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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I recently wrote a post about my new found love with audiobooks. Well, I've found a new similar obsession: I found podcasts. Okay, okay, I found one podcast. And let me tell you, it's all I ever needed.

Imagine reliving your childhood Harry Potter memories but from a new perspective. The perspective of an adult man reading the series for the first time. In Potterless a man in his mid-twenties (Mike Schubert) talks about his thoughts on the experience and makes more or less accurate predictions for the future. Along with a potterhead guests, the books are excruciated yet praised chapter by chapter. Some really interesting points come out and as a listener you learn new things about the HP universe. For instance, I had never really given any thought to why wizards celebrate Easter and Christmas or why there is a spell that gives sleeping bags to all but not for solving bigger problems. Oh, and as a fair warning I should mention that Quidditch gets a lot of hate.

https://twitter.com/PotterlessPod

Listening to this podcast has been my favorite new hobby and this is definitely one of those things I wish I had discovered from the beginning. At least I don't have to wait for new episodes to air -until I catch up that is. I'm still trying to ration the existing episodes to stretch them for as long as I can. I'm currently nearing the end of The Goblet of Fire (which is honestly my least favorite so it's slowed me down a little).

Short and sweet, Potterless Pod is a strong recommendation for everyone. No matter if you have read the books or not, the podcast will change your life. Check it out on Spotify or get a first look on Twitter. And if you're still not convinced just give the intro episode a listen.

Wizard on!
-Anna
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A lot has changed since last year's book fair. Neither one of us lives at home anymore and thus I no longer live close to Helsinki. Because of this and considering that the book fair was our tradition, I decided already a long time ago that I would skip the event this year. So I arranged other plans for this weekend and did just that. But I did have four moles at the event to tell me some inside details.

Firstly and most excitingly the guest of honor was Dan Brown, whose autograph I assigned one of my trustworthy moles to fight for (though it is not actually for me but my father who received Brown's newest novel as a gift). In retrospect I must say it would've been cool to be there with such a world class visitor present.

I have also been informed that the fair has put much effort into presenting Harry Potter and the newest addition to the family, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which has recently (finally!) been translated into Finnish. I can feel the excitement of all the Finnish fans who have waited this long to read the play! Though I must say that had I any acquaintances who did not understand English or who would largely prefer Finnish, I would have read (acted??) out the play for them translating it myself (I know, I will make a good bedtime story reader for my kids one day :D).

And as always, the fair is the mecca of books, bookstores, publishers, authors, comics, and about everything else that has anything to do with literature. And lets not forget all the lectures and speeches that often represent a colorful array of different topics and cover so many genres that everyone is bound to find something of interest.

Also, a sneaky plus is that at the time of the book fair Messukeskus also hosts the annual Food and Wine Fair. So in between book fandom there is no need to go hungry, just march on upstairs and start strolling and tasting samples. I was a little jealous when I saw that Goodio, the brand of my favorite (and Finnish!) raw chocolate, has a station there and is serving free samples of EVERY flavor. :D

Next year I would love to visit the Turku book fair as I am now living in the city. But while we wait for that, there is still time to head over to the Helsinki fair tomorrow! And have a great Halloween next week!

-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 most of you probably already know, today is the day all potterheads have been waiting for nine whole years. It is also the birthday of Mr. Potter and J.K. Rowling so Happee Birthdae! (A nice little detail by the way)

With the play having premiered last night and the book now released, the world of Harry Potter fans has awaken with a roar. Snapchat and Instagram have been overflowing with related pictures and fandom. I love reading how streets all over the world are filled with people reading the book and others still on the hunt for their own copy. Real-life magic.

The new story, focusing on Harry and Ginnie's son Albus, is set 19 years after the 7th installment -The Deatly Hallows- ends and begins in the same exact place: the Hogwarts Express on platform 9 3/4. I think this is pretty cool to say the least.

I really wish I had preordered the book so that I would now be holding it in my hands, be able to share my first glimpse thoughts and actually comprehend this. But I didn't and since I am in bed sick, I can't walk into a bookstore and buy it fresh from the press like I had imagined it would happen. I'll just have to settle with reading other fans' comments.

Any thoughts on The Cursed Child already? I'd love to hear your reactions so far. Leave me a comment on here or instagram. :)

-Anna
House of Ravenclaw

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My heart still beats for J.K. Rowling and her wonderful Harry Potter creations. Therefore news of the new additions to the family were heart-warming and I welcomed them with open arms. However, what this joyous news actually ment had me confused. The whole uncertainty about whether it meant a new book, movie, play or all drove me to do a little research. Here is what I found out (in hopes that I wasn't the only one with no clue what will happen):

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will play out on stage and the story is split into two parts. The plot is built around Harry and Ginny's son's (Albus) life and struggles. The play will premiere on July 30th in London. Just as well, something new to read will also be available as the scripts will be turned into a book -parts 1 and 2 making up the eighth novel in the series together. This binding will come out right after the plays first run, July 31st. What a nice change in order, the visual before the read.  I'm fairly excited -especially since no other than J.K. Rowling has had her say concerning the script-wright.

Based on the HP companion Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a brand-new movie trilogy starring the oh-so cute Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander will premiere in November this year. The story is of Scamander's expeditions in the 20s New York as he searches for fantastic beasts. And once again, J.K. Rowling is in charge of the script. This trilogy seems to have all the ingredients for a long-overdue plunge back into the wizarding world of Harry Potter.
Honestly, I am probably even more enthusiastic about this than the first new-comers. So it's fair to say that I have high hopes for the motionpicture.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the new releases too so let me now!

-Anna

A family friend of mine had made these adorable miniature figures of Harry, Ron and Hermione.
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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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