Our Library Bag: September 2020

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Last month was all about making new literary friends, while this has been about revisiting old favorites.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

I was very excited when I saw that there was a prequel to the Hunger Games trilogy coming out!  I placed myself on the library wait list and had to patiently avoid all spoilers for a couple of months.  I did see some vague posts of saying that you'll either love it or hate it.  I fall into the first category.  I thought that it was great!  I loved the way that various details of the original books were given history.  Who doesn't love backstory?  I appreciate that Snow doesn't come out of it as a sympathetic villain -- he consciously made his choices.  Even though the book is significantly over 400 pages long, I wanted about another 150 . . . or more . . . pages of story!  I've seen rumors of a squeal, I hope that comes to fruition!  (Random tangential note: I've been to the state forest where some of the Hunger Games was filmed!)

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I'm currently engrossed in the new Hunger Games novel, "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes". So far, I think it's r e a l l y good but for an older audience than the original trilogy. Also, this is a sneak peek of my new bookcase! It's going to be awesome! #hungergames #theballardofsongbirdsandsnakes #suzannecollins #homelibrary #reading #ilovetoread #ilovebooks #YAlit

A post shared by Rachel Furlong (@philwife) on Aug 31, 2020 at 11:00am PDT

Of course, once I finished Ballad, I simply had to follow it up with a re-read of the entire trilogy.  (Not actually from our library bag, as I was gifted a beautiful hardback set.) I immensely enjoyed this re-read.  One of my favorite-people-that-I've-never-met-in-real-life, Sarah Mackenzie, has an awesome podcast titled, "Why Re-reading is Possibly the Best Reading".  While she might be mainly referring to children the sentiment and reasoning is sound for grown ups too.  My bookshelves are filled with books that I fully intend to re-read, and some I honestly plan to read more than once.  Who wouldn't want to spend time with old friends? 

Do you make plans to re-read certain books?