The second week of the N.E.W.T.s read-a-thon is complete! I feel like this is about time for me to panic, however, I’m not too far off from my personal goals for this read-a-thon, so I guess things are going well! I don’t have toooooo much to report day-by-day, but golly, I’m going to stick to the format I said I would use this month! So, here it goes!

Picking up where I left off, on Thursday I powered through a couple of stories from Men Without Women. The first few were a little slow, and reminded me more of the storytelling he used in Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, which honestly wasn’t one of my favorite books by Murakami.

I got a couple more stories under my belt in Men Without Women. I also started another book, The Poisoner’s Handbook. I read a couple of pages, but just couldn’t get into it at the moment. It seems like it is going to be a fun read, but I decided I would focus on finishing up Men Without Women first.

Saturday I was able to wrap up Men Without Women. That’s the third book down for the read-a-thon, and my “Outstanding” in Charms. The prompt was to read a book that I thought would leave a mark, and I have to say that this book probably did. There were seven short stories and while some I’m ambivalent on, others blasted my mind to little pieces and left me wanting more. I’m glad I got around to reading this book, finally!

With Men Without Women out of the way, I was able to focus all of my attention on The Poisoner’s Handbook. While I had hoped I would finish up this fourth book over the weekend, I only managed to make it about a third of the way through before the workweek began.

This is getting predictable…. On Monday I read a few more chapters in The Poisoner’s Handbook. It has been really interesting so far, but now what I expected. I had imagined it being more about the chemical compounds themselves, maybe about their manufacturing process or the biological reactions they cause to lead to death. Instead, it has been about the history of detection of poisons during autopsies. Still interesting, and very well presented, but not what I thought I was diving into.

I changed up my reading list for this challenge a little, since I found a biography I really, really, really, want to read: The Good Neighbor. It’s about Mister Rogers! So I went to the library to pick it up. Reading wise, I continued The Poisoner’s Handbook. 

With a snow storm on the horizon, I had a productive last day of reading to round out the week. I finished up The Poisoner’s Handbook, which I am using to count towards my “Acceptable” for History of Magic: A book I think will fit in at the Hogwarts library. I enjoyed the book, and it was an easy read overall. My review will be coming soon. After wrapping up with that book, I sat down to read South of the Border, West of the Sun, yet another Murakami book, because I just can’t get enough, haha! I managed to get about a quarter of the way through it. It seems fast, so I should be able to wrap it up pretty fast. Phew! 🙂

Week Two Progress:
Books read: 2
Pages read: 214 + 319 + 50 = 583
Charms: O
History of Magic: A

Overall N.E.W.T. Progress:
Books read: 3
Pages read: 467 + 583 = 1050
Charms: O
History of Magic: A