Throwback Thursday (September 6) – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly meme hosted by The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books!

It’s the nature of book blogging to focus mainly on new releases, but there are thousands of great books out there that haven’t seen the “New Releases” shelf in years. We hope to be able to bring attention to some older titles that may not be at the top of the current bestseller list, but still deserve a spot in your To-Be-Read pile.

You don’t have to be a book blogger to participate! You can put up a Throwback Thursday post on your non-bookish blog; or if you don’t have a blog at all, just use the comments to tell us about a book you remember fondly.

Here’s how it works:
1. Pick any book released more than 5 years ago. Adult, YA, Children’s; doesn’t matter. Any great book will do.
2. Write up a short summary of the book (include the title, author, and cover art) and an explanation of why you love it. Make sure to link back to The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books in your post.
3. Link up your post at The Housework Can Wait or Never Too Fond of Books.
4. Visit as many blogs as you can, reminisce about books you loved, and discover some “new” books for your TBR list!

Feel free to grab the Throwback Thursday button code from the sidebar to use in your posts.

Thanks for participating, and we look forward to seeing which books you choose to remember!

My Throwback this week is…

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (or Philosopher’s Stone if you’re British) by J.K. Rowling

On the one hand, this choice is a little bit of a cop-out, because isn’t it just automatically assumed that everyone’s read Harry Potter already? But the sad truth is, there are still people out there wandering the earth who haven’t yet met Harry. They don’t know what muggles, Quidditch and butterbeer are. They don’t cringe at the words Crucio and Avada Kedavra. They may not even know how to pronounce “Hermione.”

So to those people, I say give it a chance. I scoffed at the series for years. I thought they were children’s books, and I couldn’t figure out why any self-respecting adult would read them. But one year, for my birthday (I seem to be developing a theme with birthday books), a friend gave me Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, because he liked it more than Sorcerer’s Stone, and I read it, and I was hooked.

The story is wonderfully imaginative. The writing is beautiful, and it matures with the readers (Sorcerer’s Stone, featuring an 11-year-old Harry, is a solid middle-grade. Deathly Hallows, featuring a 17-year-old Harry, is written for older teens). The attention to detail is amazing. There’s casual mentions of things in Book 1 that don’t wind up being significant until Books 6 and 7. The wide assortment of characters is among the most fabulously developed of any cast, ever. From Harry’s classmates to his enemies to his friends’ parents to his teachers, you won’t find any one-dimensional characters in the pages of Harry Potter.

If you’ve never visited Hogwarts, let’s remedy that.

And if you have, here is your reward.

And another!

This is a blog hop! Link up your Throwback Thursday post below!