This is part of a new series on the blog called, as you may have guessed, Friday Reads. I’ll be sharing recent or favorite books, and I’ll be writing slightly atypical reviews.
I think my husband might know me a little bit too well.
I turned 30 a little over two weeks ago, and his gift to me (along with eating in the Michelin-starred Benoît), was a hardcover set of the Harry Potter series.
I couldn’t really tell you, at this point, how many times I’ve read The Sorcerer’s Stone (or as it’s dubbed in my new English set [extra points to the Country Boy] – The Philosopher’s Stone). What I can say is that from the moment I first discovered the books – my first was The Prisoner of Askaban, which I found in the door of a friend’s parents’ mini van and quickly devoured about a third of without having any idea that I was nearly halfway through a series – I fell in love with the world created by J.K. Rowling.
And I know I’m not alone. Just in my house, my father, my brother, and I were obsessed. In fact, when the new books would come out every summer, my dad got into the habit of buying two copies, just so that I could speed-read mine while my brother languorously paged through his. It became ceremonial: the day that my parents picked me up from camp, we had about ten minutes of conversation before my father bestowed the newest hardcover on me, and I would spend the next six hours reading as we drove down to New York from New England.
Harry Potter touched people. It’s not particularly literary, and there are plot holes the size of Hagrid’s socks, but for someone who was 11 when Harry was 11, growing up with the students of Hogwarts is a shared experience of my generation.
I recently reread the entire series, cover to cover. It’s my comfort, in the same way that my friends from college watch Friends reruns or my sister and mother turn on the Food Network. Which is why I’m so thrilled that now, Harry has a permanent spot on my bookshelf, so I can visit with him whenever I like.