tin heart – jamishelves

RECOMMENDING BOOKS BASED ON RANDOM WIKIPEDIA ENTRIES

Hello everyone! I really wanted to do a recommendation post, but couldn’t think of something to theme it on. Then I came up with this idea.

So if you don’t know, Wikipedia has the ability to generate a random article. Which obviously, can be on absolutely anything. So I decided today to base my recommendations on random wikipedia articles I generated. I made it a rule that no matter what five came up, I had to use them, so this was quite a challenge for me.

I’ve generate five articles to recommend a book based off of, so let’s get into it.

1: 1998 FIBA Africa Under-18 Championship

This is an annual basketball event held in Africa. Unfortunately, I haven’t read any books about basketball, but I have read some sport books in general, which I used for these prompt.

I ultimately recommend RUNNING WITH LIONS by Julian Winters. This is a book about soccer, following a under 18s team at summer camp. There is also an important championship match in this book. There is a diverse cast and found family tropes. This book is a lot of fun and has an m/m friends to enemies to lovers romance as the central relationship.

2: Atrial Branches of Coronary Arteries

The atrial branch of coronary arteries deliver blood to the heart. I decided to choose a book that deals with the heart as an organ/in a medical sense (rather than say, romantic)

For this wikipedia entry I am recommending TIN HEART by Shivan Plozza. Tin Heart is an Australian young adult contemporary novel. The main character is the recipient of a heart donation that saves her life. The book deals with Marlowe’s desire to contact her donor’s family, even though they don’t want to meet her, and discusses living with congenital heart disease as a young person. This is a really unique YA novel and I think a lot of people would really enjoy it for it’s complex main character and original premise.

3: Magatama

Magatama (勾玉, less frequently 曲玉) are curved, comma-shaped beads that appeared in prehistoric Japan from the Final Jōmon period through the Kofun period, approximately ca. 1000 BCE to the sixth century CE.

This was a hard prompt for me to recommend off. I don’t have any books about prehistoric Japan, magatama or curved, comma-shaped beads. In the end, I chose THE SWORD OF KAIGEN for this prompt. This is a military fantasy based on historical Japan. I chose it for it’s historical elements and it’s Japanese setting. This is a really unique fantasy, it has elemental magic and the main character is a mother, which is something so rare but appreciated in adult fantasy. The rarity some elements of this book kind of match the rarity of magatama ???

4: School Life (2019 film)

School Life (French: La Vie scolaire) is a 2019 French critically acclaimed award winning teen comedy drama film. It follows a group of teenagers disillusioned by a world that seems to have turned it’s back on them.

It is unfortunate I have no YA contemporary books set in France for this one. There are a lot of YA contemporaries that could fit with a group of teenagers feeling disillusioned with the world. Utimately though, I decided to go with one that has a teen comedy vibe like this movie and choose HERETICS ANONYMOUS by Katie Henry. This is about a group of teenagers at a catholic school who feel the administration doesn’t care about them and has turned their back on them. It has a large cast who start carrying out pranks to point out the hypocrisy of their school and to be honest, the world, and it’s really funny.

5: Kennet and Avon Canal

The Kennet and Avon Canal is a waterway in southern England with an overall length of 87 miles (140 km), made up of two lengths of navigable river linked by a canal.

For this, I decided to continue on with the idea of waterways and canals and recommend DART by Alice Oswald. Dart is a longform poem, told from multiple perspectives, all of which relate to the river Dart in England. The river, ferryman, water nixies, dead man and more speak to narrate the story of the river and its importance in English countryside. Kennet and Avon Canal is an important waterway, and similarly, Dart talks about the importance of that river in England historically, it’s current state, and the future of the river.

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This was A LOT harder than I expected. It took me literally weeks to write this post because I had to think about each entry that came up for so long. But it was also super fun and I hope you enjoyed reading this post and my recommendations. I would love to hear what you would have recommended for each of these wikiedpia entries

until next time!

april / magical readathon wrap-up

Hi all ! I’m here a little late in the month to talk about what I read in April. Due to the fact I had nothing much to do except reading (currently off work with Rona and all) so I had one of my biggest months for reading in terms of how much I read. It was also magical readathon, which is one of my favourite readathons, so having that to motivate me also helped a lot. I ended up completing all the challenges for this readathon, which I’m so happy about! I explained Magical Readathon in my April TBR, so go check that out for more info.

All in all, I have ten books to talk about today, so let’s just jump into it.

🌈 = lgbt+ read
☀️ = representation of poc
♿️ = disability rep
🌸 = mental health rep
🎶 = listened on audio
📱 = read as an ebook
📖 = read physically
🔄 = reread

Tin Heart by Shivan Plozza | ★★★ ➵ 📖♿️

I wasn’t sure what I would think of this, since I won it in a giveaway and didn’t know much about it. But I liked it more than I thought! This is about a girl whose just had a heart transplant and is desperate to connect in some way to the family of the donor. I thought it was really raw and emotional in parts, and the main character was great, I just didn’t love the writing style (1st person addressing the reader) it’s one of my least favourite POVs and it always lessens my enjoyment of a book.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara | didn’t rate ➵ 🎶+📖♿️🌈🌸

It has been a month since I finished this and I still don’t know what to think. Parts of it are so well written and I thought the characters felt so real and it was engrossing, but wow it leaned way too heavily into the torture porn and I honestly think it’s offensive to call this the ‘Greay Gay Novel’

Perfume by Patrick Süskind | ★★★ ➵ 🎶+📖

One of the strangest books I’ve ever read. Follows a guy with incredible sense of smell who starts murdering virgins in order to preserve their scent and turn it into a perfume. Parts of it dragged on with description which is why it’s a three star but I cannot deny I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this book, and how creepy it was.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker | ★★★★ ➵ 🎶 ☀️🌈

I’m so glad I finally read this, it’s been on my TBR for years. This really was such a beautiful story, and I didn’t realise how much it would focus on sisterhood but that was such a pleasant surprise. The f/f relationship was also so well done and I loved it. The writing was my favourite, so incredible well written and I really need to go back and reread in physical format. The movie conveniantly just got added to Netflix so I might try to watch that soon.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire | ★★★★★ ➵ 📖🔄

It was magical readathon, I had to read one of them. Probably one of my least favourites in the series, but I still love them all, so.

Wolfsong by T.J Klune | ★★ ➵ 📱🌈

I thought I would love this (it was even in my 5 star TBR predictions) and I …. did not. I hated the set-up of the romance (the main couple are 12 and 16 when they meet) and thought the writing was bad and just overly dramatic. Couldn’t get into it at all. Did like the queer representation a lot though hence the two star

The Fate of the Tearling by Erika Johansen | ★★★★ ➵ 📖

This was a really satisfying conclusion to this series. I’ve enjoyed this series and although the ending is controversial, I thought it was great. I wanted more for Pen and Kelsea though, urgh.

A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle | ★★★ ➵ 🎶

I have been wanting to start the Sherlock Holmes stories for ages so I finally picked up the first one on audiobook. It was fun, but not great and not a favourite of the ones I have read. But I definitely will be continuing the series

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong | ★★★★★ ➵ 🎶 ☀️🌈

God, I loved this so much. You know a books going to be good when you can only handle one chapter at a time because you need time to process. This was SO beautifully written, so raw and emotional and full of tenderness and I CANNOT stop thinking about it.

A Girl Like That by Tanaz Bhathena | ★★★★ ➵ 📖☀️

This is another book that was a pleasant surprise for me. I’d heard good thing, but it was different from what I expected and… better. I wrote a full review earlier in the week so I won’t say too much here.

what books did you read in April?

until next time

April TBR: Magical Readathon / OWLS TBR

Heya! Magical Readathon or the OWL’s is happening again in April and I cannot wait! This is one of my all-time favourite Readathons and one I participate in every year.

The Magical Readathon is a Harry Potter themed readathon based around taking the OWL’s, which are the exams the students take in April in the books. This readathon is hosted by Book Roast and I recommend watching her announcement video for more info.

This year I’ve chosen the Spellcaster career and I also hope to complete one of the training courses (hopefully animagus training) if I get time.

The OWLs for Spellcaster are Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Astronomy, Charms, Divination, History of Magic and Transfiguration. To get the Animagus training certificate I would also need to complete potions prompt on top of these.

For this readathon, I want to exclusively try to read books on my physical TBR. I really want to keep working on reducing the number of books I have on my physical TBR and since my library is now closed, this seems like a perfect reason to read what I have.

With that said, here are the books I plan on reading during this Readathon!

Ancient Runes – A book with a heart on the cover or in the title

For this prompt, I chose Tin Heart by Shivaun Plozza. I won this book at a Penguin event I went to last year, but it has been sitting on my shelves since. I don’t know too much about this book, only that it follows the main character after she has a heart transplant.

This is the only book I had on my shelves with Heart in the title. I am a little bit apprehensive about this because it hasn’t been grabbing my attention but this readathon is a perfect opportunity to read what you might not usually pick up so hopefully I end up really enjoying this.

Arithmancy – Read a book outside your favourite genre

For this prompt, I have chosen A Girl Like That by Tanaz Bhathena. This is a YA contemporary which is definitely not one of my favourite genres. In fact, I haven’t actually read a single one all year yet. But sometimes I do enjoy them and I really hope I like this one because I have heard a lot of good reviews.

This book is set in Saudi Arabia and I believe it explores rape culture and the livelihood of girls growing up in Saudi Arabia. This is an ownvoices book and I know it is quite hard-hitting which is the YA contemporary I enjoy.

Astronomy – Read a book at night

I almost always do all my reading at night so this prompt really is perfect for me.

For the OWL, I chose The Fate of the Tearling by Erika Johansen. I’ve been meaning to finish this series since the beginning of the year so this is a perfect time to do that.

I’ve definitely heard some mixed things about the ending of this book/series but I feel like I know where it’s going and I won’t be so disappointed.

Either way, this has been a fun series to read and I’m excited to finish it off.

Charms – Read a book with a white cover

So this prompt is to read a book with a white cover, and the only options left on my physical TBR are A Little Life or Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky. Which are both 720 pages long and also intimidating.

So this book is very tentatively placed on this TBR but I’ll probably leave this prompt to one of the later ones and see how I’m going. If I can’t get to a 720-page book, I’ll probably just reread one of my other books. I’m thinking either A Gathering of Shadows by V.E Schwab or The Raven King by Nora Sakavic.

This book has been on my TBR for a long time though, so it would be nice to finally read it.

Divination – Randomly chosen book

This prompt asked me to randomly assign books to those on my TBR and choose one with a random number generator. The book chosen for me was Perfume by Patrick Suskind. This book is about a man who discovers he has an extraordinary sense of smell and becomes a murderer in order to preserve the smells of other people.

It sounds insanely weird and creepy and I’ve heard a lot of people say they love this book. I have no idea how I’m going to feel about it myself, but it sounds so unique as a concept and I’m so excited to finally be reading this.

History of Magic – A book with witches or wizards

Could I really do the Harry Potter themed readathon without rereading at least one Harry Potter book? No, I could not

I decided to reread Goblet of Fire because I got the stunning illustrated edition for Christmas and I’ve been saving it for the perfect time. I love these editions so much, they are just so beautiful and Jim Kay’s drawings breathe a new life into the world and the characters. And I haven’t reread GoF in a long time.

Transfiguration – A book involving shapeshifting

My final book is for transfiguration. It was hard to find a book involving shapeshifting on my TBR, but I eventually went with Chain of Gold. I’ve been informed by twitter that using this is a *bit* of a stretch but ……. I don’t care! I’ve decided I’m okay with stretching.

This is the newest instalment in the Shadowhunters world, following the next generation after Will, Tessa and Jem. I admit I wasn’t sure if I was going to read this at first, but the excellent reviews really hiked up my excitement for it. Also, I need to meet and love Cordelia Carstairs, it is that simple.

Those are all the books I need to read for my OWLs. I gave myself much more of a challenge than I usually would but … I figure we’re all in self-isolation or lockdown and there is more time than usual for lying around reading.

If I do get through all of these, I have one more bonus prompt, which is potions to get my Animagus certificate.

Potions – A book under 150 pages

For the final prompt, I need to read a book under 150 pages. I don’t own anything for this and I had a hard time deciding what to read. I ultimately decided to go with A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle. I’ve been meaning to read the Sherlock Holmes books, especially since I have the complete set narrated by Stephen Fry. This prompt gives me the perfect opportunity to start this series.

That is my whole TBR for April / Magical Readathon. If you’re also participating in this readathon I’d love to hear what you plan on reading and what career you’re going for.