Rereading Tendency

What it is

The researchers surveyed adult volunteers online and developed a brief set of questions that capture how often and how willingly a person rereads. They then compared scores with a measure of how much people read in general. The two were separate: someone can read a great deal and rarely reread, or read little and reread often.

After controlling for general reading, rereading remained positively associated with trait narrative transportation. In plain terms, people who tend to get absorbed in stories were also more likely to say they go back to books they know. The study is a single survey, so it describes a pattern in what people reported and does not show that absorption causes rereading.

In effect

In the article on why readers call The Lord of the Rings the best book ever written, the concept is used to connect the long return visits many readers make to a detailed fictional world with absorption. A world with many layers gives a returning reader something new to find, and the survey finding fits with the idea that absorbed readers come back. The connection to that book is an interpretation; the survey was not about any single title.

What it does not say

It does not say why any person rereads, and it does not show that rereading makes a book better. It is one correlational survey of adult volunteers in the United States, so it supports a modest statement: rereading is a measurable habit that is distinct from reading in general and linked with a readiness to be absorbed.

---