Bookish Quotes: Anniversary of Harry Potter

This week is the 25th anniversary of the publishing of the first book in the Harry Potter series of book. I'll just let that sink in a little. 

25 years!!

That means that for pretty much anyone under the age of 30, this book has been around their whole lives! 

This is the book that started the whole thing. The books, the movies, the stage shows, the spin offs, the careers and more.

However, rather than share a qhote from J K Rowling, I thought I would share a quote from a book that I read and really loved last year. 

I remember reading this passage and thinking how this character was going to love Harry Potter when she did finally get to read it. And, of course, I totally relate to the whole buying a book and not having read it thing too!

Do you remember when Harry Potter hadn't yet been released?

I walked over to Pop's bookcase and looked at his shelf of well-thumbed Stephen King novels; all those cracked spines and wrinkle lines on the covers, musty pages and the puffy bold typeface of his name that I liked to trace with my fingertips.

"He misses his mum," I said, as I pulled one of Pop's favourite books off the shelf. It was called Different Seasons and it was thick and yellowed with age, many of the pages bent from Pop's dog-ears.

Pop once told me that the world splits into two types of readers: those who bend the corner of a page to dog-ear when they read a book, and those who use a bookmark (and maybe there's a third kind who choose not to read, period - but he couldn't figure them out). Luca was the bookmark type. But Pop believed that dog-ears in a book were like laughter lines on a face - signs of love. All the books on his shelf had cracks and creases, and pen marks in the margins of his favourite stories, like rivers and roads leading to the best bits, the parts he wanted to remember.

"I think you miss her too," Pop said.

I put the book back but didn't know what to say to Pop that wouldn't hurt him. Mum was his daughter, and Anika wasn't mine to miss.

"I'm happier now that you're home," I said instead. And then to change the subject I asked, "Will you take Sam and me to Farrells one day these holidays?"

Pop opened his eyes and smiled - Farrells Bookshop in Mornington was the best around, and ever since I was a little kid, Pop had been taking me to the corner bookstore for a special treat every school holiday and plenty of weekends too. Any chance we could get, really. But between Pop's fall and his stay at the RRC and everything that had been happening, it was a while since we'd been. I bought this book called Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone last time we were there. I hadn't got around to reading it yet, but it sounded like a good story.

"It wouldn't  feel like proper holidays if we didn't go to Farrells," Pop said, and I smiled.