Harry Potter

This is my first real post (the welcome note doesn’t really count). There is so much I want to share and I realize that if I start writing about everything I have read over the past couple of years, it would probably be more like a dissertation or never ending rambling, then a blog post. So as I sit on a plane, on the way home from yet another trip, I was trying to think about where to start. Then it came to me: Harry Potter.

J.K. Rowling got me reading fanatically again. My son Sam has the entire Harry Potter series (I am desperately waiting for the latest release). When Sam turned six, I started asking him when we could start reading the Harry Potter books together. I was chomping at the bit to start reading them and wouldn’t see any of the movies because I wanted to share the experience with him.

After almost 2 years of pleading, I finally said the hell with it. During Christmas break 2005, I started The Philosopher’s Stone. Six weeks later I was finished the six books. I was completely addicted. I set aside time during the day, I went to bed early - right after the kids went to bed so I could get a good couple of hours of reading. Sam was completely nonplussed. He would ask me polite questions: “How’s Harry Potter Mommy?”, “Which one are you on now Mommy?” “Do you like this one better than the other ones Mommy?” but was generally uninterested in reading them. Not since I discovered Anne Rice when I was 15 (more on this in some future post) had I become completely obsessed with a series of books.

Based on the fortune that Miss Rowling has now amassed I am clearly not the only one who feels this way. There is something so gratifying about a book or series of books that is so well written, especially one that is based in fantasy. It draws you in, you become entwined in the characters, their emotions and you care about what happens to them and appeals to such a broad audience. That is the Harry Potter phenomenon in my opinion.

So, I anxiously wait for book seven, hoping that all of the rumours of a major character getting killed are nothing but malicious lies.

And, in case you’re interested Sam (now nine) is starting the third book. He loved the first two. We have all of the movies now too but the rule in the house is that there is no movie until the book has been read.

The book is always better than the movie.

My last trip:
May 28 to June 8: Rome, Turin (Torino), Paris (romantic weekend getaway with Doug), Monte Carlo & Stockholm

I read:
Lady Chatterly’s Lover, DH Lawrence
The Alchemist, Paulo Coehlo
(observations to come in upcoming posts)

I was listening to a lot of:
Amy Winehouse
The Shins
The Tragically Hip