#37

Typically I run a decade or two behind the times. I just got an iPod for the first time, and I just finished the first Harry Potter book (called Harry Potter at the School of Sorcerers). I read it in French to brush up my rusty skills, and I found the level of the French to be just about right for me to move through confidently with my Larousse de Poche and the English original nearby to check some expressions idiomatiques I didn't recognize.

I can see what all the fuss is about. There's enough mystery and enough darkness to satisfy, and there's quite a bit of humor. Yes, the characters are often types whose skills are differentiated enough for them to prove useful at just the right moment to save the day and to move the plot along--but from what I've heard Rowling got better at characterization as she wrote the series. I shall continue to read them, but it's slow going in French, so I might only do the first three that way before switching to English. We'll see...