Books Are Jazzy

A reader lives a thousand lives before they die. The person who never reads lives only one.



Back in late March, I found out about the Magical Readathon hosted by Book Roast on Youtube! As a lifelong Harry Potter fan, I jumped at the opportunity to pretend to be a Hogwarts student for a month. This is the second year of the readathon and my first year taking part in it!

The Magical Readathon is based around the exams students take at Hogwarts and is hosted in two parts: the first part, which are the O.W.LS, takes place in April and the second part, the N.E.W.Ts, takes place in August. And just like Hogwarts students taking their exams, you're meant to do the O.W.Ls readathon before you take the N.E.W.Ts.

There is a list of careers to choose from and your readathon experience and challenges come from your chosen career. My chosen career for 2019 is Seer - maybe next year I'll have enough time to attempt the daunting Alchemist career, which would have been my first choice. In order to become a Seer, I needed to take three O.W.L. exams (read three books), which were for the subjects Ancient Runes, Astronomy, and Divination and each subject corresponded to a different prompt. For Ancient Runes the prompt was to read a retelling, for Astronomy it was to read a book with "star" in the title, and for Divination it was a book set in the future. The books I read for these prompts were Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer, Ctaching Stars by Cayla Keenan, and The Towering Sky by Katharine McGee, respectively.

Isn't this description of the career stunning?

While for the O.W.Ls, I only needed to read one book per subject, for the N.E.W.Ts the number of books you need to read per subject is determined by the grade you need to achieve in that subject for your career. So, for the career of Seer, I need to achieve an Outstanding so I'll need to read all three books for that subject.

If all of this sounds confusing, you can find all the information for the O.W.Ls readathon here and the info for N.E.W.Ts readathon here!

After all of that, here are the prompts for my subject followed by the book I have planned to read for that prompt for the N.E.W.Ts readathon:
  • Acceptable in Divination: Read a white book
    • Runousopin perusteet by Mervi Kantokorpi, Pirjo Lyytikäinen, and Auli Viikari
  • Exceeds Expectations in Divination: Read a short story or a collection of short stories
    • Toil and Trouble: 15 Tales of Women and Witchcraft edited by Jessica Spotswood and Tess Sharpe
  • Outstanding in Divination: Read the last book you bought / took from the library
    • At the time of making my TBR this was The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen, and I'll try to keep to that unless I grab something I absolutely have to read as soon as I get it. 
Finally, if I have time I'll try to read the group book Spellslinger by Sebastien de Castell!

Are you taking part in the Magical Readathon? If you were a student at Hogwarts, what magical career would you want? Let me know in the comments below!

-Laura

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ARC August is an annual readathon hosted by Read.Sleep.Repeat., with the aim of helping book reviewers get through their piles and piles of unread ARC's (Advance Reader's Copies) during the month of August. This is the 6th year of the readathon, but the first time I'm taking part in it! You can read Read.Sleep.Repeat.'s original announcement for it here!

This year they have created a host of challenges to take part in during the readathon, including a word search, a crossword puzzle, and a bingo! Personally, I'm most looking forward to hopefully filling out the Bingo card as I read through some ARC's. Check out the empty card below!



I'll be posting pictures of the card on our instagram stories as I fill it out, and you can follow along here!

When I started making my TBR, I knew it would end up being way longer than what I'll actually have time to read, but I wanted to really challenge myself and see how many of these books I could read through during my last two weeks of vacation before I head back to college. And now, without further ado, my TBR list for #ARCAugust!






Are any of you taking part in #ARCAugust or any other readathons this month? Let me know in the comments below!

-Laura
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Wow. It feels like such a long long time since I've last written one of these - a blog post for Books Are Jazzy. I checked that my last entry was in June but honestly it feels much longer than that.

I've missed this.

We took a break of undetermined length together with Laura because we were feeling a little uninspired and the whole blog had turned into more of a burden then an outlet of creativity. Slowly, over the past few weeks, maybe a couple of months even, I started to notice my love for reading and writing to grow again and I felt a really big want to share that passion once again.

So, that is how I find myself back here now, writing this.

I think I want to take it slow to reassure that this feels good and is a source creating joy, not draining me of it. It will be in your best interests too, don't worry, since I honestly believe it shows wether one does something out of honest will or a feeling of must.

For now I'm just going to leave you with a few points from the last months that I have been absent.

-I finished quite many books. And really good ones at that! I haven't in a long time felt this excited about books and have made time during the day, not just at night, to read.
Here's some top picks that I've absolutely devoured:

  • You Are a Badass -How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life -Jen Sincero
  • Akvarelleja Engelin kaupungista -Jukka Viikilä
  • I Want to Sleep -How to Get a Good Night's Sleep -Harriet Griffey (for all my fellow insomniacs)
  • A Court of Thorns and Roses -Sarah J. Maas
I think I'll be writing more about these jams later :)

-My absolute disinterest in fantasy and newer curiosity towards nonfiction and self help has taken a new turn. I found myself effortlessly sucked back into fantasy come fall (aka the ultimate season of all things magical, mystical and murky). I have the A Court of Thorns and Roses -trilogy to blame or mostly thank for this dip back into my former favorite genre. I guess my preferences change around the year to fit the seasons. I also believe that I was just in need of a good, new, more adult story to suck me back in.
Update: Currently hoping to finish A Court of Mist and Fury today with only 180 pages left (note, I am at home sick)

-As for nonfiction and self help -well I'm still going strong on that track as well and am looking for books to add to my repertoire. (All suggestions are very welcome!) Actually, all 6 books that I breezed through over my summer vacation where from this category. Let's allow that to speak for itself.

It must be this gloomy weather that has invited me to grab a book and a mug of tea by the candlelight -bliss

As for what's to come, we hope to start posting monthly from now on instead of the previous pace of once a week. I have some reviews and thoughts already in mind so stay tuned! Thanks for being so patient and more over for being loyal and sticking around! :)

-Anna
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I feel like I'm living the dream. Well, I pretty much am living my dream -studying medicine and living in Turku doing all the things I've always wanted. One of these things is living close to cafés and just the most adorable coffee shops. I can easily walk down to one to study, catch up with friends and most relevant of all for you guys, have same quality time with my #currentlyreading, which seems to be on my mind all the time because it's one of my favorite things come fall.

If you are a loyal reader of Books Are Jazzy you may have noticed a trend around this time of year when the leaves dress in all hues of read, orange and yellow: my growing excitement. The simple explanation is that fall is my favorite season. And for me, reading and books are a big part of that.

Now that you've read two paragraphs of text you might be wondering wether I'll be getting to the point any time soon. If you don't understand all this autumn enthusiasm then you will be disappointed to hear that this is plainly a fall appreciation post. If, however, you are on the same wavelength as me on this topic than just enjoy all the cozyness and crispness. 

As an amneds to anyone looking for a little more content to this pumpkin spiced diibadaba of words, I should mention that I am finally holding King's Cage in my hands! And here's a little heads up: my next post will hopefully be a review on a book shop + café here in central Turku. Places like that are rare in Finland so I'm super excited to check it out!

In the meantime, light your candles and sink in to your scarves with a book in hand.

Fall essential: anything Harry Potter


-Anna

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As with Laura agonizing over having to wait a whole year for the next Maas release, I'm anxious to get my hands on a copy of the last installment in the Red Queen trilogy. I'm currently seventh in line at my library, and I feel like the line has only inched forward. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll recieve the "your reserved material is ready for pick-up" message before the end of this year. Gladly, from this point of view, I don't have too much leisure time on my hands with uni keeping me busy. I've also just recently started reading A Darker Shade of Magic, which I'm enjoying reading at night. So I guess that even though I'm eager to know how the RQ series comes to an end, I won't be left empty-handed until I get the chance. I'll just have to do my best impression of someone waiting patiently. Sighs.

On a much brighter note, fall has arrived here in Finland and I'm loving all the colors that come along with it! May your autumn days be crisp and pumpkin spiced!

UPDATE
This just in: RQ isn't a trilogy, there's a fourth book coming to join the family! I guess that's more waiting on my (all our) part and a mortifying reminder to stay on top of my what's-new-in-the-book-world game.. Excuse my lack of knowledge, I am clearly not as eminent as I claim to be.

-Anna

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About Us

Hi! We're Laura and Anna, two twenty-something women who love reading! We originally met each other in Atlanta, GA, over 10 years ago. Since then, we moved back to our home country of Finland, and now that we are in university, Anna lives in Turku, Finland, studying medicine and Laura lives in Asheville, NC, studying literature.

We read in a wide variety of genres, including all forms of young adult fiction and some adult books as well. Laura tries to focus on fantasy, but sometimes her coursebooks get in the way, whereas Anna is happy to read anything other than her textbooks!

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