O.W.L.’s Magical Readathon 2019: Sign Up #OWLsReadathon2019

It’s that time of the year again!! I first discovered the Harry Potter themed Magical Readathons last year, all hosted by the wonderful Book Roast. I joined the O.W.L.s late last year, so I’m so excited to be joining this April with everyone else! She also has some surprises in store this year as she has designed the most gorgeous guide and we will all be reading ourselves to a magical career of our choice! ❤ Find out more in her video below.

I’m very excited to be joining this readathon again, which is starting April 1st and will run the whole month until April 30th. I also earned five extra days for the Charms exam with a previous Christmas readathon hosted last year… Which basically means I can start reading my Charms title on March 27th already and have extra time for the other ones.

I have said it before but the wizarding career guide is so freaking gorgeous! There are so many careers to choose from and I had a hard time just choosing one… So I’ve decided to narrow it down to two, try and read all the O.W.L.s for both and pospone the decision until August when the next N.E.W.T.s readathon is hosted. So which careers did I pick? It was really REALLY hard narrowing it down, but in the end it’s between Librarian and Magizoologist for me. Librarian because I love books and I would love to spend my time in a magical library. And Magizoologist because I love animals and I would love travelling the world seeing all those magical creatures.

O.W.L.s needed for each career:

Librarian: Ancient Runes // Arithmancy // Defense Against The Dark Arts // History Of Magic // Transfiguration

Magizoologist: Care Of Magical Creatures // Charms // Herbology // Potions

Sadly none of the O.W.L.s overlap, so this means I will have to read at least 9 books in total to be able to still have a choice between both careers when the readathon ends. So what will I read for each prompt? A tentative TBR:

Double Trouble ABC Challenge

I missed doing an ABC challenge in 2018… So even though I’m not sure I’ll actually finish the challenge this year, I decided to just give in and give it a go. The catch? I’ll be doing not one, but TWO ABC challenges: one with the book titles and one with the last name of the authors. Like the title states: double trouble! But hopefully also double the fun. (I know there are lots of existing ABC challenges out there, but I’m just doing my own challenge this year to keep things simple.)

My rules:

TITLE: read one book that has a title with each letter of the alphabet. The A’s and The’s don’t count… Also, the Q, X and Z titles can have those letters anywhere in the title.

AUTHOR: read a book with an author’s last name for each letter. If there is more than one last name, it should be the first that counts… And the Q, X and Z names can have the letter anywhere in the last name.

Let’s go ABC crazy!!

2019 (Netgalley) ARCS: The Complete List #NGEW2019

I joined this challenge in 2017 and 2018 and both years it turned out to be a big success. I managed to read no less than 108! NG ARCs last year and 16 other ARCs; way more than I planned and in a way I’m hoping I’ll be less successful in 2019. Why? I want to finally read more backlist titles as well… Let’s see if I can find a healthy balance in 2019. This yearly challenge is currently hosted at Reading Between The Pages.

I’ll be aiming for GOLD – 50 books.

The list below is a list of ALL the ARCs I’ve been able to read in 2019. This includes other ARCs that won’t count for the Netgalley And Edelweiss challenge; those are marked in orange while the Netgalley ARCs are marked in green.

>>> Last updated March 25th 2019 <<<

2019 Beat The Backlist: Epic BTB Bingo #BeatTheBacklist

As you may already know, I have signed up for the Beat The Backlist challenge again this year and so far things have been going great. I wasn’t going to because I’m trying to avoid the pressure, but the Epic BTB Bingo card was just too much temptation for me and I ended up giving in. So this will be the official BTB Bingo update post!

A little reminder: my goal is to read a total of 80 books published before 2019, with at least 30 of them published 2016 or before.

Aaaaand I’m on team RAVENCLAW this year!!

Let’s continue with the empty EPIC BTB BINGO card first… I’ll be updating the second bingo card at the end of each month with the titles I managed to read and you can find a full list of prompts and titles below that one.

Below the books I (will) read for each prompt! Books I have read and posted on the challenge page are in blue.

2019 Beat The Backlist: Official Update Post #BeatTheBacklist

I had a lot of fun with the previous Beat The Backlist challenges, so of course I signed up again. This challenge is hosted by Novelknight and in 2019 will be all about reading once more… No extra complications or extra points for reviews, just getting those backlist titles read and earning brownie points for that. This challenge is all about reading all those poor neglected books on your shelves instead of just new releases. We all love our new releases, but those older books deserve our attention too right? 😉 Books have to be published before 2019 to count, and you can set your own goals as you see fit.

I’ve decided to set my goal at a total of 80 books published before 2019, with at least 30 of them published 2016 or before.

Aaaaand I’m on team RAVENCLAW this year!!

On to the official update post part… Where I will share the books I’ve read that fit the challenge. Books that fit in with my personal challenge are either orange for books published in 2018 or 2017 or green for books published before that.

>>> Last updated March 25th 2019 <<<

Happy New Year and 2019 Goals

First of all I want to wish everybody a very Happy New Year and all the best for 2019!! May this year be filled with happiness for all of you. ❤

Now that it’s January 1st, it’s time to think about my reading goals for 2019. I still can’t believe I was able to read 245 books last year, and I don’t pretend I will be able to reach that amount again… So I have decided to not stress myself and keep my challenges reasonable to avoid that pesky slump. I’ve decided 2019 will be all about having fun reading and reading more of my own books. As much as I love my ARCs, I have a HUGE pile of backlist titles and things are spinning out of control. In 2018, I was able to maintain a somewhat healthy balance of 51% ARCs and 49% my own books, but I’m hoping to get that to 40/60 at least.

So these will be my goals for 2019:

READING:

• I have set my Goodreads Reading Challenge to 150 books.
• Read at least 3 (modern) classics (rereads don’t count)
• Complete at least 10 series (rereads don’t count)
• Reread at least 2 books
• Bring my physical TBR pile below 450 books and keep it that way.
• Read at least one book over 800 pages
• Keep ARC/backlist title ratio below 40%
• Read at least 2 books in Spanish
• Read at least 1 book in Dutch
• Read at least 15 international authors and/or translations
• Read at least 10 TBR jar picks
• Join at least 5 challenges during the year
• Keep my Netgalley ratio above the 80%

BLOGGING/LIFE:

• Stress less about having to post every day and don’t feel bad whenever I need a short break. This is going to be hard, but I also know that without little breaks a slump might be just around the corner, so hopefully I’ll learn to prioritize better this year.
• Be active in the community. I always try to comment and bloghop frequently, but somehow it is hard to find enough time to read, blog AND comment on the blogs I follow… And lately I’ve been needing more frequent breaks from social media to keep me from slumping. So this one will be a tricky balance to find.
• Use Babelio more and become more active in the Spanish reading community. I know I read mainly in English, but I really want to start reading more in Spanish again. The Babelio website is a good incentive to do so!
• Keep making more healthy choices, reach my goal weight and finally being able to run those 5K. I know, I know, it sounds like a very cliche goal, but I’m determined to do so. It helps that I’ve been working on this during the last month already so hopefully things will stick this time around. #fingerscrossed

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2019 When Are You Reading? Challenge

I had a lot of fun during the previous four years (click to see lists for 2015 , 2016, 2017 and 2018), so of course I couldn’t resist signing up again for next year. This challenge is hosted by Sam @ Taking On A World Of Words and is all about reading books either published or set in different time periods… The perfect way of reading books of different eras!

She made a slight change to the early eras for 2019, which suits me perfectly because I’ve always had trouble to find titles for the pesky 1600s era. The complete challenge will include 12 books from the eras. Below I will be adding the titles I have managed to read for each era, and again I will do things differently and not add every book to the list, just one or two for each era depending on the color each title has. I have divided my reads into two categories: books by publish date and books by setting. When the setting is not specified or is roughly the same as the publish date, I will use this color.

>> Last updated March 25th 2019 <<

• Pre 1300
  #
• 1300-1499
  # Bright We Burn – by Kiersten White (1454)
  # The Pumilio Child – by Judy McInerney (1457-1459)
• 1500-1699
  # The Familiars – by Stacey Halls (1612)
• 1700-1799
  #
• 1800-1899
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• 1900-1919
  # Smoke And Key – by Kelsey Sutton (1895/1910)
• 1920-1939
  # The Painted Veil – by W. Somerset Maugham (1925)
  # The Big Sleep – by Raymond Chandler (1939)
• 1940-1959
  #
• 1960-1979
  # A Wrinkle In Time – by Madeleine D’Engle (1962)
  # The Insect Farm – by Stuart Prebble (1959-1972)
• 1980-1999
  # The BFG – by Roald Dahl (1982)
  # The Fourth Courier – by Timothy Jay Smith (1992)
• 2000-Present
  # Finding Grace – by K.L. Slater (2019)
• The Future
  # The Fever King – by Victoria Lee (2074/2122)
  # Here And Now And Then – by Mike Chen (2142)

Currently 8 out of 12 time periods read.

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Have you joined this challenge this year? Do you tend to read a lot of books set or published in different eras? Feel free to comment! 🙂

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You can also find me at Goodreads. Twitter. Instagram. Facebook. Bloglovin’.