I have a habit of re-reading books again and again, something I’ve been thinking about lately, because I think deep down writers want to write books that people re-read over and over — as if they were wise friends, comforting voices, or just a riotous good time that just has to be visited again. (I go to a Six Flags rollercoaster park every summer; I know it’s possible.)

I spent December re-reading all my favorite books, some of them for likely the twentieth-plus time in my life. (That would be Little Women.) Of course the first time I just love the story, or the characters, or the voice, and I want to know what happens and why. But the second, third, fourth or even twentieth time? What does one possibly extract from a book that many times?

There are, of course, many levels to read a book: for pleasure, analysis, cultural import, emotional attachment, wisdom, duty, research, moral instruction, creative inspiration, just to name a few. But as I closed the cover of Little Women after finishing it in December, I knew there was more to it, more to the reason why I pick up some stories again and again.

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At the same time, I was also thinking about gifts. Not just presents and who would get them, but things that people, objects, experiences bring into the world that help shape it and make it a more beautiful, fuller, more interesting place.

An infectious humor. Incisive yet kind discernment. The ability to make life lovely to others, no matter what the circumstances. A true grace. Wild, poetic imagination. A power to look into dark places and not be afraid. You see it as the throughlines in bodies of work, or the feelings great leaders or cultural figures inspire, but it’s also present in everyday people: how my best friend’s beautiful tenor makes everyone stop and smile, because he takes such joy in singing. No matter what route they choose — relationships, words, images, voice, food, songs, clothing — something of their gift comes through.

And then the different strands of thinking converged: I love to re-read stories not just for stories, characters, rich language, gorgeous imagery. I love to revisit them because something about that book’s true gift resonates deep in me, in those corners of life we call spirit and soul. A book offers not just a story, characters, plot points, language: it offers a point of view, an emotion, a spirit or a set of possibilities, a world to step into. Great books, you can argue, offer something much larger than themselves, which is why stories can transcend their execution and resonate across cultures and centuries. But even “lesser” works have a gift. Everyone has a gift. You can argue that life is for developing your gifts and sharing them with the world.

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I’ve been re-thinking books lately through this lens, and it’s clarified why some books are so beloved for me, as well as helped me appreciate books that aren’t so personally resonant. The true gift of Little Women for me is of its innocence, its presentation of the richness of women’s lives in all its possibilities: that fulfillment can come in ways one leasts expects. And while I’ll never love reading On the Road, I can see how people connected to its sense of liberation and freedom and free-wheeling energy.

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Interestingly enough, I’ve been in the middle of another revision to my novel, and now I find myself looking at my beat-up, been-through-hell-and-high-water story through this unfamiliar light: what are my story’s true gifts, its fuller offering to the world? And what can I do as the writer to serve that? Now that I’ve lived with it for almost two years, I hope I know it enough to hear the deeper layers it wants to reach. Submerged usually in questions of craft, publication, and the annoying nitty-gritty that comes up in rewriting, the question of a story’s true gift is a new, unfamiliar question to guide editing. I wonder how it will bear fruit.