• HARRY POTTER & THE SORCERER’S STONE
• by J. K. Rowling
• [nominated for the whole series]
• [rated by PBS readers as #3]
• 309 Pages

This is a great, magical moment for me. My friend Kim lent me her copy of this book months ago. She wasn’t using it and didn’t care if I didn’t read it in months or in years.

But just today I was thinking about it! I think that I was thirsting for an adventure and wanting to read this. I have never read a Harry Potter! I did see two of the movies, but they didn’t thrill me. Talking with a friend, we both postulated that it was probably way more fun to see the movie if you had read the book first, with all its details. About a hundred million kids did just that.

Approaching the end of Catcher and Harry coming to mind, I had a mad urge to just grab that book and read it, without any selection process at all. Then I said no. I had to keep with my ritual thus far. Besides, I didn’t want to miss looking through all those titles. They are so peacefully sleeping till I’m ready for them!

Then I picked four titles and one of them was Harry Potter! I was and am interested in Heart of Darkness. I would be reading Memoirs of a Geisha for a second time but that would be okay. And Game of Thrones obviously rates if you are, as I was, looking for an adventure! But I didn’t have those other three at home and the coincidence was just too great.

Yay! Harry, I’m coming at ya! Fun!

A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER & ABOUT 60 PAGES IN… Loving me some Harry Potter! Maybe you didn’t hear me.

LOVING ME SOME HARRY POTTER!

Oh man. Loving it! Harry! Where have you been all my life?

11/23/20 – HARRY IS DONE.

You know? Of all the surprises I have gotten from the books I’ve read, the sweetest surprise for me has to be the young adult books. Not for one moment had I ever thought about reading one. I didn’t judge them; I just didn’t even think about them. And now, the three young adult books I’ve encountered here have completely charmed me.

It is really the writing I like. Not one extra word anywhere – no longwinded descriptions or pauses to think. Plot, characters, pacing – they are the bomb!

I have been really amused that, since I’ve made this discovery, I have started to find out that very bright, intellectual women friends of mine have been reading young adult books for decades. Who knew? Well, I know now!

Soaring over them all is Harry Potter. It isn’t lost on me that my last book was Catcher in the Rye, where I strained the entire time to grasp what all the hoopla was about (I mean, I got it. I just didn’t GET IT.). I know what I read there, I just didn’t read it in the right decade or be whisked away by it in high school.

And then, there’s Harry! The single most successful story in the history of books. If ever there was a book that should have a hard time overcoming its enormous success in any reader’s mind, it should be this one.

But baby! I was all in from page one. This will not be the only Harry Potter I read. That’s the first series I’ve read in this list so far where I’m sure I will continue.

The success of Harry Potter can’t spoil it because it is successful before you read it. It is positively brimming over with success!  Beautiful writing – every character is so clear and so different from one another.

As I read Harry, I could feel myself enjoying it and I could feel little kids everywhere enjoying it too! There is a sense in which the story belongs to all of us from the start.

The story doesn’t so much unfold as it forces you to unpeel your layers of defense and cynicism – till you get to the part of you that desperately and happily returns home in this book.

It is childhood and magic and danger and euphoria, all at once.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not obsessed or anything. I won’t be joining a Harry Potter fan club. But I will say this, because it has, in fact, already happened to me.

I can’t help it. And I’m not going to be able to help it.

When someone tells me they like Harry Potter, I am going to like them a little more.

Just the way it’s going to be.

This experience was a lovely surprise. Splendid!

• THE CATCHER IN THE RYE
• by J.D. Salinger
• [rated by PBS readers as #30]
• 277 Pages

8/16/20 – FIRST DAY

This pick was a no brainer. I picked four titles. This was the first of them. I was more interested in it than the others AND it was one of the 20 from this list that I had already bought, so no errands involved! It is way too hot for that.

Plus, I just saw an interesting documentary about Salinger, who was and is a dick. But hey. I won’t hold that against the book. It has been the most important book to

so many people that I’m anxious to partake of it.

LATER THAT NIGHT, 20 PAGES IN This is, I already have a feeling, a book that won’t stand the test of its hype. Or rather – it may well live up to it, but the shadows cast on it from years of adulation make it almost impossible to read cleanly.

I already find myself looking at his writing and thinking – that’s a good description of whatever…not great, but good. And then, as I am reading, I can’t help but wonder – would I be flabbergasted by this if I didn’t know its history?

I do think that the novel, in its entirety, will end up allowing me to see through those lenses that I, as well as the culture, have put on it. And if it is extraordinary, I hope I will see that in it.

Till then, it is a pleasant read for 20 pages. The antihero of the story, Holden Caulfield, is well imagined and I am looking forward to sashaying along with him for a bit…

10/17/20 I know. A whole lot of time has passed. We’ve been sheltered now for the better part of a year. This has exacerbated my need for distraction. Unfortunately, that need has dovetailed into my need to read four books at a time. Ah well. That doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon…

I don’t know why I would be surprised in the least that any book on this list would surprise me. They pretty much all have!

The novelty to Salinger’s writing approach must have seemed amazing if you read this in high school and especially at the time it came out. I am keenly aware, perhaps more for this book than any other one so far on the list, that the time this came out and the reaction that it triggered is too far in the past to awaken. Many writers since then have copied Salinger in one way or another. And many have done a great job!

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao felt amazingly original in its writing style. But that’s because it never got folded into the culture. This did.

Okay, so it is amazing that the whole book is continuous in action. You really do feel immersed. It is amazing that you stay interested, even though Holden’s transformation is syrup-slow in coming out (in fact it really happens after the book).

Salinger had the confidence to cut an incredibly thin slice of the pie out and examine it for the length of the book.

I don’t think I would ever disagree that this is a good book. But sadly, the lateness of my reading it is too late for me to elevate it to the greatness that it obviously deserves.

Almost wish I’d had the chance to read this between Jane Austin and Beowulf. I’m sure I would have gone crazy for it…