How To Be A Heroine

TOP TEN TUESDAY: Super Long Book Titles

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl. This week it’s all about super long book titles. These are all books I’ve read, and I think some of these book titles are deceptive as when you count the words there’s not as many as you think, they just have a lot of syllables. I noticed a lot of these books are non-fiction – those semi colons definitely help book titles to become longer!

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
Fear and Loathing in La Liga: Barcelona vs Real Madrid by Sid Lowe
The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker
Butterfly: From Refugee to Olympian, My Story of Rescue, Hope and Triumph by Yusra Mardini
The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After by Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil

Gould’s Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish by Richard Flanagan
Roger Federer & Rafael Nadal: The Lives and Careers of Two Tennis Legends by Sebastián Fest
Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash by Eka Kurniawan
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
How to be a Heroine (Or, what I’ve learned from reading too much) by Samantha Ellis

Have you read any of these long-titled books? And do you find some books don’t have so many words in the title as you first think they do?

N.E.W.T.’s Magical Readathon 2020

The N.E.W.T.’s Magical Readathon is the brainchild of Gi at BookRoast on YouTube. The N.E.W.T.’s are the next exams/readathon after the O.W.L.’s which took place a few months ago.

This readathon is inspired by the exams in the Harry Potter books. While J.K. Rowling has been problematic in the past, over the past few months her blatant transphobia has reached a new level of awful and harmful. Gi posted a video showing how she was torn about separating the art from the artist, how she felt about the future of the Magical Readathon and this edition of the NEWTs. She decided to give out the prompts for this readathon so people can complete their exams for their chosen careers but the readathon won’t be hosted on Twitter and the Magical Readathon will change next year – becoming something that doesn’t have close links to the world of Harry Potter.

I agree with and understand Gi’s decision. This is only the second year I’ve taken part in the Magical Readathon, but I like how inventive it is and how many books it encourages me to read in a month. I’ve decided that I will take part in the NEWTs in August. This is in part because I’m a bit of a completist but also because I’ve struggled a bit to read any books this past month and I hope this readathon will get me reading again.

After taking part in the O.W.L.’s readathon in April and successfully reading all the books/completing all the exams I need to be a Mage of Visual Arts and to learn to operate locomotive trains aka the Hogwarts Express, I now need to achieve Acceptable in two subjects – Astronomy and History of Magic – and achieve Acceptable and Exceeded Expectations in Divination and Muggle Studies. That means if I want to be qualified for my magical career, I need to read six books during the readathon which is doable for me.

I’ve looked through my bookshelves and while the below books are for the exams I need, I’ve also found books that will fit most of the other prompts if I read more or feel inspired. Because in real life my career has taken varied paths, I like to keep my options open even when it comes to fictional careers, so if I do get back into reading I’ll be trying to complete as many exams as possible in order to give me more career options and skills.

Astronomy: Acceptable – Star on the cover/in the title
A Phoenix First Must Burn edited by Patrice Caldweel
Think this is one of the only books I own that has stars on the cover and they are there! They are just very very small.

Divination: Acceptable – Read a book with red on the cover
Black Widow: Forever Red by Margaret Stohl OR Spain: The Inside Story of La Roja’s Historic Treble by Graham Hunter OR How to be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis
All these books have various amounts of red on the cover and I’m not sure which one I’m going to go with yet. I’m leaning towards Spain: The Inside Story of La Roja’s Historic Treble as it’s ten years since Spain won the World Cup and I’ve been big into my nostalgia feels about that recently, but it is one of the larger books at over 400 pages. We shall see how I feel.

Divination: Exceed Expectations – First unread book you look at
Hawkeye: Kate Bishop Vol. 3: Family Reunion by Kelly Thompson, Leonardo Romero and Jordie Bellaire
Bit odd to mention the third volume before the second but that’s what happens when you list your TBR in alphabetical order by subjects. I was looking at my unread comics and it was either this or West Coast Avengers, and as I’d like to finish this series before starting another one, I went with this.

History of Magic: Acceptable – Read a historical fiction
She Would be King by Wayétu Moore
I’ll be listening to this on audiobook and it’s nine and a half hours long which will take me about two weeks to read. She Would be King is a mixture of historical fiction and magical realism and follows three characters who share a bond.

Muggle Studies: Acceptable – Read a comic
Hawkeye: Kate Bishop Vol. 2: Masks by Kelly Thompson, Daniele Di Nicuolo, Gang Hyuk Lim and Moy R.
I read the first volume of this series during the Reading Rush this past week so thought this would be a good time to continue with it.

Muggle Studies: Exceeded Expectations – Read a book written by an author of a different race than yourself
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
Because of my Read the World Project I have a few books that’d fit this prompt, but I decided to go with a contemporary story as I can usually read them very quickly and it’s one I only got at the beginning of this month.

That’s my TBR for what will be the last N.E.W.T.’s. Usually I keep track of my reading on Twitter, partly to share my progress in the readathon and partly to hold myself accountable, but not sure if I will this time due to the kind of dark cloud over the readathon but we shall see what happens. Will you be taking part in the N.E.W.T.’s this year?

TOP TEN TUESDAY: Winter TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl. This week it’s what books we plan to read this winter. I’m not particularly a seasonal mood reader but here are a mixture of books I’d like to read before 2019 finishes and books I want to get to early in the New Year.

The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam
I really want to hit 100 books read for my Read the World Project by the end of 2019 and I’m really close (I’ve read 98 books/countries) and The Good Muslim is a book that’s recently come into my life and it will cross off Bangladesh from my TBR. The Good Muslim is about two siblings who have been scarred by war and how they attempt to reconnect.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
I’ve had this book on my TBR for years, probably since it was first released and got all of its praise. I recently got the audiobook cheap so I’m hoping that’ll give me the push to finally read it.

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott and Harmony Becker
Graphic novels are always a good way to get more books read before the year is out. I’m sure this will be a tough one though as it’s based on George Takei’s childhood experiences in a internment camp.

Night, Again edited by Linh Dinh
This is a short story collection from different Vietnamese writers so theoretically it should be a relatively quick read.

How To Be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis
I received this through TBTBSanta a few years ago and I still really want to read it. It’s an essay collection about the roles of literary heroines in our lives and how their stories can impact us.

Only God Can Make a Tree by Bertram Roach
Another one for my Read the World Project this book is by an author form Saint Kitts and Nevis and it’s a pretty short book at less than 150 pages.

Black Panther: The Complete Collection Vol. 1 by Christopher Priest, Mark Texeria, Vince Evans, Joe Jusko, Mike Manley, Mark Bright and Sal Velluto
I got this graphic novel collection for my birthday a few months ago and it’d be good to read it soon. Plus, T’Challa is one of my favourite Marvel characters so I would like to learn more about his history.

The Places I’ve Cried in Public by Holly Bourne
Contemporary YA, even hard-hitting YA, is often very easy and quick for me to read so maybe I’ll get through this one before the end of the year.

Feminists Don’t Wear Pink (and other lies) curated by Scarlett Curtis
I do like reading essay collections as they can be something you can dip in and out of, I think that’s how I’ll read this book over the next few months.

Truthwitch by Susan Dennard
I got this book in a subscription box years ago and I did try to read it then, but I couldn’t really get into it. Since then I’ve heard more and more good things about this series, so I want to give it another go.

What books do you want to read this winter?