How did you find out about the Harry Potter books?

[basketsarah120]

At eight years old the first four books where out for buying. With our school my mom bought the popular first three books in soft cover. Since she made me buy them I made her read them to me. I found out I actually liked the books and haven't looked back since.

[Dimcairien]

I saw them in the library when I was about eleven/twelve and checked the first two out, but my mom didn't let me read them because she didn't think they were appropriate. I'm not exactly certain what happened next, but about a year later I checked out the first book from the library, which involved trying to read the first chapter about three times and failing, I finally managed to get through the first chapter and was then hooked. Then nice thing about not starting to read them until 2007 was that I didn't have to wait for them to be published, but rather for the library to have a copy that wasn't checked out.

[Point Given]

Back in 1997, my Mom was driving me to school and we were listening to NPR when they did a review of The Sorceror's Stone, which had just come out in England. My dad had just finished reading me the Hobbit and I was itching to get into another fantasy series so we kept our eyes peeled for the U.S release which came the next year. The rest was history. I distinctly remember bringing the first three books with me on vacation in the summer of 2000 and reading them over and over while preparing for the release of Goblet of Fire.

[readingwizard4]

I ordered the Sorcerer's Stone from a book reader thing in Elementary School sometime around the release of Chamber of Secrets which would be in 1999 I think. Did they release it in HB first and in PB later? OR were they released at the same time? I got the 1st two in PB and the rest in HB. I got COS (I think) even though I didn't have the 1st one yet.

[sherza]

I didn't discover their existence until the first movie came out. After I watched it, I went looking for the books.

[Kitty279]

Colleagues reading it and talking about it and bugging me to read, too And it being on the bestseller list and piles of them in each bookshop.

Otherwise, just let me copy in what I wrote in the other thread just now:
Back when HP was on its rise, I was in my mid-thirties, long refused to read it because of the hype - have tried enough of these bestseller and was bored by them. Finally a colleague talked me into trying, and as the lektor had just bought additional copies for ... um ... I think book 1 and 3 ... I asked if I could borrow them over the weekend. Well, I did, started reading with some scepticism, went through them in hours and then got the missing one from the library. When I had returned it, I wanted to start again, so I went and bought the three books. Then I finally used my already existing internet and found a great HP site, got to talk with the webmistress, wo got me in turn into my very first forum - back then the best German one, IMO. Some of these friendships I found there in 2002 still exist. There I found out how bad the translations were, which finally gave me the incentive to read the original. Well, then we got GoF, then OotP came out, and I was so angry about Sirius'd death, about Dumbledore and his ignorance, about all the useless adults who allowed children to be tortured. So I started losing interest, particularly as one of my forum friends had gotten me into LotR already. Then we had HBP - didn't do anything to raise my interest again. Actually, I've read it only once, and I was very close to not reading it at all. DH I decided only a few days before it was published to read at all. I thought it better than HBP, but it never made up for what the previous two had ruined for me. So I kept playing in the LotR fandom and only lately got back to HP.

[dracosfairmaiden]

I was in elementary school when the 1st book came out so I really didn't get into the series until OOP. Then I reread the first four books and I loved them. Then I saw all the movies and now I'm here.

[eskimoRock]

I was only one when the first book came out, so I got into them later. When I was 5 my dad bought a DVD player and asked if I wanted to watch the Philosopher's Stone, which I instantly fell in love with, and then I first read the books age 7.

[Silvertongue]

Jun 25, 2012 22:27:38 GMT -5 basketsarah120 said:

At eight years old the first four books where out for buying. With our school my mom bought the popular first three books in soft cover. Since she made me buy them I made her read them to me. I found out I actually liked the books and haven't looked back since.

This is exactly what happened to me! Same age too! I remember refusing to read them for ages because I didn't want to be a fan of some huge franchise and thought that if adults liked it then I wouldn't. How stupid was I?

[basketsarah120]

Well I wasn't into fantasy, and I had no idea how big it was. I mean my mom started reading the first book to me, and we went slow. We saw the movie first, and then went back to read the books. We breezed through them after that. My mom bought the first three from my school.

[TeamSirius]

I actually started reading them because the first film came out. I remember being in Year 4 (so about eight) and everyone in my class had heard of it, but me. That same night, my dad rented the film, but wouldn't let me watch it until he'd seen it. The next morning, I watched it, and was instantly hooked. When I discovered there were books, my parents bought them for my birthday, and every year after I anxiously awaited the next book and the next film.

[19811945]

The first movie came out around 2001/2. I actually went and bought the Philosopher's Stone. I actually read that entire book in about 12 hours on and off.

I actually read all the books before watching any of the movies, and to this day, I would rather read the books than watch the movies as i found them to be better than the movies. They have more content that the movies ever did. Unfortately, I now have the actors who play the characters read their parts when I read the books.

[Silvertongue]

I'm fortunate enough to still have my imagination on my side when it comes to picturing the characters. I've never seen a film before I've read the book (unless I never intended to read it in the first place, like Atonement). I once read the first 2 books in one day while I was re-reading them. They're all so short it's not overly difficult. I read the whole series over in 3 days.

[blackroses77]

I had no interest in reading a 'kids' book as I was eighteen/nineteen when the first Potter book came out and no matter how much my one friend nagged me to give it a try I wasn't interested. Then the first movie came out and the preview looked so good that I went to see the movie and that was that I was hooked and there was no way I was waiting for the next movie to find out what happened. So I went and bought all the books that were out which was up to GoF I believe.

[lrthunder]

I didn't start reading the Harry Potter books until...well, about ten years ago. I was taking a literature course in college and the class had to read the Sorcerer's Stone (American here ), and do special reports on it.

The rest is history.

[Trilonias]

I've honestly forgotten how I got into the stories... but I do know I got into trouble for it at one time. And I started when I was much older than most are saying here when they started. Blah. Though I didn't start till the 4th or 5th book came out anyway...

Of course, once I finished the series, I didn't even go into the fandom for another few years. I was in other fandoms, doing other things. Of course, I never allow myself to delve too deeply. Not like I could anyway. Mmm, burrito.

[jessieanneh2]

I heard about them but was inbetween intersted and not interested until one day I was in The Book Nook (The local bookstore) and I had ten dollars to buy a book after thinking about it for ten minutes I bought it and couldn't put it down.

[RogueNya]

After seeing the at the time *weirdos* going nuts on TV about the 4th book, I found them one time afterwards at BJ's and talked my parents in to buying PS/SS to see what the people were raving all about... I read that book in record time, not even 24 hours I think I had it read in like 18 hours of straight reading.

I was so hooked, I then had to wait a bit before could then talk them into buying the other three books. Once I did I read them each in about the same amount of time though think 4th took a bit longer as it is longer then the others.

Once it was said an done I turned into one the Weirdos lol and happy about it, I got the last two books as soon as they came on sale. 5th was not till about mid-day.


P.S: I use Weirdos in the way you had people waiting till midnight, days before it was released outside of stores, I thought they were nutty and needed help... But obviously that changed after I read the books and became one of those said nuts and weirdos, and Proud of it ^^

[Silvertongue]

I thought they were weirdos too... Heh. I order the last 4 books to arrive the day they came out. I remember when the 5th book came out nearly every desk at school had a copy of it sitting in the corner or under the lid, waiting to be read when we'd finished all the classwork. Those were some of the quitest days of school. I remember one boy read it super fast and then shouted to everyone that Sirius died and he got a detention for it.

[blackroses77]

Jun 27, 2012 8:15:47 GMT -5 Silvertongue said:

I thought they were weirdos too... Heh. I order the last 4 books to arrive the day they came out. I remember when the 5th book came out nearly every desk at school had a copy of it sitting in the corner or under the lid, waiting to be read when we'd finished all the classwork. Those were some of the quitest days of school. I remember one boy read it super fast and then shouted to everyone that Sirius died and he got a detention for it.

WOW! He's lucky he got a detention it was probably all that saved him from being beat up.

[Silvertongue]

Yep... But he was one of the more popular kids so he kind of had protection. so many people would have loved to slap him though, including me! He spoiled that scene for me!

[Kitty279]

A friend told me she was just leaving for the bookshop when her neighbour came back from there. Said neighbour had to have a look at the end of the book before starting it and told her who dies before she even had left the house. Ruined the book for her, too - and not only because she was a Sirius fan.

[Silvertongue]

Wow... why do people think it's okay to do that? I don't understand how people can read the last few pages of a book to decide whether they want to read it or not. surely that defeats the object of reading the book in the first place? To find out what happens in the end. Or is that just me?

[dracosfairmaiden]

I remember my youth group traveling for a mission trip to West Virginia to repair houses. Everybody was reading Deathly Hallows when we stopped for lunch at a Wendy's somewhere. Good times

[Silvertongue]

There was a point when I was in Sixth Form where I'd introduced my friends to Twilight and my copies of the books were getting passed around each day so there'd be a group of us in one corner each on one of the books. Some started buying their own copies and then more people started reading them too so the whole common room was covered in Twilight books. Once I'd realised what I'd done, I brought Eragon in and started rading that and the Dark Heavens Trilogy instead. didn't spread quite as well, unfortunately.

[kumainpink]

Read the 4th one in sixth grade. Found it in the library, liked the book, and went back to read the others.

[anjafifi]

I actually saw the first six movies before I read the books.

[RogueNya]

I had to hold my tongue on the books really as my friend had not read it yet, but she has had to do the same to me so fair is fair in the end.

And no one should spoil the ending of a book. It is just rude...

[blackroses77]

Jun 27, 2012 11:15:36 GMT -5 Silvertongue said:

Wow... why do people think it's okay to do that? I don't understand how people can read the last few pages of a book to decide whether they want to read it or not. surely that defeats the object of reading the book in the first place? To find out what happens in the end. Or is that just me?

I did that with the Hunger Games books although I took it a step further than just reading the ending. I wiki'd the books and read about everything that happened in the books and I am so glad I did because the ending of each book sucked. I also read the ending of some fanfics where it looks like it will be iffy as to whether or not there will be a happy ending, because I won't read anything without a happy ending and I've had one to many nasty suprises so now, I check.

[kumainpink]

Personally, I like bittersweet or tragic endings better. I don't know why, but the grim feeling of it makes the experience of it linger longer.