The Harry Potter phenomenon started for me when waaaaay back when I was a teacher in 1997 and every child seemed to have a copy of the book; I simply had to know what all the fuss was about and got hooked. Now, 12 years later and I’m looking forward to my own daughter being old enough to start reading the books to her and sharing the pleasure of the story with her.

So I’m wondering if I’m I the only geek around who was up late last night watching “A Year in the Life of J.K. Rowling” on t.v.  and finding themselves missing the anticipation  of the build up to each new book release like we enjoyed with each of the final four Harry Potter books?

Of course I’ve heard about the Twilight series and seen a kind of excitement it’s generated for each of the movie releases,  but it’s been nothing along the lines of Harry Potter and so far I’ve been able to resist the temptation to hand over a fist full of dollars to buy the books and start reading.  And as I’m not likely to receive a complimentary copy from Little Brown just for mentioning the Twilight series here in this blog, perhaps I should order copies from the library and see what the fuss is all about.  Although I have to admit that without ever really getting into it in the first place, I have been known to utter the words “I’m so over vampires already; move on people, move on!”

And it’s not that I miss Harry Potter as such (although I admit that if I heard that the fabulous Ms. J.K. had written another book in the series about the Potter kids I would be pre-ordering my copy,) but I miss the thrill of knowing I was one of millions around the globe who was waiting through the thrilling agony of the countdown to get my hands on the book and start to read.  I just miss the collective feeling of people around the globe, holding their breath, waiting to know the end of a story…… waiting for a book…..

EDIT  January 3rd 2010:

seems I wasn’t the only person who was thinking about Harry Potter that day….       The Globe and Mail