Harry Potter is credited with getting a generation to read for fun, but he himself never seems to read anything but his textbooks, nor are the recreational reading habits of other characters mentioned, as far as I can recall. The only popular writer we meet is Gilderoy Lockhart, and his books are all journalism/auto(pseudo)biography. No novelists appear or are named. There are wizard analogues of banks and businesses, police and doctors, but not writers of popular fiction – even though Rowling is herself, you know, a writer of popular fiction, and you might expect her to imagine persons like herself in the society she created. I mention this because it occurs to me Rowling could have done something with the idea of wizardly popular literature with defined genres – Auror procedurals, romance novels (just like Muggle romance novels except that the lovers are wizards), and it’s interesting to speculate what would be the wizardly equivalent of fantasy or science fiction. (It would not be “Muggle fiction” – because wizards could always get that from the Muggle bookstores.)
Well, they have their fairy tales, like Beedle the Bard.
I agree with you, though. Very little fiction is described in the books.
I remember Harry reading under the covers in one scene:
It was “Willy the Wizard” by Adrian Jacobs :~}
Percy Jackson.
One has to wonder whether Muggle written Historical Fantasy (i.e. Merlin stories) reads like bad historical fanfiction to them. “That’s so out of character! Merlin would never have done that!”
he read quidditch books. i seem to remember ron getting him a book about the cannon team for birthday or christmas. i believe that hermione gave him quidditch books as well.
also ron did give him a book on how to "get your witch " (i can’t remember the exact title) for his 17th birthday.
“It’s not all just wand work, Harry.”
Didn’t Ron have some comic books about Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle or something like that?
Twelve Failsafe Ways to Charm Witches
Well, Hermione finds the information on Nicholas Flamel in a huge book she borrowed from the library “for a bit of light reading”.
In the first book, Dumbledore complains that people always give him books for his birthday, rather than the woolen socks that he wants.
It kind of bothered me that in his first year at Hogwarts harry didn’t read everything he could get his hands on about being a wizard. I know everyone doens’ thave to do what I would, but Rowling kept having other characters reveal things to Harry about the very nature of being a wizard.
For Hermione, textbooks are “recreational reading”. I can empathize: When I was about that age, I read Euclid’s Elements for fun.
i’m glad i’m not the only hp geek, thankfully rysto and mahaloth remember the book as well!
i agree gwendee & chronos, then again i would be more like hermione, reading everything i could get my hands on. the only time that harry is in the books known to read a textbook was when he got hold of the half blood prince’s potion textbook.
i was very disappointed that he did not retrieve the book. that book was a bit of a treasure trove and perhaps hermione or harry could have had it published in snapes memory.
I imagine Harry reading a book about a boy who grows up thinking there’s a secret world of magic, but on his tenth birthday he gets visited by a grumpy fat man with no magical powers, who tells him he’s been enrolled at normal school of normal stuff and normality.
Stories about a magical raccoon named Squiggles, who sports a huge afro and shoots pixie dust out of his bunghole.
Given his upbringing, I wouldn’t think it too surprising that he’d never have an opportunity to read books other than school textbooks, so it makes sense that he wouldn’t have a habit for it.
Pure-wizard families like the Weasleys seem to know almost nothing about the Muggle world, but since people like Harry and Hermione have a foot in both worlds, it IS odd that they never demonstrate any knowledge of Muggle culture.
Does Harry ever listen to Robbie Williams, or follow Arsenal, or watch “Dr. Who”? Okay, that’s a bit TOO topical (and would be laughably dated way too soon), but you get the idea.
Well he knows about West Ham Football team and knows how big a cricket ball is.
I don’t know… I’d bet money on there just being new Doctors every year or two until the year 3030.
By which point the special effects will be up to twenty-first century standards.
Seriously, it would’ve been interesting to have a problem that only a knowledge of a Muggle device would save the day.
Dumbledore and the Malfoys stumped, Harry or Hermione for the win.
Didn’t Rowling draw some criticism precisely for having HP and most of the sympathetic characters exemplify the sporty, “plucky” side of the English public school stereotype as opposed to much emphasis on the intellectual?