Anniversaries and remembrance of things past

Wordpress sent me a cheery anniversary message today, 6 years of blissful blogging. Apart from making me shudder (as anniversaries tend to do) at the speed with which life seems to slither past, it made me think about anniversaries and reading.

The centenary of the outbreak of the first world war burst upon us this week in a cloud of poppies and subdued pride (yes, some people did some brave and amazing things but wouldn't it have been marvellous if they'd never been in that situation in the first place) and it's been nudging me towards re-reading Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves, or more likely digging out my battered old hardback Wilfred Owen. Aside from poetry, which doesn't seem to count in the re-reading stakes, I'd rather turn up books from or about the war that I haven't already read (what with life slithering past at an alarming rate and there being only so many books a person can fit in) so if anyone has any recommendations, let me know. In Pale Battalions by Robert Goddard was a good one I read and reviewed recently.

Undoubtedly there are many people reading around world war one this year, but what about other anniversaries or major events? Do you have a book you re-read every birthday, or on the anniversary of some treaty or battle, or the day you left school? I've said before that Big Brother reads A Christmas Carol every December, but I don't have anything similar (except a couple of cartoon books) since I rarely re-read books (though I have been revisiting Psmith these last couple of weeks, via the pages of PG Wodehouse, and most glad I am about it. First borrowed in paperback from BB over 20 years ago and now freely available for e-readers, hurrah).

So the question is, I suppose - should I? Are there any books I should build into my year, leave a free weekend for or dip into to revive memories (my own or other people's)? Even as I typed that I got a sudden flash of a book I read a few times as a child and haven't seen or probably thought about for nearly 20 years, An Inch of Candle by Alison Leonard. It's set in world war one but beyond the possibility that the girl scandalously rides a bike, I can't remember a thing (and a quick google makes me none the wiser). I wouldn't want to remind myself any further by actually reading bits of it, it might not be as good as the memory. Which I think answers my question: remember the old, but use the occasion to find something new. There's a whole world of books waiting.