Hey guys, how's it going?
So, if you followed my OWLs, I decided that I want
to be a Wandmaker when I grow up. I got
my official requirements right here and
the books that I had to read to become a
successful Wandmaker. And I did pass
every one, so now August 1st to August
31st I'm ready to take on my NEWTs!
If it sounds like I'm just babbling nonsense
I'll put the links you need down in the
description. Basically this is the
magical read-a-thon hosted by G over
at Book Roast, it's a great chance to
read- I love how, like, into it everybody
is and how much time effort she
puts into it. It is absolutely amazing,
definitely check it out. But all the
information will be down below.
So basically, when I passed my OWLs I was
on, like, step one of becoming a Wandmaker...
I was able to come up with this... little thing. 
But now I'm going to take
my NEWTs and I'm gonna come up with a
better wand, and I'm gonna be a real
professional Wandmaker.
So let me tell you about it.
There are different requirements for this one. On the bottom here - you can't really see it - but it says
what's required for NEWTs.
So I need an O in Herbology, E in Care of
Magical Creatures, and A in Charms.
O is Outstanding, E is Excellent, A is...
Acceptable? And then I have my list of
prompts here, and basically I just... I go and
pick out each one. So, like, to get an
Excellent I have to first read the
Acceptable and then read the Excellent. 
Then if I want Outstanding, then I
also have to read the Outstanding. So an Outstanding will be three books... you know what I'm getting at.
So let's see what I gotta
do and how I'm gonna do it.
First I need an O in Herbology, so for
that one I need to read three books.
The first one is an A, it says, "Mandrake: Quick,
put your headphones on! Listen to an audiobook."
Now I'm not positive which audiobook I'm
going to be listening to for this one,
because I listen to audiobooks while I
walk to and from work. It might be the
third book in the Eragon series...
Inheritance Cycle? Is what it's called? I
don't remember. It depends on basically
when it becomes available at my library
and how long it takes me - I'm currently
listening to the second one, but I'm
almost done it - so I'll definitely be
listening to an audiobook but it really
depends on what's available at the time.
Like, I can only book it out for three
weeks at a time and it's currently the
second week of July
so if I book it out now it won't still be...
I won't still have it by then, if any
of that makes sense. So yeah, we have to
wait for that one but probably one of
the Eragon books.
The next prompt for an Excellent  is to read a book between 350 and 390 pages. For this one I'm going
with Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar
Children by Ransom Riggs. This one comes
in at 382 pages. And I haven't had this book
that long, but I've been really looking
forward to getting into it. And I think
it'll be fun, and I like all the cool
pictures in it so this would be really
good for a read-a-thon.
And finally, to get my Outstanding, I need a book with
flowers on the cover. This was so
freaking hard! It shouldn't be hard,
flowers are everywhere, but I don't have
very many flowers on my covers,
apparently. I went through every unread
book on my bookshelf (and I have a lot of
unread books on my bookshelf) and I found... two.
One of them was a historical fiction about
the... Tudor queens, I think? I can't remember
exactly which one it was.But it was one
of those ones and she has a little, like,
not-really-flower-but-kind-of-a-flower, um...
pin. Brooch! That's the word I'm looking for.
And it didn't really count, so I'm actually
going with Ash Princess by Laura Sebastian.
There's a flower there and
there's a couple little flowers, like,
around. You have to look closely but
there are flowers in there! And... yeah,
I have been wanting to read this book for
awhile. I heard a lot of good things when
it first came out and then after that I
heard a lot of really mixed things, but
I'm still really excited to read it. All I
know is it's about a... princess whose...
kingdom is taken over and... like, her
parents are... murdered and then she's held
captive and... basically that kind of story.
But I think it's gonna be fun it's gonna
be dark and I think that's gonna be perfect.
Perfect dark fantasy summer read. [laughs]
Then I need to get an Excellent in Care
of Magical Creatures. So my first prompt
to get my Acceptable is, "Follow the
spiders! Why couldn't it be follow the
butterflies? A book title that starts
with the letter A for Aragog." For this
one I'll be reading A Tale of Two Cities
by Charles Dickens. I really like Charles
Dickens and I've read this... I want to say
when I was 17? I read this a while
ago. But I don't really remember it.
I know that I read it kinda in two
chunks, like I started reading it for
school...
and then we moved on to something else
and then like a couple months later I
tried to finish it. And I remember
finishing it, but I don't really remember
enough of the story. So I've been meaning
to reread it and I really like Charles
Dickens, so I'm looking forward to
picking this one up. And I think it'll be
a good way to, like, break up the kinda
dark creepy fantasy books I have so
far because... I mean it's Charles Dickens.
And then for my Excellent I need to read
a book that's under 300 pages. I am going
with The Horse and His Boy by CS Lewis,
this is the... third? This is the third book
in The Chronicles of Narnia series.
And I'm really excited to read this one, I'd
like to finish the series sometime this
yea,r and I've already read the first two.
So I think this one will be an excellent
addition. And it's a nice quick read, so...
it'll be really good for this read-a-thon.
And then I only need to get
an Acceptable in Charms. So, for that one,
I need to read a book that I think has a
gorgeous cover. This one was kind of hard,
but then I remembered in my last video I
was talking about my favourite cover of
the year, or something like that. And I
mentioned that this one was a top
contender but I hadn't bought it this
year, I think I bought at the end of last
year. Anyway, I'm gonna read Daughter of Smoke
and Bone by Laini Taylor. I really wanted
to read this book by the end of the year
anyways, because I loved Strange the Dreamer,
I love Muse of Nightmares, and I'm
really looking forward to trying other
Laini Taylor books. So I think this will
be great. I own the whole series and I've
heard good things, so I'm really excited
to get into it. I really don't know
anything about it other than,  I guess
there's like monsters and... yeah that's
really... that's really all I know. But I
went into Strange the Dreamer knowing
basically nothing, and that was really
perfect for me honestly, so aside from
the titles of the books, that's... that's
all I got. So I'm excited to figure out
what the heck's going on and if I can
love this one as much as I loved the
other Laini Taylor of books that I read.
And now that is all of the books I need to read
to become a wonderful, wonderful, NEWTs-qualified wandmaker... but I am sometimes
an overachiever, and I want to see how
much I can get to. So what I decided to
do as, like, an extra mini challenge just
for myself: I'm gonna take the other two
categories that I had to read for my OWLs,
which was Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, and I'm gonna read... at least the Acceptable book in that
category as well. Just because, I don't
know, I want to. And... I feel like I kind of
have to push myself. Not that this 
isn't challenging, but... I don't know, I
just want, like a... a stretch goal,
basically, is what I want.
So to get an Acceptable in Ancient Runes it's...
[groans and mispronounces Ehwaz terribly]
I dunno how to pronounce that! Partnership.
"Read a book recommended by a friend." For this one
I'm gonna go with The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
This is, like... four of my reader
friends'  favourite books.
And I've heard lots of good things about it.
I did hear that the ending gets a little bit,
like... dry and maybe unsatisfying? But
I figured if I'm already that far into
the book, I'd be able to plow through the
ending even if it's something I don't like.
All I know is this book is basically
about a night... circus [laughs] and it's
like, kinda creepy and kinda
historical fictiony, fantasy-ish...
I don't know, but I'm really excited about
it. I think that even if I don't like it,
it'll be a really good one to... just read
to say I've read, and then I can at least
make my own judgement of it. And
then finally we have a Arithmancy.
To get an Acceptable on that I must read a 
book that ends on an even page number.
For that one I am going with Bitten by Kelley
Armstrong. This one ends on page 422,
believe... 422. Now, this book is on my
"Books I Need to Read by the End of the
Year" list, because it's one of the books
that has been unread on my shelf for the
longest. I... don't know if I'm going to
enjoy it. I'm giving myself permission to
DNF this one. Now, I don't tend to DNF
books, so... honestly I really don't know if
I would. But apparently this is kinda...
kinda smutty? And that's nothing
against smut, like... if people want to read
smut, like, more power to them,
I hope they find it the best smut out there.
[laughs] But it's not something that I'm
really comfortable reading... like, I just
don't like much sexual content in my
book at all. So... I don't think this is
gonna be for me. I don't think I knew
what it was about when I first bought it.
I don't even...
I think it was actually a gift? But
anyways, I'm gonna at least give it a try
and if I don't like it - 
Hey, Comet - If I don't like it I can
always, you know, just donate it, unhaul
it, whatever you want to say, and... not have
it on my shelf anymore.
But regardless, by the end of this I want
to either have this read, or no longer on
my shelves.
So here are all the books I will be
reading, as well as one audiobook.
I think I can do that. [counting under my breath]
Seven and an audio book. A couple of
them are... thicker, but that's definitely
doable... Yeah, I can totally do that, that's
fine.
I haven't quite decided on what
order I'm gonna be reading them in. I was
gonna try to end with Daughter of  Smoke and Bone,
because that way I could read the next
two like right afterwards but I
kinda want to be reading the two...
"extra books" before that one, if that makes
sense. So I'm gonna kinda play it by ear
and see how I go. I think I have a
pretty good variety, like I have a couple
dark fantasies, and then I have a
Charles Dickens, and then I have
a historical, and a children's book.
Like, I think that I have enough that I'm
not gonna get bored of anything. So... we'll
do our best. I'm probably going to be doing
weekly vlogs... we'll see how it goes. I am
finally kinda... figuring out how to do
daily vlogs for writing. And I haven't
quite figured out how to do reading
vlogs yet, so if you have any tips or
advice for reading vlogs feel free to
let me know, because I would love to, you
know, learn as much as I can. But yeah.
That is gonna be my August. I'm really
looking forward to it, it's gonna be so much fun.
If you're participating in the NEWTs,
please let me know. But yeah, those are gonna
be at the books that I'm reading for my NEWTs.
So stay tuned to see how that goes.
Don't forget to subscribe so you can stay up
to date with that, and all of my regular
videos that I post every Wednesday and
Saturday. I would like to say that I'm
playing around with the idea of moving
that to Wednesday and Sunday, just
because... my shift changed and that just
works out so much better with my
schedule. But we'll see, for now 
Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Anyway I hope to see you guys next time, and until then: Have a great day, bye!
