Casting Spells

Last year I read around 80 books. One of the first books I read was a memoir/travel book by Nicholas Sparks, and he mentioned that he reads 100 books a year. It sounded like a noble pursuit to me, so I decided to give it a go. I love books and have enjoyed the freedom of choosing whatever I wanted to read since graduating from college. So I read a wide range of books, including several series book. In college, one of my friends used to make fun of me and said that if a book wasn't old and boring, I wouldn't like it. I've come a long way, Caleb! I never thought I would read Janet Evanovich nor did I dream I would watch let alone read Harry Potter.
A couple of years ago, Nicholas and I were hanging out at his parents place and decided to rent a movie from Pay Per View. Actually, I think I was working on something, and Nicholas decided to rent a movie: Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban. I ended up watching it with him even though I hadn't seen the first 2 Harry Potter movies. We ended up seeing the 4th movie in the theaters when it came out, but I didn't really remember what had happened in the previous movie. Nicholas was pretty excited about the 5th movie coming out in 2007, so I told him that I wanted to watch all 4 movies on DVD before we saw it in the theaters (preferably in order). That is just what we did. In fact, I am pretty sure that is what we did while we were packing up Nicholas' old apartment on a short trip to Providence the July before our wedding. Then we saw the 5th movie in the theaters.
Nicholas and I had both mentioned several times that it would be fun to read the Harry Potter books. Sometime over the summer, we finally decided to do it. I ordered the first book off one of my favorite websites (paperbackswap.com), and we started reading the Harry Potter series in August, Out loud. What a bonding experience! The first book was really short (200 pages or so) and pretty much was the same as the movie. The books gradually increased in size. Book 5 was over 800 pages (in hardback)! As of today we are almost 500 pages into Book 6, the second to last book in the series.
Now, of course, we have re-watched the movies after reading the books to see what the differences are. I have to say that I enjoy the books much more than the movies. Although, I do think that the movies are very well done. There is no way the movies could include all the characters that are in the books. Now we are reading Book 6 before we see the movie, so it will be a completely different experience for us. Harry Potter has definitely cast a spell on me, and I just can't get enough of Hogwarts. I can't wait for Harry to finally defeat Lord Voldemort (I hope) and be happy living a normal (wizarding) life side by side with Muggles.
My academic friends can rest assured that I am still read "old and boring" books, too. I am working my way through "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" with only 940 left to go. I also constantly read over the book lists in my study guides from my English AP class in high school for books I haven't yet read.