Viper

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!

TOP TEN TUESDAY: Spring 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 Spring (and what with this coronavirus stuff, I might actually read all of these in the next few months if I can’t leave the house). The first five books are all audiobooks I’ve recently purchased. I go through phases of buying audiobooks – especially when there’s offers on – and they’re all for my Read the World Project.

The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell
Now I don’t really know much about this one, just that it’s set in Zambia and I think it follows a couple of families for generations.

United States of Banana by Giannina Braschi
This seems like a bit of an odd book but an interesting one. It seems like it’s an alternate history kind of thing, set post 9/11 the Puerto Rican prisoner Segismundo has been imprisoned for more than one hundred years, hidden away by his father, the king of the United States of Banana. But when the king frees his son, he makes Puerto Rico the fifty-first state and grants American passports to all Latin American citizens, causing an unexpected power shift with far-reaching implications.

The Door by Magda Szabó
The Door is about the relationship between two women of opposing backgrounds and personalities: one, an intellectual and writer; the other, her housekeeper, a mysterious, elderly woman who sets her own rules and abjures religion, education, pretence and any kind of authority.

A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid
An expansive essay on colonialism and its effects in Antigua.

Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex by Oksana Zabuzhko
My read for Ukraine. All I know about this one is that it caused a stir in Ukraine and it’s very feminist.

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
I received this via TBTB Santa (thanks again Jocelyn!) and I really want to read it sooner, rather than later. Especially as I think the sequel has recently been published so it’d be nice to read them close together.

Mama Hissa’s Mice by Saud Alsanousi
This would be my read for Kuwait and it’ll be the first book I’ve ever read that’s set there.

What Would Boudicca Do? by E. Foley and B. Coates
This was a gift from my best friend and sounds like a great non-fiction read about gaining inspiration from powerful and resourceful women throughout history.

Viper by Bex Hogan
I got this book in a subscription box last year and I remember my friend Bryony reading it and liking it so it’s about time I got to it. It’s kind of a pirate/sea book I think and I can’t even remember the last time I read something like that.

Infinity Son by Adam Silvera
Another book I received in a subscription box. It’s been a while since I’ve read some urban fantasy (I think that’s what this is) or fantasy in general, and I’ve yet to read a book by Adam Silvera so I’m interested in seeing what I make of his writing style.

If you’ve read any of these, I’d love to hear your thoughts on them. What books are you hoping to get to over the next few months?

Reading Rush TBR

The Reading Rush starts next week, and I’ve finally got my TBR together. The Reading Rush is the revamped BookTubeAThon (a readathon that will always have a special place in my heart as it was the first readathon I ever took part in) and takes place from midnight your time zone on Monday 22 July and finishes at 11:59pm on Sunday 28 July. They have a YouTube channel and Instagram, and a brand-new website (I’m ElenaSquareEyes over there as well) for people to meet and there will the usual Twitter chats and sprints too.

The Reading Rush comes with some challenges you can try and complete but really the aim is to read as much as you can during the week. There are video challenges too but that’s far too technical for me. The reading challenges are;

1. Read a book with purple on the cover
2. Read a book in the same spot the entire time
3. Read a book you meant to read last year
4. Read an author’s first book
5. Read a book with a non-human main character
6. Pick a book that has five or more words in the title
7. Read and watch a book to movie adaptation
Bonus: Read 7 books!

You know me when it comes to readathons, I’m always look for as many options as possible because I’m such a mood reader. I know I won’t read seven books but with the books I do have, I could potentially complete all but one of the challenges as the books I have on my TBR fit more than one challenge.

Purple on the cover
I have three books that fit this – Viper by Bex Hogan, Hawkeye: Avenging Archer by Jim McCann, David López, Duane Swierczynski, Manuel Garcia and Paco Diaz and West Coast Avengers Vol. 1: Best Coast by Kelly Thompson, Stefano Caselli and Tríona Farrell. Viper has an incredibly purple cover and there’s bits of purple on characters costumes on the two graphic novels.

Read in the same spot
Obviously, I will complete this by reading one of the graphic novels (probably West Coast Avengers as it’s the shorter one). The spot in question will probably be my bed.

Book you meant to read last year
This is The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. I was meant to read this for Sci-Fi Month last November (there was a buddy read of it and everything!) and I did read 30 pages but then I stopped even though I was liking the characters and the setting I’d been introduced to so far.

Author’s first book
I’ve got a couple of options for that; Viper and The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.

Book with a non-human main character
I’m pretty sure in the first 30 pages of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet that I read there were a few non-human characters in the shape of different aliens, and as it’s a sort of ensemble cast type book, that’ll count.

Book with five or more words in the title
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet fits this one again, as does How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišić. I don’t actually have many books with five words or more, so this was a bit of a struggle to find some options.

I won’t be able to complete the final challenge to read a book and then watch the film/TV adaptation as I don’t currently have any books to read that have been adapted.

Looking at my TBR and the challenges they fit, I only need to read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and West Coast Avengers to complete six of the seven challenges! I could totally read them both in a week! I think my plan is going to be to read them two first and then any of the other books I read during Reading Rush will be a bonus.

Are you taking part in the Reading Rush? There seems to be a few readathons going on at the minute so if you are taking part in one, I hope you are achieving your goals and are enjoying what you’re reading!

Bout of Books 25 TBR

Bout of Books is back! It’s a weeklong readathon that happens multiple times a year. This round begins at midnight on Monday 13 May and finishes 11:59pm on Sunday 19 May no matter what timezone you’re in.

Apparently readathons are my thing this year – or at least I’m trying to make them my thing. I was successful at the OWLs readathon last month, reading all the required books for my chosen career, and I’m currently in the middle of the Avengers Readathon. I’m lagging a bit on that readathon if I’m honest though. My current read Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi is good, but it’s slower paced than I thought it’d be so I can’t quite get into it at the minute. Hopefully having Bout of Books to look forward to will get me reading more again.

Viper by Bex Hogan
Burn for Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian
Maybe This Time by Alois Hotschnig, translated by Tess Lewis
African Titanics by Abu Bakr Khaal, translated by Charis Bredin

Once again, I’ve got a mixture of YA and super short books on my readathon TBR.

Burn for Burn is the last book I need to read for the Avengers Readathon, and it sounds like a book that I’ll fly through. I’m loving the trend of YA books about teen girls standing up for themselves and/or getting revenge on those who’ve hurt them. Viper is a book that’s recently come into my life and I’ve wanted to read it ever since a friend showed off the cover on Twitter. I’m so bad at reading books I want to read as soon as I get them, so by the time I do read them I’m not so excited about them so they don’t have the same impact.

African Titanics and Maybe This Time are both barely over 100 pages so if I plan ahead, I could totally read each of them in one sitting. They’re for my Read the World project, Eritrea and Austria respectively, and Maybe This Time is a collection of short stories so they’re totally readable in one sitting.

I will probably not get a lot of reading done during the weekend of Bout of Books. On the Saturday I’m taking part in a 24-hour movie marathon to raise money for charity, so I think I’ll be somewhat sleep deprived and useless on the Sunday!

There’s my TBR for the next Bout of Books readathon. Wish me luck!

Avengers Readathon 2019 TBR

Even though I’m already in the middle of the OWLs Magical Readathon (you can check up on my progress on Twitter) I happened to spot on Twitter last night another readathon that was very much my brand. The Perks of Being Noura is hosting an Avengers themed readathon from 14 April to 14 May. Needless to say, as soon as I saw the hashtag I knew I had to take part.

For the Avengers Readathon you can choose up to two profiles. There are 18 different SHIELD profiles, each designed after a different Avengers character, and they each have between three and nine assignments/challenges that you fit each book to. There’s more information on the readathon, including a google doc with all the different characters and their prompts, here.

Choosing a character was the hard part for me. Should I choose my favourite character, or should I be more pragmatic about it and choose a character that had fewer prompts, or where there’s a character profile that I could definitely complete? There is the option to skip no more than two of the assignments from a chosen profile, so there is some wiggle room if needed. Also, it’s totally fine to cross over your Avengers Readathon TBR with any other readathon TBRs you might currently be participating in at the same time – so in my case that’d be the OWLs.

After looking through my TBR and all the prompts (I had a colour coded spreadsheet and everything) I figured out the character profile I would focus on and that’s Ant-Man! Ant-Man had three assignments and then you had to pick one assignment from any other character profile.

Ant-Man’s Suit: Book with red on the cover
The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
This is a very red cover and it’s one on my OWLs TBR and one I will definitely be reading this month as I need that OWL for my chosen career path.

Ant-thony: A book with 100 pages or less
Trout, Belly Up by Rodrigo Fuentes, translated by Ellen Jones
This is the one book I have that’s under 100 pages! It’s a collection of interconnected short stories that comes in at 97 pages.

Ant-Man & the Wasp: Book with multiple points of view or buddy read a book
Burn for Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian
This book is from three characters points of view. It is a contemporary story where three girls plan to get revenge on the boys who have hurt them.

From Loki’s profile – God of Mischief: Retelling
Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi, translated by Jonathan Wright
Another one from my OWLs and as this has been at the top of my TBR since the start of this year, including it on this readathon’s TBR as well means I’ll definitely be reading it.

Now if I manage to read all of them (which I should as two of them are for the OWLs readathon anyway), the second character I’ve chosen is Hawkeye aka my ultimate fave. Hawkeye has just three assignments on his profile.

Hawkeye: Heists and Espionage
Hawkeye: Avenging Archer by Jim McCann, David López, Duane Swierczynski, Manuel Garcia and Paco Diaz
This graphic novel is a collection of four different story arc, and they feature super spy Mockingbird so that totally counts for espionage.

Ronin: Debut book
Viper by Bex Hogan
I got this in a subscription box very recently and I’d like to read it sooner rather than later so this works out perfectly.

Master Marksman: Book with an archer protagonist
West Coast Avengers Vol. 1: Best Coast by Kelly Thompson, Stefano Caselli and Tríona Farrell
Another one that’s also on my OWLs TBR and as it features both Clint Barton and Kate Bishop, I’ve got two archer protagonists.

I better get reading! I’ll probably start a Twitter thread to track my progress and like everyone else I’ll be using the #AvengersReadathon19 on Twitter and anywhere else. Are you taking part in the Avengers Readathon? I’m glad I heard about it when I did because it starts today! I’m currently reading a book for my OWLs that’s not mentioned here, but I think my next read will be The Angel’s Game – two birds, one stone and all that!

March’s FairyLoot Box – Favourites

It’s been over a year since I last got a FairyLoot box and I very rarely get subscription boxes in general, but I thought as March was FairyLoot’s three-year anniversary it could be a pretty cool box to get. As well as being the anniversary box (meaning it was purple instead of the usual black) the theme was Favourites.

FairyLoot is a monthly UK-based subscription box that focusses on YA fantasy. There’s usually at least one book, with them potentially being signed and/or having an exclusive cover or sprayed edges, and about five items related to books or fandoms.

The first thing I saw was a very pretty and cool scarf that was an exclusive design from Cara Kozik. The illustration on it was a couple of bookshelves with many popular and well-loved YA books on it. There was Children of Blood and Bone, Cinder, Lady Midnight and Shadow and Bone. Honestly, if you can think of it, it probably was on there.

There were some Alice in Wonderland-inspired bookish socks created by Team FairyLoot. Also made by Team FairyLoot were bookish sticky tabs which I’m sure will come in very handy and an enamel pin to celebrate FairyLoot’s anniversary. There was a gold metal bookmark from KDP Letters with a quote from Strange the Dreamer. Three art prints from morgana0anagrom which were very cool and the (what I presume is) Warcross one made me interesting in picking up the book because the character design was not something I’d seen before. The other two prints were for An Ember in the Ashes and The Cruel Prince.

There were also two more tarot cards of characters from Six of Crows – I think? They look like Jesper and Wylan anyway. The tarot cards are something that are included in each FairyLoot box and I believe different artists will be used in every couple of boxes.

There were two books in March’s FairyLoot box. Viper by Hex Hogan which is a book I’d actually seen around and I love the cover. The cover is an exclusive to FairyLoot (it’s purple rather than black I believe) and it’s signed by the author. It’s a story of magic, murder and the high seas with the seventeen-year-old heroine fighting to protect the islands from a dangerous foe who also happens to be her father. It is the first book in a trilogy.

The other book was To Best The Boys by Mary Webber which I hadn’t heard of before. This book was signed by the author, has sprayed edges and came with a letter from the author which was on the back of an art print by icandrawthingz. To Best The Boys is about a competition for a scholarship to an esteemed university that only boys may enter. Rhen dreams of being a scientist and as the people in her town fall ill to a deadly disease, she decides to pretend to be a boy in order to enter the competition and save her town.

That’s everything that was included in March’s FairyLoot box. If I’m honest, I was expecting something more from an anniversary edition, it didn’t feel that special compared to previous boxes, both ones I’ve received and ones I’ve seen people unbox. However, I like the sound of both books and as someone who is generally more interested in the books rather than the items in subscription boxes, I can’t be too mad.

Does anyone know of subscription boxes/services that are more focused on the book than the gifts? Or are there any book-only book boxes? I do think subscription boxes like FairyLoot are pretty great, but I also think they can cost a lot if you don’t really like or care about the items. This is why I generally only get one off subscription boxes from anyone when I like the sound of the theme.