Harry Potter and the Midnight Launch

Despite not being particularly enamoured with the books, I stopped reading them with Goblet of Fire a good 4-5 years ago, and not actually having seen any of the movies. I still counted down the hours until the books global launch at 12:01 BST. I’ve always been a sucker for good hype, even for products that I didn’t previously want and definitely didn’t need, the hype always sucked me in.

The hype from my other great love, games, also achieves the same effect. There is rarely a console launch that goes by that doesn’t draw the same feelings of jealously and greed from me. I didn’t want the PS3, it was overpriced and had virtually no titles that interested me and it still doesn’t months after its release, however I still watched the queues on the news and I mentally counted down to midnight and visualised those shiny, happy people holding the console in their arms and then begun speculating a few hours later what fun people were having with it, without me.

Even more ridiculously I felt the same feelings with the launch of the PSP, despite giving up on handheld gaming with the Nintendo SP after Pokemon released me from its addictive grip making the idea of handheld gaming more pointless than ever. But still, those lucky people playing Spiderman 2 well into the night taunted me relentlessly.

I wasn’t even just indifferent to Harry Potter. I was against it, it annoyed me. It was over hyped for as far as I could see no good reason. Even a few Potter fanatics would agree the writing is pretty average. So the success of the book and the subsequent movies made me even more certain that I would never read a Harry Potter book again.

So why at 11.57pm British Summer Time did I go out of my way to watch the release of book and observe the first lucky few in queue outside Waterstones receive their copies of JK Rowlings long anticipated book with a ridiculous smile on my face (And awoke this morning to find the 7th book staring me in the face on my bedside cabinet)? Partly the unrelentless hype all over the internet, Partly a simple piece of journalism from BBC arts correspondent David Sillito reminded be that maybe Harry Potter wasn’t all that bad.

There's between 1,000 and 1,500 people here. The queue stretches all the way around Waterstone's, which is Europe's largest bookshop, then spills out onto the street and continues as far as the eye can see.

And I think I've worked out why...

JK Rowling published the first Harry Potter book 10 years ago, when the core audience was about eight or nine years old.

Half of these kids are now 18, and they've just finished their A-level exams.
It's like the ultimate rite of passage. This is the end of childhood for thousands of people.

They're graduating with Harry.


“I’m not graduating with Harry!” I exclaimed disappointed, feeling more left out of a launch than ever.

My resistance to the craze softened and my traditional pessimism faded. I had enjoyed the first four books, I had finished them, that’s an achievement In itself as I traditionally leave most books I purchase half read.

Whether you like them or not its hard to deny the series is a brilliant page turner, crafted inside a rich fascinating world populated with similarly rich characters. Yea her writing may not be up to much at times and the attention the series has received may not be entirely deserved but then it rarely is.

So the hype has gotten me again, well the hype and a bit of good journalism. I shall be rereading the series over this summer, having spoilt the ending of the 7th book myself before the release It may seem a little pointless, but I deserve giving the series a second chance, enjoying the journey along the way.

And of course. I don’t want to feel left out.

I just need the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth books to make a go of it now.