The Gloaming

My Reading Rush 2020 TBR

The Reading Rush starts in a couple of weeks and I’ve put together my TBR. The Reading Rush is a weeklong readathon that starts at midnight your times zone on Monday 20 July and finishes at 11:59pm on Sunday 26 July. The Reading Rush has its origins on YouTube and there’s a YouTube channel, a Twitter, an Instagram and a website.

There’s reading challenges but you don’t have to try and do all of them, the main point of the readathon (as with most readathons) is to read as much as possible. The reading challenges are:

1. Read a book with a cover that matches the colour of your birth stone.
2. Read a book that starts with the word “The”.
3. Read a book that inspired a movie you’ve already seen.
4. Read the first book you touch.
5. Read a book completely outside of your house. With everything going on at the minute, you can change this up to mean sit in front of an open window, listen to outdoor ASMR videos while reading etc there’s more suggestions on the website.
6. Read a book in a genre that you’ve always wanted to read more of.
7. Read a book that takes place on a different continent than where you live.

I know I won’t read seven books and have one for each challenge so I’m all for using books for multiple challenges. Out of the seven challenges the one I definitely won’t be doing is “Read a book that inspired a movie you’ve already seen” as while I’ve seen a few films that were book adaptations that I haven’t read the source material, I don’t have any of those books.

Read a book with a cover that matches the colour of your birth stone
The Gloaming by Kirsty Logan
I’m a September baby so my birthstone is sapphire and one of the only blue books I have is The Gloaming. One of my Twitter pals read this a few months ago and said positive things about it so that has made me want to get to it sooner.

Read a book that starts with the word “The”
The Matter of Desire by Edmundo Paz Soldán or The Restless by Gerty Dambury or The Gloaming
Got a few options for this one which is always nice.

Read the first book you touch
The Restless or Hawkeye: Kate Bishop Vol.1: Anchor Points by Kelly Thompson, Leonardo Romero, Michael Walsh and Jordie Bellaire
I got together all the books from my Summer TBR that I hadn’t read yet (which is eight books), shut my eyes, waved my hand around a bit and then touched one. Well I wasn’t smart and put my whole hand down and ended up on two books so again, I’ve got options here.

Read a book completely outside of your house
Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki or Hawkeye: Kate Bishop Vol.1: Anchor Points
As this challenge is open to interpretation, my thinking is if I do decide to read outside (there’s some grassy areas where not many people are near where I live) I’ll read the comic because it’s shorter, or if I don’t fancy that, I’ll read Three Summers as it’s set in the countryside and has a very outdoorsy cover.

Read a book in a genre that you’ve always wanted to read more of
Three Summers
Is “classic” a genre? I’m gonna say it is for this challenge. Three Summers is called a “modern Greek classic” so I’m just running with that.

Read a book that takes place on a different continent than where you live.
The Matter of Desire or The Restless
My Read the World Project comes in handy for this one. I live in Europe and The Matter of Desire is set in both the United States and Bolivia while The Restless is set in Guadeloupe – so that covers North America, Central America and the Caribbean.

That’s five books on my TBR and as there’s some overlap with challenges I could read four of them and complete these six challenges. Are you taking part in the Reading Rush? If you are, I hope it’s a very successful reading week for you.

O.W.L.’s Magical Readathon 2020

The O.W.L.’s Magical Readathon returns next month! This month-long readathon is the brainchild of Gi at Book Roast on YouTube and it’s the third year it’s happened. Last year was the first year I took part and after successfully completing my O.W.L.’s and N.E.W.T.’s I qualified to be a Ministry Worker in the Department of International Magical Cooperation.

The challenge is based on the Hogwarts examinations in the world of Harry Potter, but you don’t need to know a lot about it or be a Harry Potter fan to take part in the challenge. The basic premise is that each Hogwarts subject has its own prompt, you read a book that fits that prompt and then you’ve achieved an O.W.L. in that subject. This readathon lasts the entirety of April so it gives you plenty of time to try and cram in as many O.W.L.’s aka books as possible. For more information on the readathon see Gi’s announcement video. It’s clear she puts in a lot of work into this challenge, she makes study guides and a career guide that has information on lots of magical careers and the subjects you need to study in order to be able to progress in that career.

This year there’s some new careers and bonus courses, seminars and training if you want to challenge yourself. I’ve decided that my chosen career this year is Mage of Visual Arts. This sounds like a fun career as you make the pictures and portraits move and it’s the most like the muggle world of film. The O.W.L.’s I need to earn are in Astronomy, Charms, Divination, and History of Magic. That’s four books I need to read but I would also like to push myself and do an extra training course. I would like to learn to operate locomotive trains aka the Hogwarts Express. I love driving cars, so as there’s no course on learning how to drive a flying car (yet!) it’d be fun to learn how to drive a train. The O.W.L.’s I need for that are Defence Against the Dark Arts and Muggle Studies. So, the total number of books I need to read in April is six. That’s doable for me.

I’ve had a look at my bookshelves and below are the books I plan to read to get my O.W.L.’s to become a Mage of Visual Arts. I’ve also got books for the other O.W.L.’s in case I do better than expected and can fit in a couple more books during the month.

Ancient Runes – Heart rune: heart on the cover or in the title
A Dream So Dark by L.L. McKinney
I’m reaching a bit here, but it has the word “heart” and a heart shaped key on the cover, so I think it counts. I read A Blade So Black last year for my N.E.W.T.’s so it’d be cool to read the sequel for my O.W.L.’s.

Arithmancy – Magical qualities of number 2: balance/opposites – read something outside your favourite genre
Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
I’m not even sure what my favourite genre is anymore (I’m going to probably do a blog post about that at some point) but a genre I don’t read that often is sci-fi so that’s the reason I’ve chosen Gemina.

Astronomy – Night classes: read majority of this book when it’s dark outside
Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki
This book is relatively short at 240 pages and is about sisters growing up in the countryside in Athens before the Second World War.

Care of Magical Creatures – Hippogriffs: creature with a beak on the cover
Infinite Son by Adam Silvera
After going through all my books because I really wasn’t sure if I had a book that had creature with a beak, I found one!

Charms – Lumos Maxima: white cover
The Bloodprint by Ausma Zehanat Khan or The Architect’s Apprentice by Elif Shafak
The Bloodprint is a book I bought just because the cover was super pretty and all I know is it’s a fantasy. The Architect’s Apprentice is a historical fiction and is set during the Ottoman Empire. Both have white covers.

Defence Against the Dark Arts – Grindylows: book set at the sea/coast
Viper by Bex Hogan or The Gloaming by Kirsty Logan
Both books take place on islands and heavily involve the sea. I think Viper is more of a pirate book while The Gloaming is more of a mermaid/fairy tale book – I think!

Divination – Third eye: assign numbers to your TBR and use a random number generator to pick your read
Hawkeye: Avenging Archer by Jim McCann, David Lopez, Duane Swierczynski, Manuel Garcia and Paco Diaz
Putting together all the unread books I have on my kindle, on audio and in my flat (there’s more unread books at my mum’s) I had 47 books for the random number generator to choose from. It picked number 17 which was Hawkeye: Avenging Archer which I couldn’t have picked better myself as comics/graphic novels are always a good idea in a readathon.

Herbology – Mimbulus mimbletonia: title starts with an M
Mama Hissa’s Mice by Saud Alsanousi
Turns out I have one book that has a title that begins with the letter M so I guess I’m going to be reading Mama Hissa’s Mice.

History of Magic – Witch hunts: book featuring witches/wizards
Angel Mage by Garth Nix or Truthwitch by Susan Dennard or mystery book
This one was surprisingly difficult. I’m not sure if Angel Mage has witches or wizards in it but there is magic. Based on the title and the premise I’m pretty sure Truthwitch features witches. Or the last witchy-book I could read for this prompt is one I don’t have yet. I’ve ordered April’s Wildest Dreams book box and the book apparently has “Witches and scientists, sisters and lovers, priestesses and rebels” so that could work too.

Muggle Studies – Book from a perspective of a muggle (contemporary)
The Places I’ve Cried in Public by Holly Bourne
This looks like it’s a sad contemporary about a relationship that’s ending and it’s potentially wasn’t a healthy relationship either.

Potions – Shrinking Solution: book under 150 pages
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid
I’ve got A Small Place on audiobook and according to Goodreads it is 81 pages long so definitely works for this challenge.

Transfiguration – Animagus lecture: book/series that includes shapeshifting
Downfall by Rob Thurman or The Invasion by K.A. Applegate
This subject was hard to find a book for as I don’t really read many books with shapeshifting in them and I don’t think any of my unread books have it in either. After looking at my bookshelves, the only book I could find that would fit was Downfall. It’s an urban fantasy and I remember earlier on in the series there were werewolves so that’d count. The other option is the fact I recently learnt that apparently all the Animorphs books are available online for free. Animorphs isn’t a series I read as a child but I have vague memories of the TV show, and as they’re children’s books they’re likely to be short and easy to read (which is always a good thing for a readathon) so I could pick up the first book in the series.

That’s my TBR for this years’ O.W.L.’s Magical Readathon. Are you taking part in the readathon and what career are you aiming for? In August there’s the N.E.W.T.’s which can be even more challenging and will be the final hurdle for achieving your chosen career. Wish me luck!