Mark Reads Harry Potter

While I was in Japan, I was on my computer very often as I truly despised socializing with my super awkward host family. Their house had wireless internet so I was able to keep up on youtube, blogs, facebook, twitter, and all other forms of social networking I enjoy utilizing. At one point midway through my trip, I came upon this blog, which provided endless entertainment for me during some not-so-wonderful evenings and has been incredibly enjoyable to read ever since. This guy, Mark, is a pretty hilarious book reviewer/blogger and this past May he decided to pick up Harry Potter for the first time. He claimed he literally knew nothing about the series (except for the basic Harry is a wizard, he goes to some wizard school, Voldemort is bad, etc.) and started reading and reviewing the book chapter by chapter. Basically, he absolutely loves the books. Reading his blog was one of the most surreal experiences as I was uncomfortably killing time in my room at that house, because it was like I was reading the series for the very first time again. There is something really wonderful about watching someone fall into this series so innocently, not with the flair from movie propaganda or jumping on the bandwagon, but objectively appreciating her writing style, loving the characters, recognizing the complex themes and ideas, and freaking out over the crazy plot twists and revelations. He is almost done with Goblet of Fire at the moment and I would definitely recommend you go read his blog. It's hilarious and it really makes you think back to those innocent days when you didn't know the end either and you were just reading and loving these books for what they were.