Me too
Our daughter was eleven when the first book came out, but only caught on with book 2. We both read them to 'see what all the fuss was about' and thus got sucked in.

It's not that they're particularly well written, but the scope of the series is brilliant - start when they first go to 'big school' and end up when they enter the big world. There are good bits and bad bits, plenty of loose ends and contradictory bits, e.g. how come none of Harry's generation became animaguses(animagi?), that would have been really useful wouldn't it? How do witches/wizards ever get married to muggles? In the books, the two worlds hardly ever meet, certainly not socially. But most of all, why the hell didn't Voldemort kill Harry the good old fashioned way when he found that magic wouldn't work??? Cut his head off with a sword and you've won!!

But, having said that, yes, I queued up at midnight with my daughter for book 4, yes we discussed them, picked them apart, yes we went to the films too, and I have no shame.

I read 'proper literture' too, Rushdie, AS Byatt, Rose Tremaine, Carol Shields, VS Naipaul, Joyce etc. I read detective books: Connolly, Rankin, Deaver (even Dick Francis!), I read (and re-read) Terry Pratchett when I can't find anything else to read and I've read Harry Potter too - big deal.

What I can't stand is people that sneer at anyone for reading a book, when they themselves watch, say, Tomb Raider films or James Bond or Lord of the Rings....or porn or war films or SciFi etc. etc.

Just fucking live and let live!
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Mon 9 Jan 2012, 13:38, Reply)