Potterpalooza!

I have a confession to make. I've never read any of the Harry Potter books. At least, I never had, prior to last Sunday.

Sure, I owned them all. I had a nice box set of the first five books and a trade paperback of the sixth, but other than an aborted attempt to read the first one with Drew a couple of years ago, nothing. I had told myself I would wait until the final book was about to be released, then read them.

So I waited. Finally, getting a touch nervous about the fact that the last book is due in a few weeks and I might not get them all read by then, I figured I better get started. I picked up the first one Sunday and haven't looked back since.

It's Wednesday, four days later, and I'm a couple hundred pages into the fourth book. I shouldn't just have everything read by the time the final book comes out, I might have everything read before the next movie comes out.

By the way, I haven't seen any of the movies, either. At this point, I don't know what my course of action will be in regards to those, whether I should wait til all seven movies are released and then watch them all, or get through with all the books and then watch the movies. Tough call, that.

It's funny. Part of me is pissed at myself for not reading these before. They're quite good, quite quick reads. On the other hand, reading them all back to back shows more clearly, I think, how skilled Rowling is at putting all of the chess pieces on the board, not just in the book in which a particular action takes place but in the series as a whole. It shows more starkly how minor items in one book come into their own in a later volume. I can't put them down, and look forward to making it through Half-Blood Prince and then getting the final piece of the puzzle.

A very hearty four paws up.