BookWyrm: Harry Potter 6&7, Alchemist, Nancy Drew 1

Had a lot of free time this past week so I tried to use it to catch up on old hobbies: namely reading and watching movies.

I finished rereading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (HP6), 5/5!. When I watched Order of the Phoenix (HP5) I realized I'd forgotten a lot. I read the 2-3 at a very busy time in my life and wanted to reread the last two before I saw the movies. I'm really glad I did. It's been five years since I read it, and I knew how it was going to end, but I couldn't help crying anyway. It really is wonderfully written. I did find myself really tired of listening to Harry though: his obsessions are getting really out of hand, to the point where it seems like Hermione's the only one making any progress. This feeling spawned someone else writing "In Praise of J.K. Rowling's Hermione Granger series" which is really quite funny.

I also sat down and read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho 4/5, which I'd had on my shelf for a little while. I really did enjoy it. The author writes masterfully! I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the Soul of the World spirituality even when it deviated (and it often did) into Abrahamic mythology. I enjoyed following the boy in his outward and inward journey, especially liking the "present" of it all.

I also began to reread the Nancy Drew series. I have a set from 1959 that belonged to my mother (and probably her sisters). I'm quite fond of the set, not in small part because my mothers name and address is written on the inside of almost every cover. She'd even numbered them. I'd never finished the series growing up, though it did lead to my wanting to be a detective for the LONGEST time. On a note: I learned that the year of publication matters: the stories were tweaked over the decades to make Nancy fit with what a proper girl was like. By 1959 she was 18 (though she was written as 16) and apparently she was made a little less "outgoing".

It's funny to reread it some 20 years later. You catch things that you didn't back then, like, the Turner sisters' phone being out of order when Nancy visits the first time, yet she calls them the next day. It also uses odd words that I might call "out of date" if I hadn't thought it was a grammar mistake! Mr. Drew says "Excellent deducting!" I had to look it up! I was sure "Deducing" was a word, and "deduction" but thought "deducting" was wrong! Not wrong, just out of use! It's like a time machine, reading how Nancy and the other girls shop for clothing! I'm rather excited to finish the series, even though I will have to stop yelling "are you TRYING to get yourself killed??" at the pages... If this is Nancy "less outgoing" I wonder what she was like in the 30s!

 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (HP7). I started rereading this one as soon as I finished (watching) HP6. It was, monumental. I had it on audio so I could run around the house and do errands without having to stop listening, but it meant not being able to read at work. Eight full hours between getting to listen. It was, and is, a lot to take in. I finished (as I type) maybe 2 hours ago, and I'm still processing. I've read it before, but I'm still processing. I'm glad I read it again, it's like I heard new pieces I missed, or, had forgotten. An amazing book. I won't have time to watch the movies for a couple days, since I want to watch them back to back. At the end I want to be as tired, and worn out, as Harry is in the end of this book. I want it to be what reading it was, what fighting it was, a monumental feat. I can't wait.

I've also slated A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes 01), by Arthur Conan Doyle ,for reading; I never made it through it when I was younger, when I had a hard time with older British language. I'm so excited!