Thoughts
I'm seriously debating doing a Harry Potter re-read. I just re-watched most of the movies.
The thing is, I've read Harry Potter so many times that I actually have an extremely solid grasp of the general plot. Watching the movies, at various times I could say "that's not how it happens in the books." As an example, in the beginning of the fourth movie/book, at the Quidditch World Cup, the movie includes a scene where Harry+Ron+Hermione are accused of setting the dark mark, but the book additionally includes at that point, them checking the previous spell used by each of them. IIRC Ron had lost his wand and it had been used to set the dark mark.
The last time I read these books was like 8th grade. It's been a minute. (But I also read them like three times in elementary school.)
Anyways, the point is, it's not like the Fablehaven re-read I did this time last year, since I had forgotten almost all the Fablehaven plot at that point. But Rowling's rhetoric is definitely admirable, so it might be worth re-reading for that. (I remember her use of the em-dash in-particular being fun.)
I just don't have tons of time. At ~100 pages/hour (which seems reasonable for Rowling's writing and a book I've read before. I might even be faster), it would take around 40 hours. I guess that sounds bad in one sitting, but that's only 4 hours a day for 10 days. My flight back is the 8th. Ooohh
Okay, we're going to pick a few of them. Maybe 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7? 4 is an easy skip since it's the longest and isn't great. The reason to do 5 is that it has some good bits that were cut from the movie: the coins that communicate meeting times, scenes in the Room of Requirement, the Quibbler interview and subsequent banning, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, etc. I just remember on the whole really disliking 5. There's a lot of tension that just feels manufactured, I guess. Like Umbridge is a great character but a bad primary villain. I could write 1000 words just on the 5th book, I'm cutting myself off here.
Uggh I just want to read all of them.