What Makes Harry Potter So Magical

Earlier today I shared a Harry Potter-themed meme that read "Harry's life would have been very different if Hermione didn't read." What surprised me a bit was the number of people who not only missed the fact that this was simply an encouragement for all of us to be readers, but even more so that a number of folks flat-out disparaged the Harry Potter series in general. Apparently it's time to revisit the impact of this phenomenal series.

J.K. Rowling's tale of a boy wizard has held the world spellbound for more than fifteen years now, and done it while using story elements so ingrained in our collective memory that readers were amazed by the freshness of it. Albus Dumbledore may be the greatest wizard of all time, but when it comes to weaving a magical tale, he doesn't come close to his creator.

The good versus evil storyline has existed since the beginning of time; in fact, it is ultimately the basis of most of the world's religions. Stories of magic have existed almost as long, and the story of the orphan who overcomes great odds was popularized by Charles Dickens more than 150 years ago. Yet J.K. Rowling took these very well-known elements and through a gifted literary alchemy produced something both familiar and new at the same time.

Harry Potter himself could have easily been a one-dimensional character, the lone hero forced to confront the greatest evil the world has ever know. Frodo in The Lord of the Rings is such a character, never really growing or maturing during the journey, simply putting one foot in front of the other. But Rowling did something with Harry and the rest of the young characters that hadn't been done before in children's literature: she let them grow up. Harry is 11 years old when we meet him, downtrodden by the Dursely's and unaware of his magical abilities. Over the next 7 years he grows in the same way any child does, through trial and error, having goods days and bad (sometimes very, very bad), and discovering who he is as a person, a friend, and a reluctant hero.

The other characters, particularly Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, also develop and grow throughout the series, and the romantic tension between them in the later books was yet another twist on "typical" children's literature. Rowling also makes the stories and characters real by having them deal with death in virtually every book. Death is a subject that rarely receives thoughtful consideration even in adult fiction, yet Rowling tackles it from the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

The way Rowling portrays the adults in the Harry Potter series is yet another surprising piece of magic. In most children's books, adults are either not present at all or are little more than bumbling idiots for the kids to outwit. The adults in the Harry Potter books are fully formed characters whose stories could stand alone if you removed the kids entirely. Rowling shows us the adults' strengths and flaws, glories and failures, and she does it from the perspective of the students in most cases; what they (and we) learn about Dumbledore, Sirius Black, Lupin, Snape, and others comes out in bits over the course of the narrative. And as in life, sometimes the kids seem more grown up than the adults and sometimes it's the other way around.

None of these things, however, would make the Potter books the best-selling series of all time (400 million copies in over 30 languages and still growing) if Rowling hadn't also written an amazingly compelling page-turner of a series. That it is both a great beach read and truly literature at the same time is all the more remarkable. She has woven the best parts of the hero-quest, magical fantasy, romance, Gothic suspense, social commentary, and even detective fiction into a tapestry that looks like nothing we'd ever seen before.

J.K. Rowling may not be able to turn lead into gold, but getting both a generation of kids and their parents to put down the PlayStation and TV remote long enough to read a tale that spans 7 books and more than 4,000 pages is an even more remarkable feat of alchemy. She is without a doubt the greatest magician in the literary world.

Time Was Soft There: A Review

Jeremy Mercer’s 2005 memoir Time Was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare & Co. is a book that in many ways defies conventional classification. It is obviously a memoir – it says so right on the cover – and it is certainly a snapshot of the famous Paris bookshop at the start of the 21^st century. But this entertaining and engaging book is far more than that.

The book chronicles the brief but eventful 9-month period that Canadian crime reporter Jeremy Mercer spent living at Shakespeare & Co., and in that sense it is a memoir. Mercer is a talented storyteller, and there were many points where the book seemed more like a novel than non-fiction. The only flaw in his delivery is a penchant for melodrama, particularly concerning the "death threat" that caused him to flee Canada for Paris in the first place. But the relationships, both good and bad, that he builds with the other staff and residents of the bookstore more than make up for this.

More than an autobiography though, Time Was Soft There is also both a history and a current view of the bookstore itself. The original Shakespeare & Co. was founded by Sylvia Beach in 1919 and was the home of the "Lost Generation" of American writers such as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Joyce until it was closed by the Nazis in 1941 during the occupation of France. In 1951, George Whitman opened an English-language bookstore in Paris; after seeking Beach's permission he later renamed his store Shakespeare & Co. as well.

It is George Whitman's life story that truly drives Time Was Soft There; it is in many ways more about Whitman than Mercer. Whitman (who lived at the store until his death in 2011 at the age of 98, though management of daily operations had passed to his daughter Sylvia just after the time this book chronicles) was an unabashed socialist, telling Mercer early on that "I run a socialist utopia that Masquerades as a bookstore." This worldview is the reason Whitman allowed artists, writers, poets, and wayward travelers to live for short periods at the store and share in communal meals for more than 6 decades, with the only requirement being working around the store.

But despite his declarations of Marxist thought, Whitman was a bookman to the core. The lengths to which he goes to keep his beloved bookstore afloat are a testament to his love of books. He was single-minded in a way that few are these days, and the book faithfully shows both the good and bad side of the vagabond-yet-stationary life of both Whitman and his employee/guests. He summed up his philosophy about books and book selling this way: “The book business is the business of life."

Jeremy Mercer has given us what is the final extended look at both George Whitman and Shakespeare & Co. during Whitman's lifetime. In its own small way, Time Was Soft There is a link in a chain extending back to Sylvia Beach's memoir Shakespeare & Co. and Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. For lovers of books and bookstores, it is a must-read.

Indie Bookstores Rise from the Ashes

For years now the media has covered stories about the closing of independent bookstores with an unexplainable glee. Yesterday a story in The Christian Science Monitor went the opposite direction, devoting their feature story to the fact that independent bookstores are actually on the upswing, with more opening every year and 2012 having been a banner year for sales.

The Monitor's story, aptly titled "The Novel Resurgence of Independent Bookstores," summed up the current climate for indie booksellers this way:

Community support is by no means unique to Bank Square Books (in Mystic, Connecticut), and it may be the secret ingredient behind a quiet resurgence of independent bookstores, which were supposed to go the way of the stone tablet – done in first by the national chains, then Amazon, and then e-books.

A funny thing happened on the way to the funeral.

While beloved bookstores still close down every year, sales at independent bookstores overall are rising, established independents are expanding, and new ones are popping up from Brooklyn to Big Stone Gap, Va. Bookstore owners credit the modest increases to everything from the shuttering of Borders to the rise of the "buy local" movement.

There is graphic evidence from the American Bookseller's Association to back up these claims:

After a steady decline in the number of independent bookstores during the rapid expansion of Barnes and Noble and Borders, we have gained more than we've lost in the past four years (a net gain of 166 stores and 249 additional locations). And 2013 looks just as bright, in spite of the sluggish economy, with stores like Farewell Books in Austin, TX and Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor, MI (to name just two) opening this spring.

More stores will follow as book lovers with an entrepreneurial spirit see the gaping hole the loss of bookstores has left in our communities, and as people in those communities recognize that there are some things that mean more to the soul of a place than saving a few dollars on Amazon. As I've said for years, the book isn't dead...and neither are bookstores.

84 Charing Cross Road: A Review

This year marks the 43rd anniversary of the publication of what may be the most unlikely New York Times bestseller ever: Helene Hanff's 84 Charing Cross Road. It is not even a book in the conventional sense, but rather a collection of letters exchanged by Ms. Hanff and London bookseller Frank Doel (and other staff members) between 1949 and 1969. The fact that it is such a slim volume (only 96 pages) makes its runaway success in 1970 even more amazing.

But 84 Charing Cross Road is a perfect example of why you can't judge a book by its cover, its length, or the unorthodox nature of its content. Ultimately what makes the book work is what makes any book work, whether fiction or nonfiction: the relationships between the characters. And for readers today, the way the relationships develop are not simply interesting in themselves, but also because of the manner in which they happen. In an instant gratification, Twitter and Facebook world, the often leisurely pace of the letters between Helene and Frank are a window into an era we will sadly never see again.

The correspondence begins in 1949 as Ms. Hanff is searching for clean copies of used books she is unable to find near her home in New York City. This alone will seem strange to readers accustomed to using the Internet to find any book ever published, but before the advent of eBay and Amazon.com, books that went out of print could only be found through used and antiquarian booksellers, who themselves had to conduct exhaustive and time-consuming searches. She writes to London booksellers Marks & Co. requesting certain titles she cannot locate, and thus begins the 20 years of correspondence that makes up the book.

Helene Hanff was a prolific writer during her life, but her letters in 84 Charing Cross Road prove that she may have missed her true calling as a stand-up comic. Many of her letters are laugh-out-loud funny, made more so when juxtaposed with Frank Doel's typically proper and reserved English responses. Their exchange over a mix-up regarding a Latin New Testament is priceless, especially given that Hanff was Jewish.

The books she orders are a veritable Masters class in Literature, ranging from Chaucer to Virginia Woolf to Jane Austen. A lover of books could do worse than simply reading all of the titles mentioned in Hanff and Doel's correspondence. But had this just been an exchange of book orders and invoices it would not have grabbed the public's imagination in such a way that the book is still loved 40 years later, as well as having been adapted into both a play and a film. Helene goes beyond being a simple customer, becoming involved in the lives of the store's staff, celebrating their joys, mourning their losses, and caring for their physical needs in a very real way.

England after the end of World War II was subject to severe rationing that lasted for many years. Upon learning that her new friends couldn't get things like meat or real eggs, she began sending regular food parcels to them, especially at holidays. One such parcel caused her to send a panicked follow-up letter: she had sent a ham before realizing that the owners of the shop were Jewish and offered to "rush over a tongue." The staff (six in all) respond by sending her photos of their families, first-edition books, and teaching her how to make Yorkshire Pudding. Throughout this two-decade friendship she planned to travel to London to meet everyone in person, yet seemed to always be put off by some unexpected event.

84 Charing Cross Road is at its core a book about lovers of books, and is at the same time one of the funniest and most touching books you'll ever read. Those who have read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (a novel also comprised of only letters between the characters) will see how much that best-seller owes 84 Charing Cross Road. I am thankful their correspondence came at a time when people both wrote and kept letters; such a book would likely never have been possible in the era of e-mail, and that would have been a very great loss.

The Ideal Bookshelf

A few days ago I discovered a new book at the library called My Ideal Bookshelf. The editor, Thessaly La Force, interviewed 100 leading cultural figures (writers, artists, musicians, actors, chefs, and fashion designers among them) and asked them to share their ideal bookshelf. "Ideal" was defined as "books that define their dreams and ambitions and in many ways helped them find their way in the world."

It is an intriguing premise, both as a window into a large group of very successful people and as a challenge to each of us to look hard at what we would place on our own ideal bookshelf. We all have long-time favorites that have influenced us throughout our lives and shaped how we see the world. We also have books that we discover at a point of specific need we may not have even recognized (when the reader is ready, the book will appear, to paraphrase the Zen saying). All of them impact who we are.

My Ideal Bookshelf is a compelling combination of words and art, and it explores what books mean to the people included in the volume using both. Each contributor was interviewed about the books they chose for their ideal shelf, and we learn what the books meant to them. This would have been interesting enough, but the editor took it a step further. She brought in artist Jane Mount to illustrate each person's bookshelf, exactly as they set it up for the interview.

The result of these illustrations is both a presentation of the book-as-object and a further glimpse into the person who chose them. Some arranged their books alphabetically, as you would in a store or library, while some had them stacked haphazardly in a pile. Some had very few volumes, while others packed almost more than the artist could fit on the page. And some, particularly the artists, had them arranged in a way that made the sizes of the books or the colors of the spines most pleasing to the eye.

As for the actual books chosen, they were as varied as the people interviewed. There was a consistent representation of authors like Hemingway, Nabokov, and Garcia Marquez, as you would expect. But there were a huge number of titles I had never even heard of, and I consider myself fairly well-read. That's the other joy of this book; it can lead you to books you never knew you wanted to read.

I encourage all book lovers to pick up My Ideal Bookshelf, and check out the books chosen by people like Jennifer Egan, David Sedaris, James Patterson, Tony Hawk, Michael Chabon, and 95 others. And while you're at it, why not take a little time and ask yourself what books you would put on your ideal bookshelf, the ones that say the most about you and who you are. It's self-examination of the best kind.

The Razor's Edge: A Review

There are innumerable books that have been labeled "classics" over the years. Sadly, the very point at which a book receives this designation seems to be the point at which people stop reading it. In the case of the great English novelist and playwright W. Somerset Maugham, this "classic" label has long been applied to his book Of Human Bondage. Fortunately this is not as much the case with his best novel, The Razor's Edge, so we are all free to continue reading it.

The Razor's Edge is not simply Maugham's finest novel, however; it is easily one of the best novels of all time. I freely admit that I am an evangelist for this particular book, having read it every year since 1985. When I'm finished I give that copy to someone who has never read it and buy myself a new copy. Some have seen the 1946 film adaptation starring Tyrone Power, which was fairly true to the book, and almost 40 years later Bill Murray attempted an ill-conceived film version that was, in a word, awful. Neither film comes close to the greatness of the novel.

The Razor's Edge tells the story of Larry Darrell, a World War I flying ace who returns to his native Chicago profoundly impacted by the events of the war and unwilling to join in his friends' pursuit of money and leisure in booming 1920s America. Rather than enter the business world (as everyone expects him to do), he leaves his home and his fiancé Isabel and travels to Europe to, in his words, "loaf."

Loafing as Larry practices it is quite strenuous however, consisting of days working on a farm or in a coal mine and nights reading the great philosophers and mystics. He eventually travels to India and comes under the teaching of a guru who helps him greatly in his search for meaning. As these events transpire, back home Isabel has married Larry's best friend, the stock market has crashed, and the friends are ultimately reunited at the Paris home of Isabel's uncle Elliott Templeton.

One unique feature of this book is that Maugham inserts himself in the story as its narrator, giving the novel the feel of a memoir; indeed, after the publication of the book in 1944 there was no small amount of speculation as to the identity of the person Larry is based upon. While putting himself in the story is an unusual plot device, it allows for what are some of the best scenes of all: the interplay between Maugham's character and Elliott Templeton. And while Larry is certainly the main character, Elliott steals every scene he's in (this happened in both film versions as well).

Although not as well known today as some of Maugham's other novels (including The Painted Veil and Up At the Villa, both of which have been made into films in the past decade), The Razor's Edge was a huge bestseller upon release, selling over a million copies in the 1940s; it has never been out of print since. It is as relevant today as when it was written nearly 70 years ago, and contains some unmistakable and prophetic parallels to our society today, from the dangers of a consumer society to the effects of war on those who fight it to the search for meaning through Eastern religions. It is also the only book I've ever read that makes the search for meaning both interesting and entertaining, which may be the most amazing thing of all.

Real Books Aren't Going Anywhere

As most booksellers expected, recent sales trends show that the e-reader/e-book phenomenon is losing the huge momentum it first enjoyed, and the percentage of e-books sold vs. printed books is reaching a point of equilibrium. I personally never believed that printed books were in danger of going the way of the dodo, for the following reasons.

1. Printed books provide a tactile experience. Music is heard, and films are both seen and heard, but books are experienced both visually and by touch. There is an aspect to the feel of books (the smooth glossy cover, the roughness and even smell of the paper) that provides a physical sensation that is both separate from and intimately linked to the story you are reading. We bond not only with the author (novels being the only art form that requires many hours of commitment on the part of the audience) but with the book itself.

2. Great novels, from War and Peace to The Shadow of the Wind were not meant to be read on a digital screen, no matter how much “like paper” they try to make that screen. Most of us spend our entire workday staring at a computer screen, plus additional hours in front of a computer or television after we get home. The last thing most readers want to do is spend even more time staring at a screen.

3. Books can be written in, dog-eared, loaned to friends, stuffed in your back pocket, browsed for on rainy afternoons, and then sold to a used bookshop for cash to buy yet more books. Try that with a Kindle.

4. Most readers (and we have always been remarkably few as percentage of the total population) like having a personal library. It may or may not contain highly collectible items like a signed Hemingway or first-edition Faulkner, but a bookcase loaded with books can be much more than a simple collection. It can serve as a timeline of our lives: the copy of Homer you read in the same college class as your future wife, that Robert Parker Spenser novel you read in the hospital waiting for your son to be born, that copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets you read to your daughters over a snowy weekend, and that biography of Maugham you discovered in a cool little shop in London. These are books you pass down through generations, even though they may have value only within the context of your own family. Once again, you can’t do that with an e-reader. The books in a Kindle don’t even exist except as bits of binary code.

5. Finally, we need only look to our own history to see that printed books will always find a way to survive. Books have weathered far greater threats than the Kindle for over 100 years. The book's demise was first predicted with the advent of radio, then with the arrival of motion pictures, television, video games, and finally the Internet and the iPad age. It was even thought that the launch of Penguin Publishing's paperback book line in 1935 would quickly spell the end of hardcover books; 78 years later hardcovers are still around.

So even if you have a Kindle, or a Kobo, or an iPad, go out and buy some printed books from your local independent bookseller too. They hold your memories much better than any gadget can.