May 08, 2018
Article

Book Worm Problems: The Return of the Reading Slump


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Apparently me and my reading slumps have a pattern. This time last year I posted an article about the troubles of reading slumps. And, where am I again? In a reading slump. Maybe there’s something about the months of April and May for my brain that says it’s not the time to read? Maybe it’s because for years these were the months at school full of test prep, final papers and projects and the final push to the end of the year. For now, that’s my theory. However, in an attempt to battle back I’m revisiting my own advice and seeing what may help snap me out of this year’s slump! 

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May 03, 2018
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OWLs Reading Challenge Conclusion

I made it! I completed the OWLs Reading Challenge!

Honestly, I wasn’t sure I was going to complete the five categories needed to ace my OWLs. I didn’t read quite as much this month as I did through January, February, and March, and I finished the last two books on the very last day of the challenge. This was tons of fun, though. I loved the premise of the challenge. I really had to search through my shelves for books that would fulfill some of the categories. While I didn’t read something for all of the categories, I did have books lined up for almost all of them and do still plan on reading them at some point in the near future.

Some of the books I’ve read have already been reviewed on the blog. (Links are included below.) Others will be reviewed soon, so stay tuned for those.

 

Ancient Runes: Null States by Malka Older

Astronomy: Void Black Shadow by Corey R. White

Arithmancy: One Way by S. J. Morden

Care of Magical Creatures:

Charms: American Gods: Shadow #1-4 by Neil Gaimon, P. Craig Russell, and Scott Hampton

Defense Against the Dark Arts:

Divination:

Herbology: Black Clover Vol. 1 by Yuki Tabata

History of Magic:

Muggle Studies:

Potions:

Transfiguration: Cutie Honey a Go Go! by Go Nagai, Ito Shinpei, and Anno Hideaki

 

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Apr 26, 2018
0 Article Manga & Light Novels

#ReadManga18 Reading Challenge Update 1

It took longer than I expected, but I’ve filled in all of the challenges I’ve completed so far this year. While this wasn’t difficult, it was a little time consuming. Several of the manga I’ve read could potentially fill more than one challenge, but I wanted to limit it to one right now. For completions sake I might use one manga for multiple categories, but I wanted to see what I managed without relying on grouping challenges together first.

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Apr 11, 2018
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O.W.L. Reading Challenge

I might have discovered this month long reading challenge late, but it’s definitely one I will be participating in. April 2nd to April 29th is the OWL Reading Challenge. This reading challenge is hosted by Gintare over at Book Roast. It’s been some time since I’ve stumbled on a readathon or reading challenge and gotten this excited about it. Despite being late, I just knew that I had to join in.

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Mar 12, 2018
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Why TokyoPop Still Disappoints

When I was young TokyoPop was one of the top publishers of manga in the US. They ate up IPs for manga. They published a huge variety of genres. They even published light novels, something that many other publishers, even those who did publish manga, largely didn’t touch. A great many TokyoPop titles still grace my shelves. My local library still has dozens of TokyoPop releases in their manga section. By all regards TokyoPop was extremely important in getting manga into the hands of my generations.

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Jan 13, 2018
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New Year, New To Be Read Pile

Every year bookworms everywhere take stock of the books they finished reading over the last 365 days and make a new goal for what they hope to accomplish this upcoming year. I am no different but I must admit I was disappointed in myself this past year as I barely reached my minimal reading goal and definitely did not write enough reviews this past year either. The reason for all of this? Reading slumps. What did I do to try and break out of this? Keep reading to find out!

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Dec 02, 2017
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Tome Topple Round 5 Wrap Up!

Let’s talk about how I’m absolutely terrible at reading challenges.

Two weeks ago was the Tome Topple Readathon began. The goal? Read books that were 500 plus pages long. I’ve done this challenge before and had tons of fun with it, but I wasn’t able to get through all of the books on my to read pile. This time I remedied this, or so I thought. I thought I was being conservative with only having three books on my to be read list as opposed to the normal six or seven. Surely, I’d get to all of them, even if I was hosting Thanksgiving for the first time in the middle of the readathon.

Ha!

Turns out I only got to one of these. I finished The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service by Eiji Otasuka and Housui Yamazaki. This was a great manga omnibus, and I’m very happy that I read it. Sadly, this is the only book I got to. There was simply too much prep work for Thanksgiving with the cooking and cleaning. And afterwards.

Hoo boy…

Well, long story short I fell down three stairs, sprained one ankle (it’s fine now) and really messed up the other one. Not sure if it’s a bad sprain or a hairline fracture yet, but I will later today. Anyway, I didn’t get through too much after The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. Even though I only finished one book I managed to complete two of the readathon’s challenges. I finished both challenge 2 (read a graphic novel) and challenge 3 (read a book in a series). And you know what? I think this manga should count for challenge 5 (read an adult book) too. This isn’t exactly shonen or shojo. It’s definitely meant for a more mature audience.

Maybe next time Tome Topple comes around I won’t be hosting a holiday or forget how to traverse stairs. One can only hope.

A review of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Serice by Eiji Otasuka and Housui Yamazaki will be posted on Monday, December 4th, so stay tuned to see what I thought!

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Nov 17, 2017
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Tome Topple Round 5 TBR

Happy first day of Tome Topple, everyone. That’s right. It’s this time of year again already. Time to pull out all of the amazing sounding yet physically terrifying books we’ve been neglecting because they’re just too damned long. Honestly, I have more of those than I’d like to admit.

Yep, I was surprised too. I knew another round of Tome Topple was coming up fast, but this really snuck up on me. I always have a stack of tomes to get through, though, including some books I picked up earlier this week as well as all the titles I didn’t quite make it through during the last round of Tome Topple.

For those who may not know, Tome Topple is a readathon originally created by @thoughtsontomes. The goal of this particular readathon is to read books that are 500 pages or longer. The readathon runs for two weeks. It begins today, November 17th, and ends November 30th.

For the goal oriented there are some challenges that can be completed. Because who doesn’t like a little extra challenge with their readathons?

Here are the challenges:

1. Read more than one book.
2. Read a graphic novel.
3. Read a book in a series.
4. Buddy read a book.
5. Read an adult novel.

I’m hoping to get through a number of books this time. I’m not sure how much reading time I will realistically have this week as Thanksgiving is being hosted at my house this year, but I’ll try anyway, damn it. Without further ado here are the books that I’m planning on reading over the next two weeks.

Tome Topple TBR:

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service by Eiji Otasuka and Housui Yamazaki (640 pages)
Arcadia by Iain Pears (510 pages)
New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson (615 pages)

Who else is participating in Tome Topple? Are you reading any of the same books? Let us know below!

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