Magical Readathon 2020 TBR (OWLS)

I’ve seen this around YouTube for some time now, and with it being on its third year, I thought I’d try and participate. I don’t think you’d need to have any kind of social media platform to join as there are links where you can just input everything on your end. In a nutshell, it is a Harry Potter-inspired readathon, where the participant sits through their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s levels to get to your chosen career. This takes place twice a year - first in April (for O.W.L.s) and later in the year for the N.E.W.T.s. The readathon is hosted by Book Roast and she has put a lot of effort into this because it is as magical as you can imagine. Basically, there are a number of careers given where you can gain your respective O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. requirements based on what the career demands. There are reading prompts per subject, and you only get an O.W.L. or a N.E.W.T. on that subject if you complete the prompt. She also has a rule where you can’t double up on books for the prompts so if you’re looking to tackling your to-be-read pile, this is a good opportunity.  The readathon runs the whole month of April, so there's plenty of time to accomplish the reading. I've linked the website in the banner above - or you can simply click here - for the list of careers and prompts for this year's readathon.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books With Single-Word Titles

My choices for this week are books on my shelves that I haven’t read yet. Maybe writing about them would get me excited to pick up these reads. I haven’t been really making time for reading, but maybe one of these will break the reading slump.

Top 10 Tuesdays: Books on my TBR I Predict Will Be 5 Star Reads

This week's theme are books on my to-be-read pile that I predict will be 5 stars reads. One of my goals this year is to read more of my backlist titles, so this seems like a good time to guess which ones of my books I will rate 5 stars. My criteria for a 5-star book leans heavily on entertainment and writing style, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it becomes a favorite. Even the books I absolutely adore rarely gets a 5-star rating for me! I think the titles I've chosen below have a good chance of being rated highly; who knows maybe one of them will actually be rated 5-stars.

2019 in Books

2019 was the year I took my reading in a different direction. I cataloged all my physical unread books into my goodreads page, with the goal of reducing that number by 5 percent - which I failed, since I acquired more books. I also took the chance to cull my book collection, and have tried to be extra picking to what books I acquire as to not consume more space. Even my Goodreads reading goal was a small number - I didn't find much pleasure in reading last year, and I was certain it was going to carry over in the following year. Still, it was a good reading year, even if I had to consider other sources for new books I would want to read but not rely on having a physical coy of the book. Like last year, I went ahead and categorized my choices, with my favorite books at the end of the list.

Updates + Favorite Books Read in 2018

I think by now I've declared it on my social media accounts, but just in case: Big Screen, Small Words is unofficially on break. I still review movies over at my Letterboxd account - the no frills format appeals to me nowadays considering I don't go online as often as before. I am going to try to keep this page updated but as of now it is going to be filled with more lists and less of reviews. 

One of the lists I try to write every year is my best books list. While I didn't do a whole list last year, I thought I would do one this year considering it's one of my non-film topics that I'm trying to be consistent with. While I didn't hit my reading goal this year, I did enjoy quite a lot of what I read, and instead of writing about every book I loved, I've broken down my honorable mentions into categories, saving my top/favorite books of the year at the end of the post.

Reading Wrap Up: October to December 2017

Happy New Year everyone! I usually get around to posting these at the end of the quarter, but I haven't been reading as much as I would like to during the months of October to December. I preferred spending my time re-watching favorite TV shows, and it showed with how long it took me to complete my reading goals for the year. This year wasn't a great reading year for me, but it's okay. There's always next year! This is going to be a quick wrap up, with two books that I want to write about.

Reading Wrap Up: July to September 2017

What a reading quarter! My July to September selection wasn't as varied as I'd like it to be but it was a good selection. I have set a reading goal of 75 books this year, and by the looks of it, the goal is manageable. Removing most graphic novels aside, that is usually the amount of books I get to read per year, so I am on track with that goal.  I have read 27 books this quarter, and it was a mixed bag. There are a couple of good ones, but nothing that I am obsessing over. With that, here are 4 of the selections that I've read.

Reading Wrap Up: April to June 2017

I haven't been active in writing content or visiting other sites lately; most of my recent posts have been scheduled. This however is something I can write about now. I'm not on a reading slump, and have managed to finish more books for this quarter. Everything else on the other hand, is at a pause. As of writing, I have read 21 things all varying from different genres and age groups. Most of them I liked, but not enough to stand out for me to rave about. It's not that the books are bad, but I didn't get that feeling of sheer joy and the want to push whatever it is I read to you. I have five books to write about - that's good, right?

Reading Wrap Up: January to March 2017

Initially I wanted to do a monthly reading wrap up but I haven't been reading much this year so I scrapped the idea. Last year I picked out 3 random books per month and talked about them. I'm just going to do a quarterly collective wrap up and talk about five books I liked For this quarter, I managed to read 15 things. It's a low count considering the pace I was going through last year but still good. Here are the top six that I enjoyed, in no order.

Favorite Books of 2016

This has to be my current favorite year end list – my favorite books of 2016! Last year was a year of reading. I got to read a variety of things: some were excellent, while others were bad or disappointing. I read books that wedged themselves in my all-time favorite books, and revisited some favorites when a reading slump was due. This list is composed of 10 of my favorite new to me books, as well as other books I really enjoyed. The books on the list are not necessarily published during 2016.

Disappointing Books of 2016

2016 was a good reading year for me, quantity-wise. I got to read a variety of books, and while there were excellent books, there were some that missed the mark. These books aren't terrible, but for some reason I did not enjoy reading these, or was terribly disappointed by them. I decided to leave off the forgettable ones off the list and instead focus on those that I passionately feel disappointed with. Here are my disappointing books for 2016.

What I've Read So Far (4Q)

This is my book round up for the last three months of the year, selecting three books per month to share with you. I started October in a reading slump; nothing I was trying read was grabbing my attention. November started and ended with some pretty good books. December was a pretty good month too, but I mostly kept to series. Here are some of the books I’ve read during the last few months of the year.

What I've Read So Far (3Q)

The third quarter of my reading year is rolling to a close, and compared to the first two quarters, I’ve been diving more into the graphic novel/manga territory. I was consistently on a hunt for a really quick read and they fill my desire for it. Nonetheless, here are some of the non-graphic novel books I’ve read for the months of July until September. I have included links that would take you to their respective Goodreads page.

What I've Read so Far (2Q)

With multiple waves of reading slumps, I’m surprised I’m able to have this list at all. I’m glad about my reading progress, but compared to last quarter’s, the selections aren’t that memorable. I’ve mostly stuck to graphic novels during those reading slumps but I am hoping to make a transition to longer books because I’ve acquired new titles and I have to be on the mood to read those. Like the last entry, I’ve chosen three books per month (making a total of nine per quarterly list), and I’ve linked them to their respective Goodreads page and provided my rating for them as well. Here are some books I read during the months of April to June.

What I've Read So Far (1Q)

As seen with my dwindling movie-watching count, it has been replaced with copious amounts of reading. So while I'm getting to tackle some of the books on my never-ending TBR pile, I thought I'd share with you some of the books I've read for the first quarter of the year.

NY Times By The Book Tag

I've been a bit bookish lately, checking out blogs/vlogs of the book community. There's a lot of tags going on out there, but one that caught my attention was the NY Times By The Book Tag. This was created by Marie Berg, and this looked fun and interesting and I wanted to participate, so here we go!

Top 10 Books in 2015

It's that time of the year again - year end lists! I'll be posting my films lists in January, but for now, here's my book list. This year I got to read an incredible selection of books varying genres. Not all of them were gems, but there were clear standouts to the roster. It was hard to narrow the selection to only the top 10, but these are the books that stood out and would recommend to read. These aren't ranked in order.

Break: Some Books I've Read

I went on a movie-free binge for at least a week and spent most of my free time reading. In a few days I read a stack of books that would at least take me a month or two (or three if I'm feeling lazy) to finish. Since it's a bit of a breather to not be watching anything at the moment (at least that week), here are some of the books I've removed from my to-read list.

Favorite Books Read in 2014

I wanted to do a sort of top 10 books I've read this year, but it's difficult because I am not hard to please when it comes to books. A bad book for me is the kind of book that you would immediately toss out of the window after reading, or give up reading it altogether. Thankfully I did not feel that surge of emotions from my choices this year, but there were some clear standouts from the roster. This would probably the closest thing I would do for a book review, so it's a bit lengthy. In no particular order, here are my favorite books of the year: