"Harry, A History" by Melissa Anelli

Wow.

I started reading this book a few weeks ago on the computer. Unlike a lot of blindies, I don't like reading books this way. Audio is my preferred format...well, Braille too, but obtaining a great book in Braille is only slightly easier than winning the California lottery. So, while I was enjoying the book, it was hard to stay focused on it.

On Saturday afternoon, I stumbled into a listing for the book on Audible.com. It had just been released there as an audio book a couple of weeks ago. I was very happy. I would get to read this intriguing book in a format that was more suited to my reading style. Great!

I knew about the book, released in printed form toward the end of last year, because its author, Melissa Anelli, runs The-Leaky-Cauldron.org, and hosts, along with others, the PotterCast podcast...both of which I'm very much a fan of. She's a funny, vivacious, and entertaining reporter, who has worked tirelessly for Potter fans such as myself...always bringing us the latest news as it breaks.

What unfolded off and on over the next 28 hours or so was amazing. The book exceeded any expectations I could have possibly had for it. On the OWL grading scale, it was definitely an O.

The book tells the story of the Harry Potter Phenomenon from all the angles that really matter: The birth of the fandom, its online explosion, J.K. Rowling's thoughts and genesis, the films, and the friendships that intersected, joined, and reenforced it all.

It's also Melissa's personal journey, from a somewhat closeted Potter fan sneaking reads between classes in college, through her rise to a strange sort of fan-fandom by the time the final installment of the series hit book shelves around the world.

To say I loved this book, would be an under statement of the most ridiculous level. It made me laugh. It made me cry. And, it gave me an escape on Sunday evening after some upsetting news came to me.

So much of it I could relate to, both in- and outside the Potter fandom. I was in a Barnes and Noble bookstore the night of the release of "Order of the Phoenix". I stood in that throng of people, many thousands of miles away from Melissa and her friends, but I experienced it in just the same way. It gave me the ability to relive the three midnight releases I'd attended in a way that I thought nothing ever could.

I can relate to the strange sense of unreality when Melissa is recognized and treated practically as royalty by other fans, when considering herself as just another fan in her own mind. I've been, for many years, a somewhat visible fan in the "Masters of the Universe" fandom, and have been stopped and treated much the same way by fans from He-Man.org at conventions.

The story of Heather, a girl who was told she had only months to live and inexplicably recovered, strangely mirrored my own story when, as a child, I too had become quite ill. For Heather, Harry Potter was her refuge. For me, it was Masters. I, too, experienced an inexplicable and miraculous recovery.

There will never be another Harry Potter book...not like those first seven, anyway. That feeling of anticipation, and reading the next installment of the saga will never come again. You can only read a book for the first time once...

Reading "Harry, A History" was as close to an eighth Potter installment as I could ever hope for. No, it wasn't the same. How could it be? But it gave me all the same feelings. It made me relive the fandom and the love for a boy wizard and his friends in a entirely fresh way that I thought was wholly lost, no matter how enduring that love has remained.

I wish I'd had the courage to say hello to Melissa and company last year at the San Diego Comic Con, when I attended their PotterCast panel.

If you're a Potter fan...and maybe even if you're not...you should read this book. It's a wonderful, emotional, and thoroughly incredible ride.

All I can say is...

Wow.