and prejudice. I’d be up to around 10 times now, and will probably read it a couple more times BUT 100? No way, not even for Jane. I have, though, reread all of her books more than once.
Finally, sorry for the saga, my reading group has joked that when we all have Alzheimer’s we’ll just read the same book each month! That will be cheaper for us all. If we did this for 9 or 10 years we’d be centireaders – and probably centenarians!
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whisperinggums, I can see if you are teaching a text how you could get really rack up the reading numbers on it. The man in the article read Hamlet 100 times mostly for his dissertation. But I think that makes us the luck ones, having so much more choice in the matter. I’m surprised though that you wouldn’t even read Jane 100 times 😉 Your book group cracked me up!
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I’ve also read P&P more than a few times and Rebecca, but when there are so many books just waiting to be read for the first time I can’t spare the time.
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piningforthewest, exactly! Rereading now and then is great but it is hard to spare the time when there are so many books I’ve never read waiting for me.
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I probably re-read one book a year, two max. The most I’ve ever re-read something is Pride and Prejudice, which is currently at 4 times. It’s a good palate-cleanser after a Book Hangover. I read the article about this guy the other day. 100 times is beyond my comprehension.
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laila, P&P is a good palate cleanser, I completely agree with you on that! 100 times is beyond my comprehension too.
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I can easily pick up centiwatching rather than centrireading as in watching a film 100 times, knowing the next line coming up etc. but centrreading? If I can spend time reading 100 books id rather do that than reading a book 100 times except, that is, I can see its value if I’m stranded alone on a deserted island after a shipwreck. I can be an expert in that one if I were rescued.
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Arti, I can’t even imagine watching the same film 100 times! As for your desert island book, better make sure when you leave home with the risk of being stranded, you have a really good book with you! 🙂
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I reread Sartre’s Nausea annually, so I suppose I’ve read it thirty or so times. Entire passages are etched into my memory. I can imagine reading Dante or Homer 100 times-though I doubt I will-in each different translation.
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Anthony, that’s really impressive. What urges you to read Nausea every year?
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Hard to remember my original intentions, beyond the book’s deep and life-changing impression on me. It has become a desire to be immensely familiar with a book, to the extent I can recall extended passages.
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Good grief! I’m not a great re-reader, because there are always so many unread books on the shelves. It’s not April Fool’s Day yet, is it? Because if it were, this would be a good candidate…… Perhaps the guy got stranded on a desert island and this was the result?
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Litlove, ha! No not April Fool’s Day yet 🙂 I’d say the guy might have a loose screw but in the article he seems quite normal and suggests that besides the two books he’s read 100 times already, he has no plans to do that with any other book.
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That is CRAZY. I could never do it. I think the book I have most re-read though is probably C.S, Lewis’s Till We Have Faces, maybe around four or five times I have read that one. But a hundred times? I can’t imagine doing this.
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Cipriano, it does approach the ridiculous, doesn’t it?
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I have a few books I like to reread because they are favorites or comfort reads, but I can’t think of anything I like that much to read it 100 times! Yikes–think of all those other books you would be neglecting….
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Danielle, I’d also worry that even if I started off loving a book that by read number 60 I’d start to hate it because all the flaws would become more and more visible.
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That is crazy to me! I don’t even take time to re-read books that I should re-read because I love the feeling of accomplishment after I finish a new book. Half the fun of finishing a book is getting to start a new one. There are some books in the Bible that I will probably read 100 times in my life. Maybe. But not the whole Bible.
The book I’ve read the most times is Harriet the Spy. I’ve probably read it 20 times. Pride & Prejudice is second.
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Alisa, keep going with Harriet the Spy, you are almost a quarter of the way there! 😉 Like you I am drawn by the lure of the unread books to spend much time rereading.
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Piffle! I reread more than almost anyone I know, and I don’t think there are any books in my house that I’ve read even close to 100 times. The Emily of New Moon books maybe? Those ones I’ve read quite often.
Anyway, I never listen to a word Stephen Marche says. He wrote a rubbish article about Megan Fox one time, and an even rubbisher book about Shakespeare. He just says things! Makes no sense half the time!
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