Curtis McHale is thinking about re-reading, something I've been doing a lot of this year. I hate having rules for my relaxation activities, so I am not exclusively re-reading, but I have found myself going back to some old favorites.

One of my favorite teenage reads was the X-Wing series by Michael A. Stackpole, now written out of the official canon. I have dogeared paperbacks from a library sale in undergrad, stacked in a box in my basement while we reorganize bookshelves, though this time I've been reading the Kindle versions while traveling between Detroit and Boston. I loathe Amazon, but the Kindle can't be beaten for reading on the go.

In my early 20s I discovered William Gibson in the college bookstore and tore through his complete works, going head-over-heels for cyberpunk. I'm re-reading them now and finding that 1) they still hold up for my more mature perspective, and 2) they feel just as prescient today. If you haven't read Gibson, I'd suggest starting with Neuromancer to get the feel for his style, but The Peripheral is his best book to date IMO (and a great short-lived series on Prime Video).

Re-reading has been fun. Even though I rarely take notes on fiction reads, I could still clearly recall my impressions and headspace from the first time around. It was a simple conversation with myself, but still a conversation.