The 306 Greatest Books #150 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling. This book can be found on the BBC Book List.

 
The third book in this seven book series by J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is by far my favorite book in the series so far. Typically I like to watch the movies before I read the books, such as for The Lord of the Rings, because more often than not the books are better than the movies. This allows me to continue my enjoyment of the story going from the movie to the book, instead of being disappointed by a movie after having read the book. For the first two books though, I think my biggest problem with the books was that the movies were so close to the books. This made the books feel like a glorified retelling of the movie (from my perspective). There wasn't much extra in the books to make them feel worthwhile to read. So in those instances, I would have to say I actually enjoyed the first two movies better than I did the books.

However, that all changed with this third book. Rowling has continually improved her ability to write these stories with each book and has produced a story that is a tremendous leap forward from Book 2. Her prose is much richer in context and plot, allowing everything to tie together perfectly. She has managed to fill out the story and the world in which they reside gloriously. There are no longer these random plot points. Now we have story threads hinted at in the beginning of the book, and even throughout the book, that don't come to full fruition until the end of the story. She has improved her ability to tell an intricate story to the point that I can see how these books became world-wide phenomenons. I still have issue with the way she handles the Durselys, but I feel like that plot thread has been getting smaller and smaller and hopefully will one day become nonexistent. Overall, this is my favorite of the series so far and it has me excited to jump right in to Book 4.

The 306 Greatest Books #149 - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling. This book can be found on the BBC Book List. 

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is the second book in the Harry Potter series, and like I said after reading the first book, I have recently watched the movie so this one is fresh on my mind. What truly amazes me about the book-to-movie comparison is how much it feels like the book is copying the movie in this way. The makers of the movies were so spot on in many instances that it feels like the book had to have been rewritten to match what was on the movie screen other than vice-versa. It really threw me off for major chunks of the book. But following up on her astounding first novel we come to book number 2. I have found with this book, Rowling fixes many of the missteps she had in the first book. In the first book it seemed many of the plot points were random, or haphazardly thrown together. Here it is much, much more fluid. There aren't major plot items (like the mirror in the first book) that just appear out of nowhere. They have a flow to them. The passage of time also seems like a much more natural thing, spells take weeks, so weeks pass, and other such changes. It's not all perfect. I felt this book dragged a bit more than the first book. It felt much longer, even though they are roughly the same length. The Dursleys still irritate me to no end. I don't entirely even understand that plot point. Why must Harry keep going back to them? Is there nothing else that can be done? And why does everything that happens to them happen in the world of Roald Dahl? Ugh. But I digress. Overall, the writing style has greatly improved over the first book. Rowling is clearly improving herself over the course of these books and I can't wait to see what comes next. The next book will be the last movie I have seen recently, so after that I hopefully can go in fairly fresh. 

The 306 Greatest Books #148 - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling (also known as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone). This book can be found on the BBC Book List. 

Harry Potter has been a series that has been sitting in my "to read" pile for over a decade. I waited for all of the movies to come out and then I just didn't have the ambition to tackle a series of that size. Along comes my daughter, who has started reading the series with my wife and so I have been prompted to start it myself. After each book they read, we all watch that movie together. So, before starting this book I have recently watched the first three movies. I don't know if having them fresh in my mind was a good thing but I'm feeling not because for much of this first book I was comparing it to the movie and getting the "well, this isn't that different from the movie, I was hoping for more" type of feeling.

I think my biggest qualm with the book has to be the same qualm I have with the movies, and that is the Dursleys. I don't personally care for that plot, I don't like them as characters, and I feel that part of the story is poorly written. The first two chapters felt like something out of a Roald Dahl playbook, and I'm not a personal fan of his writing style. So after the first two chapters I was not looking forward to much more of this. But I must say, it got much, much better. The pacing throughout the novel seemed very off. The first half of the book was up through Harry getting settled into his first few days of school and then the book takes off, skipping months at a time. I can see how in future books, Rowling would want to expand upon their time in school a bit more, resulting in the books becoming much, much longer. A lot of the scenes within this book also felt rather random, or randomly placed at least. It was like Rowling had all of these plot ideas she wanted to seed into the book but had no really smooth way of introducing them.

Comparing the book to the movie though was a detriment for me. The movie follows the book surprisingly well for about 3/4's of it, and so I was not all that surprised at anything that was happening. I had kept hearing how so many things were different in the books, that it ended up being a bit disappointing for me. But then the differences started shining through. Once the movie takes the slimmed down approach to the book, the book started to come into its own, and I really got a kick out of it. The pacing really picked up in the latter half of the story too. I imagine the latter stories get even better as Rowling figures out her flow through the series and I'm looking forward to seeing how things start to progress. Especially as I get past the movies I have recently seen.