Episode 25: The Joy of Rereading

Tina Boogren
2 minutes ago
6 min read

Description: Sometimes the most comforting thing you can do is return to what you already love. In this episode, Tina invites you to reread a favorite book and rediscover the joy, comfort, and familiarity that comes with revisiting a story that once meant something to you. This invitation offers a gentle reminder that rereading can feel safe, grounding, and deeply nourishing.

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Resources: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

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Transcription: Hi, and welcome to Everyday Wellness with Dr. Tina H. Boogren. I'm your host, Tina Boogren, and I am so happy you are here. Ah, let's get ourselves here. And you know the routine by now. I'm going to invite you to just take a nice deep breath to kind of get yourself settled as we move into this week's invitation. So go ahead and pause and just want you to inhale through your nose and exhale out your mouth for one nice deep breath.

Good. I hope that helps you feel settled. This week's invitation is going to be probably a quick one, but it's one I'm really enjoying and the invitation is to reread a favorite book. That's it. Alright, I'll see you later. No, I'm just kidding. But it is. That's it. Reread a favorite book. Now some of you might already do this and I love that for you. Some of you like me though, very rarely, actually never, reread books.

Now listen, I save books. I have favorite books. My house, I am surrounded by books. Our house is a house filled with books, every floor of the house. We are in a small and tall town home, so we've got multiple floors. Every floor, almost every room is filled with books because when I love a book, I cannot let it go. It is really hard for me to let a book go. But here's the crazy part, I keep and save all of them, but then I don't reread them.

And so for some reason, I don't know, I was having trouble getting a new book started. Do you know this feeling? Like you finished a really good book and every book you pick up after that just isn't living up to it and it's just blah. I'd read a few pages, I'd put it down, I'd grab another book and I'd put it down. Because listen, my to-be-read pile is massive. But I was getting stuck and so I finally looked over and on my shelf, I saw the book A Little Life. It's one of my favorite books. And I picked it up and I looked at it and I looked at my Good Reads and realized that it had been almost exactly 10 years since I read that book the first time and I thought, well, you know what? I'm going to pick this book up and I'm gonna start reading it and it'll be my filler book until I start another, a new one, that actually sticks. And as I picked up that book and started reading, I was completely absorbed back in the story almost as though I was reading it for the first time. And I am going to finish the book. I am not putting this book down and picking up another, I'm loving it so much.

I am the kind of reader that basically when I get done reading a book, I remember if I liked it or if I didn't like it, and that's about it. I am not one that remembers details. So as I'm rereading this book, yes, a few things are familiar, but I'm not bored because I completely remember the story, if that makes sense. I am just absorbed and I feel so safe reading it because I know I loved the book all the way to the end. And so I can just like, ah, sink into it. I think it's kind of like rewatching your favorite movie or your favorite TV show. There's like a comfort in that, but I am loving this and in fact, I'm loving it so much that I toyed around with the idea of making 2026 my year of rereading.

Now, I don't think I'm going to do that because there's a lot of books that I'm excited are coming out this year, so probably will not be a year of rereading. But it will be a year that I give myself permission to reread. And yes, I am going to count those rereads in my overall book count for the book goal that I have set for myself for the number of books I want to read this year.

But I also started a little note in my phone of other books that I absolutely loved that I want to reread. And I love having that list because I know that I'm always going to have something to be reading. I don't like the feeling of not being totally absorbed in a book where I find myself like spending too much time on social media or a little bit more screen time. I love when I have a book that I'm so looking forward to that I can say no to the TV and no to social media and dig into that book. And so if I always have a book that I know I love. I will always be reading and it makes me so happy because that's one of my favorite things to do. It's one of my big goals for 2026, and I know I'm not alone.

Whenever I ask people kind of something that they want to embrace or a hobby, if you want to think of it as a hobby that they want to engage in, so many people stay reading. So many people love to read. So many people tell me that they want to read more. And so maybe you will find that if you reread a favorite book, it's going to hook you back into reading, into the habit of reading. to find the joy in reading, and you'll be able to revisit characters and scenes and worlds that made you happy years ago. that most likely are going to make you happy again. And also, I'm a firm believer that when we reread books at various stages of our life, different things stand out to us because we're kind of different people as we read those stories. We just bring an entirely different perspective to what we're reading and I love that so much.

So that's my invitation for you for this week. Again, maybe you already do this. And so kudos to you. Keep doing this. And maybe though someone listening is like, huh, I never thought I was a rereader, but I'm going to give it a shot because I would've told you that I was not a rereader myself. That idea never appealed to me, but for some reason, I don't know, I picked up A Little Life. I love this book (I’ll link to the book) and I'm loving it. And by doing this, it's opening up a whole new world of even more books to read. It's like my to-be-read pile of books I haven't read and then now I have to have another pile of to-be-reread books. But man, that is a good problem to have, to be surrounded by books and reading and written words is, oh, it's like my favorite thing. So maybe pick up a, pick up an old favorite and reread it. And see what it feels like. I hope it feels really, really, really good. I'm going to have some fun reading prompts over in the Facebook group, so join us over there for my fellow readers or any aspiring readers. And let's swap some ideas over there.

Amazing you guys. I’m cheering so hard for you. I hope you have an amazing week. We're so, so, so grateful to Adrienne. Ugh, she's the one that makes this all happen. Thank you also to Solution Tree and Marzano Resources and to you, my Badass Wellness Squad. I’m cheering so hard for you this week. May you get lost in a really good book. I love you guys. Make it a great week.

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