The Sunday letter · Mara LinIssue 01081522283337404345474848
Afterword.
Opening the journal
Essays
On rereading the books that raised you
A winter with the novels I loved at sixteen, and what they kept from me.
- KindEssays
- DateAug 03, 2026
- Read time10 min
Essays
On rereading the books that raised you
A winter with the novels I loved at sixteen, and what they kept from me.
- KindEssays
- DateAug 03, 2026
- Read time10 min
Essays
On rereading the books that raised you
A winter with the novels I loved at sixteen, and what they kept from me.
- KindEssays
- DateAug 03, 2026
- Read time10 min
EssaysAug 03, 202610 min read
Some books wait for you to grow into them. Others wait for you to grow out. Last winter I spent three months rereading the novels I loved at sixteen, to find out which kind each one was.
I made a short list, seven books, all of them ones I had read more than once as a teenager and not opened in over a decade. I read them in order, slowly, with a pencil, and I tried not to look up anything I had once written about them.
The ones that grew
Three of them were better than I remembered. The long family novel I had read for its romance turned out to be about money, and about the quiet cruelty of who inherits what. The thin book of short stories I had found boring at sixteen was now almost too sad to finish. I had not been wrong at sixteen, exactly. I simply had not lived enough of the life the book described.
“Rereading is not going back. It is the same river and a different swimmer, and the swimmer is the one who has changed.
The ones that shrank
Two of them did not survive. One adventure novel I had loved fiercely now seemed thin and a little unkind to everyone in it who was not the hero. I finished it out of loyalty. The other I abandoned halfway, with a strange mix of guilt and relief, like leaving a party early.
It was not a sad discovery, or not only that. It told me something about who I was at sixteen: what I wanted to believe, which kinds of courage I admired, the people I hoped would notice me.
The ones that stayed
The last two were simply the same. I loved them as much as I had, in the same places, for the same reasons. Those were the most surprising of all. Some things in us, it seems, do not move.
If you try this, I recommend a pencil and a notebook, and a little honesty. Write down what you remember before you begin each book. Then read it as if someone you used to know had recommended it to you, and see whether you still agree with them.
— Mara
All essays
EssaysAug 03, 202610 min read
Some books wait for you to grow into them. Others wait for you to grow out. Last winter I spent three months rereading the novels I loved at sixteen, to find out which kind each one was.
I made a short list, seven books, all of them ones I had read more than once as a teenager and not opened in over a decade. I read them in order, slowly, with a pencil, and I tried not to look up anything I had once written about them.
The ones that grew
Three of them were better than I remembered. The long family novel I had read for its romance turned out to be about money, and about the quiet cruelty of who inherits what. The thin book of short stories I had found boring at sixteen was now almost too sad to finish. I had not been wrong at sixteen, exactly. I simply had not lived enough of the life the book described.
“Rereading is not going back. It is the same river and a different swimmer, and the swimmer is the one who has changed.
The ones that shrank
Two of them did not survive. One adventure novel I had loved fiercely now seemed thin and a little unkind to everyone in it who was not the hero. I finished it out of loyalty. The other I abandoned halfway, with a strange mix of guilt and relief, like leaving a party early.
It was not a sad discovery, or not only that. It told me something about who I was at sixteen: what I wanted to believe, which kinds of courage I admired, the people I hoped would notice me.
The ones that stayed
The last two were simply the same. I loved them as much as I had, in the same places, for the same reasons. Those were the most surprising of all. Some things in us, it seems, do not move.
If you try this, I recommend a pencil and a notebook, and a little honesty. Write down what you remember before you begin each book. Then read it as if someone you used to know had recommended it to you, and see whether you still agree with them.
— Mara
All essaysEssaysAug 03, 202610 min read
Some books wait for you to grow into them. Others wait for you to grow out. Last winter I spent three months rereading the novels I loved at sixteen, to find out which kind each one was.
I made a short list, seven books, all of them ones I had read more than once as a teenager and not opened in over a decade. I read them in order, slowly, with a pencil, and I tried not to look up anything I had once written about them.
The ones that grew
Three of them were better than I remembered. The long family novel I had read for its romance turned out to be about money, and about the quiet cruelty of who inherits what. The thin book of short stories I had found boring at sixteen was now almost too sad to finish. I had not been wrong at sixteen, exactly. I simply had not lived enough of the life the book described.
“Rereading is not going back. It is the same river and a different swimmer, and the swimmer is the one who has changed.
The ones that shrank
Two of them did not survive. One adventure novel I had loved fiercely now seemed thin and a little unkind to everyone in it who was not the hero. I finished it out of loyalty. The other I abandoned halfway, with a strange mix of guilt and relief, like leaving a party early.
It was not a sad discovery, or not only that. It told me something about who I was at sixteen: what I wanted to believe, which kinds of courage I admired, the people I hoped would notice me.
The ones that stayed
The last two were simply the same. I loved them as much as I had, in the same places, for the same reasons. Those were the most surprising of all. Some things in us, it seems, do not move.
If you try this, I recommend a pencil and a notebook, and a little honesty. Write down what you remember before you begin each book. Then read it as if someone you used to know had recommended it to you, and see whether you still agree with them.
— Mara
All essays