This week’s book recommendation is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling. I know, it seems a little like cheating recommending the most popular book series of the last 20 years (21 actually, it came out in 1997) that also became hugely successful movies. However, it did occur to me that there may be a few people on this planet who have not heard of this series (they were probably all born in the last few years and have names like Hermione, Severus, Cedric, Sirius, etc.). I recently saw someone who was older than me admit they hadn’t read the series and was going to check it out. As with most things that become famous throughout the world, many people will be grouped into two mindsets about the work. Either it is the best thing ever, or they won’t read it and think it’s overrated. I’ll admit I’m stuck in the middle because I like so many things (I may be leaning toward the first group though). If you are being stubborn and don’t want to read it because you’re tired of your friends talking about it or think you know the story just from hearsay, stop being stubborn long enough to give the books a chance. Maybe you haven’t read them because you’ve seen the movies. Try the books (books are often better than the movies, with few exceptions). If you’ve read the books, then let’s face it, you didn’t even bother to read this recommendation which means I wrote this sentence for no reason.

I grew up with these books. I was only six years old in 1997 and remember reading the books as they were released. I couldn’t just dive into the whole series at once (as you can now). I had to wait until a pallet full of books were delivered to the bookstore before I could get one, go home, and devour the whole thing in a day or two. I remember waiting in line for the first movie, which came out in 2001. I grew up with Harry. We were close to the same age as I followed him on his adventures.

Another reason I’m recommending this book now is because I’m actually in London today on vacation. J.K. Rowling was born in the United Kingdom and wrote these books on this island. The original title of this first book is Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The “sorcerer” switch happened when the books came to the United States (because we have to be different, also because we do speak a bit differently).

If you’ve read these books, check out a different recommendation. If you haven’t, this book is about a young boy who finds out he is a wizard and goes off to a wizarding school. That’s all I’ll give you about the book because I’d hate to accidentally give away a spoiler (let’s face it, you probably know a decent amount about the book already even if you haven’t read it). This book is about magic. That might be all you need to know. I look forward to reading this series to my kids one day.

Happy Reading.