Why Rereading Books Matters: Unlocking Mastery & Focus

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

The Illusion of Progress: Why We Read Without Learning

Most people read as a conquest. Trying to move forward, finishing one book only to reach for the next one, constantly looking for the next great idea or insight.

Our culture prizes it. We are always impressed by the person who can read quickly.

We take speed reading courses in an ever futile attempt to know more. As if knowing more could complete us.

Kierkegaard said that the artist seeks a depth of one experience rather than a multitude of surface experiences.

This idea is so antithetical to our way of thinking, consumption being our antidote to an empty experience.

The Radical Idea of Centireading: Reading One Book 100 Times

What if we followed Kierkegaard’s direction and went deeper into one experience?

This is the idea behind centireading, the practice of reading a book 100 times.

At first, this idea sounds extreme.

We have always been taught to have a vast storehouse of information, which means seeking out the unread books in order to expand our horizons.

Wouldn’t reading the same book over and over be boring?

Or at least redundant?

Doesn’t it make sense that it would be a waste of time to read the same book 100 times in the same timeframe we could read 100 books once?

Why Rereading Books Isn’t a Waste of Time

The short answer is no.

With this type of reading, centireading, we are aiming at something different than an expansion of knowledge.

We are aiming at the insight that Kierkegaard is hinting at in his statement, that seeking the depth of experience is about transformation.

A book stays the same; however, we do not.

Each time we reread a book, the words take on a new meaning, layers once hidden start to unfold, what was once invisible is suddenly illuminated.

Centireading is about recapturing the thing so commoditized today—attention.

It is about reclaiming the focus that has been stripped from us by a world obsessed with quick consumption, where the mere fact of fully absorbing a thing becomes an act of resistance when we are told to just pass through it and move on.

The Influence of Stephen Marche and Anthony Hopkins

I was first exposed to this idea in my last year of graduate studies when I read an article on the English author Stephen Marche, who had read Hamlet 100 times in order to master it before writing his dissertation on it.

He said he had gotten the idea from the actor Anthony Hopkins, who supposedly reads his scripts 100 times before filming so he can truly embody the character he is portraying.

This way of reading is about the total immersion in the work.

Of course, we come to understand the book better, but by reading and rereading, the work starts to become us, integrated into our very fabric

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How Repetition Deepens Understanding: The Music Analogy

Imagine listening to a song you love.

The first time you heard it, you were captivated by it—you caught the melody, something in it moved you.

By the tenth time you listened to it, you started to pick up the subtleties in it.

By the fiftieth time, the lyrics began to be a part of you, showing you a different perspective on your own experience.

The song hasn’t changed, but your immersion in it has.

This is what happens with centireading.

You move past the plot and structure of the work and begin to notice the rhythm of sentences, the echoes between themes, and the hidden patterns that only reveal themselves through a deep familiarity.

It is about living inside of the book rather than just visiting it, finding a home rather than a vacation rental.

How Centireading Transformed My Career

I finished graduate school in the middle of the COVID pandemic when everything was locked down.

Since I was a student, I couldn’t get any unemployment, and since the school needed to help its active students, I couldn’t get any classes to teach.

So out of the poverty of student life, I was out on my own without a savings account. I needed money fast, so I started selling door to door.

I sucked.

But someone recommended a seminar on selling to me, and I remembered the centireading article, so I just combined the two.

I listened to that seminar every chance I got until I hit 100 times, then I kept going.

And what happened to me?

I went from sucking at door-to-door sales, making no money, to being promoted to manager, training reps, and running my own team.

I quadrupled my income in that time period from when I started listening to the 100th listen.

The practice of centireading is the only reason I saw any success in that line of work.

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Books as Mirrors: How Rereading Reveals More Over Time

But here I am, away from that career and revisiting a lot of the pleasures I put on hold chasing money—poetry, philosophy, art.

So why not revisit this idea of centireading, a thing that has brought me so much success in the past?

But why reread a book?

Most people believe that once they’ve understood a book, there’s no reason to return to it.

That assumes that understanding is an event, like the click of a light bulb.

Firstly, this is a presumptuous idea of our own capacity for learning. Secondly, this idea assumes that a book has a static or fixed meaning.

Repetition is the Mother of Learning

How many of us stayed up the night before a test and crammed only to still fail? I know I have.

That’s because we can’t learn by being exposed to the knowledge one time. We must have spaced repetitions over and over in order to truly remember it.

And how many of us have reread a book years later only to discover an entire world we had missed?

Meanings in books evolve because we evolve.

Books do not exist in an isolated world—they are filtered through our own experiences, education, and personalities.

A novel isn’t just a narrative with characters undergoing change; it becomes a mirror for who you are at that moment in time.

Deep Reading vs. Passive Consumption

Further, a novel isn’t simply a mirror for you—it is a puzzle unfolding gradually over time.

The themes, symbols, and ideas start to come into focus as we engage with the text.

Most novels, even the airport novels, have layers of meaning that require patient engagement.

A book is something that demands patience and attention.

It is at the opposite spectrum of the skimming we do daily with social media.

Reading forces you to slow down, listen to the rhythms inherent in language, and train your mind to focus on details, reflection, and critical thinking.

And it is in this slowness, this stillness of thought, where centireading starts to pay dividends.

The Power of Depth Over Breadth

By reading and rereading over and over, you train your mind to think differently.

• Instead of seeking the next big thing, you begin to go deeper into what is already available.
• Instead of craving novelty, you discover the joy of mastery.
• Instead of treating a book as an object to consume, you begin to see them as companions that grow with you over time.

Centireading teaches us that depth is more valuable than breadth. That true wisdom demands time, patience, and engagement.

What Book Will You Centiread?

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