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I think I started reading the year the movie Prisoner of Azkaban came out in theaters. It had to be between Order of the Phoenix and Half Blood Prince, because I went to the local Barnes and Noble for both midnight releases, but for the first one I was there accompanying friends, and the second one I was eagerly awaiting my own book.
I tried reading it back in I think 2000 but was totally unenthused in the series. When I realized all my friends were reading it and I saw the first couple movies, my interest was piqued again and I read the first five books in one single marathon reading session that took about a day and a half.
So I think I first really read it in 2004.
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I'm pretty sure it was the year after Chamber of Secrets was released in the US - which I think would put it 2000? Possibly late 1999.
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This summer. I tried to read the first book when it was a huge mega-hit, back in 97 or 98. said "phhhhfff, I've read this a hundred times." Put it down because I wasn't interested in getting sucked into a 10 year process.
Last summer, my ex took me to see order of the phoenix. I enjoyed it. She broke up with me in a heart crushing way, lost interest again.
Current girlfriend is a total harry potter addict. (Jacket is "Dumbledore's army, for hir birthday last month I got her marauder's map coffee mugs). Was bored in july, and she was reading book 6 again, so I picked up the series and plowed through the first five books in a couple days then waited for her to finish 6 and 7 I guess altogether I was involved in them for a month or so.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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Before anyone had ever heard of them, when they first came out, living in England, about 11 years ago. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was written in 1997. So, 1997.
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quote:Originally posted by Raia: Before anyone had ever heard of them, when they first came out, living in England, about 11 years ago. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was written in 1997. So, 1997.
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1999. I read the three first Harry Potter books that year. When new books came out, I would get them from the bookstore at midnight and read them through the night.
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Around 1993 or 1994 (possibly as early as 92) my good friend who is a school librarian told me to watch for these great books about a wizard named Harry Potter. I checked the library regularly for them (along with a list of other books she recommended for my children).
I read the first one as soon as it was published in the US - probably 1997 or 98, and bought each one as soon as it was published. Except for The Half Blood Prince which was spoiled for me the morning after it was released at midnight. My children were visiting their dad on the mainland, so I borrowed it from the spoiler, then bought my copy just before Deathly Hallows was released.
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quote:Originally posted by Uprooted: Just before the first movie was released in the theaters. Sorry, don't know the year.
IMDB says that's 2001 for Uprooted.
I started when the last book came out. I read and disliked the first book when it was fairly new. After waiting in line with my significant other for book 7, I decided to give the series another try.
So, that's 2007 for me.
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In the summer of 05, when my sweetheart had to move back with Granma, my kids thought it would be a good thing if I read big books. They lent me all but the last one, and I read them over several months. I would rather have had the girl.
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Summer 2000 -- a friend insisted that I read it and loaned me the first on tape for a long car trip. I took it, skeptically, then I immediately went out and got 2-4.
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Whatever summer(?) it first came out in the US -- Newsweek had a mention of it.
I heard about it so early that by now I've probably intro'd at least 20 different people to the series.
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What does it say about the phenomenon when people are dating their reading by the year the movie came out?
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Late 99. I was in my second year of college. I had tried the year before, but I didn't care for the beginning of the first book. I still think that the very beginning should've started with Harry and not with the first defeat of Voldemort.
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Well, I started reading them shortly after seeing the first movie came out. I thought, incorrectly, that they would just be "kid's books" and not as enjoyable to read.
Turns out that I had plenty of time to read them, since I was recovering from lots of oral surgery...but that's for the "Wisdom" thread...
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quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: What does it say about the phenomenon when people are dating their reading by the year the movie came out?
I don't know what it says about the phenomenon, but what it says about me is that I didn't want to see the movie till I'd read the book first. So I went and read the book before going w/ my friends to see the movie. *shrug*
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quote:Originally posted by PSI Teleport: Mauibabe and AT must be time travelers. Not to mention mauibabe's librarian friend.
Well, JKR began writing the books in 1990 or 91. There was buzz about them in children's library cirles from very early on. I can't remember exactly when my friend told me about Harry Potter, but it was several years before the first book was published.
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quote:Originally posted by PSI Teleport: Mauibabe and AT must be time travelers. Not to mention mauibabe's librarian friend.
What time traveler? I think the books were even avalable in Nevada in '05. (I my kids lent them from AZ) That's 2005. I may be old, but I was not old enough to read in 1905.
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I remember that only Chamber was out before I read Philosopher, so I must've started sometime in early 1999?
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My brother and I got CoS and PoA in our boots for St Nicholas Day in 1999, when I was ten. Yes, that means I read PoA first, and then CoS, and only several months later got to SS.
That summer we were moving and my mom let us buy books for the trip. I got GoF, which had just come out, and my brother got LotR.
In the summer of 2003, my brother and I traveled overseas on our own for the first time. I was very sick and feverish on the trip home, and my brother bought me OotP (which had just come out) in Heathrow Airport so I'd have something to distract me on the plane.
In the summer of 2005, I was at the Governor's Honors Program--sort of an academic summer camp--when HBP came out. Everyone else had their copy mailed to them, and I spent a week saying, "Spoil it, and I'll break your legs" before I managed to borrow a copy. When, two weeks later, my dad came to pick me up, he had bought me HBP as surprise reading material for the car trip. I tactfully told him that I'd much rather spend the five hours talking to him.
Summer of 2007, I was flying standby back from Germany. I was stranded in the Frankfurt airport for a week, and when I finally got a flight out, I ended up stuck in New York overnight, sleeping in JFK Airport. That was the night DH came out. My friends called me from the book release parties I'd been intending to attend with them; eventually, I rushed down to a newsstand, bought a copy (no lines!), and read it that night.
Long post, but it's all one thing in my mind. I very much associate Harry Potter with being uncomfortable and being away from home and grabbing onto something familiar.
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