Why must an author repeat?

I love book series. I love stories which build a history for the characters but I have one complaint. Every author inevitably repeats much of the history at the beginning of the story. This means for those of us who have read the previous books a long repetition of information. Why can’t authors place in the front of the books a headline which is titled:  Character Backgrounds, then write a brief or detailed history of the major characters. It would save those of us who read all the books from tedious repetition and for people who start with a book mid-series they will still have the necessary background information to fully enjoy the story.

Am I the only one who finds this repetition annoying? I understand why authors do it but I just think there has to be a way to spare those of us who read a lot.