Remembering the first Harry Potter books

With the release of the last book just a few days away, I thought I'd reminisce here how I first came to read the Harry Potter books and how I acquired my copies of the first six books.

I believe I first read about the Harry Potter books on the CNN website. That was in the late 1990s and only the first three books I think had been released then. Articles there had mentioned that it was a hit among children and adults alike but I wasn't interested in reading a book meant for kids. But then a friend of mine started using "Hedwig Hoot" as his Yahoo! ID which I found rather curious because I knew Hedwig was a girl's name. Since it's my habit to search for more information (in the Internet) about something that catches my fancy, I started Googling (Google was just starting out then) the word "Hedwig". I knew that I found what I was looking for when I found out that it was the name of an owl in the famed Harry Potter series. So when I asked my friend if he had read the Harry Potter books, he admitted that he had read all four books (the ones available then in 2000) and liked them a lot. Now that got me curious as well because my friend and I have similar tastes. So I ended up buying the US paperback editions of the first two books, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (they were on sale at the bookstore) one April weekend in 2000.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), I got sick the Monday after I bought the books and that gave me a good excuse to stay home, stay in bed and read. Ha-ha. I began and finished reading the first book that Monday (I think I stayed up until 2am) and finished the second book over the next two days. I was hooked! I wanted to buy the next two books but all that was available then were the hardbound editions which were way over my budget. So I was forced to wait.

I didn't get a copy of the third book until it was given to me as a birthday gift in 2002 by my very good friends in Singapore. It was definitely one of the most unexpected but most welcome of gifts. (Thanks gang!) I managed to read Prisoner of Azkaban (UK paperback edition) through a hectic study schedule; I remember having to resist the temptation to begin reading it since I had upcoming exams at that time. Anyway, by the time I was done reading it in a week or so, it quickly became my favorite in the series.

Now Goblet of Fire I think I downloaded (shhh!) a copy from somebody's computer. (File-sharing was rampant then before the university finally put its foot down.) That Rowling sure knows how to keep her readers glued: I read the entire fourth book off the screen of my laptop. It was that good. Yet I'm of the older generation who are much more comfortable reading something on paper. I eventually bought myself a copy of Goblet of Fire (UK paperback edition) a few months after that so that I could reread it while more relaxed sitting back or lying down in bed.

My US hardbound copy of Order of the Phoenix was sent to me (ordered through Amazon.com) by the very friend who got me started on Harry Potter. Yes, considering the cost of the book plus shipping and handling, it was a rather expensive gift that I should have refused. But when I wrote to my friend that I was given book Prisoner of Azkaban as a gift he seemed miffed because I said no when he offered to buy me hardbound copies of the first two books. So to appease him, I accepted his offer this time around to buy me this fifth book. Anyway, he should be happy to hear that I was absolutely thrilled when the book was delivered some two weeks after the 23 June 2003 release to the flat I shared with my friends in Singapore. I think it took a few weeks to finish reading that because I still had my hectic class schedule then.

Then last was the Half-Blood Prince which I pre-ordered through a bookstore here. (My sister and I bought my friend a copy in exchange for the Order of the Phoenix that he got for me.) I picked that up on 17 July 2005, a day after it was released and finished reading it within three days. I typed out the following on my laptop when I was done reading:

It is 19 July 2005 and I've just finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Sigh! I began reading about 8pm last Sunday, 17 July, which was soon after getting home from doing some shopping at the [mall]. I had gone there that afternoon with my father to pick up my reserved copy of the book at [bookstore]. I managed to read until the end of Chapter 12 that evening before dropping off to sleep a little past 2:30am. And then I read one more chapter the next morning before leaving for work. In the evening, I believe I read on until page 437 when I fell asleep again, probably fatigued from work. I'm not even sure what time it was then. And now, I'm done having resumed just before 8pm. A few hours earlier, my hands were sweating and I was near tears. I didn't even want to read on at one point because I was dreading to read about what I knew would be happening. But I forced myself to continue reading. And so the clock on the Windows desktop of my laptop read 11:28 when I looked up after reading the last page.

In a way, I was in a hurry to read it to avoid getting the ending spoiled for me by reactions and reviews appearing on the Internet and other media. For me, it was just as good as Prisoner of Azkaban but definitely much sadder.

And so, I hope I'll be able to go to the bookstore this weekend to pick up my reserved copy of Deathly Hallows then spend most of the following week trying to snatch some time to read it.