Is it unreasonable that aged 30 my favourite books are the Harry Potter books?

[DarlingDuck]

I read them all once a year, usually around Christmas

Oh, Le Guin. She is the master [there's a phrase for the Feminism forum to analyse!]. I am currently collecting her short stories through E-Bay.

You can't do better than Le Guin. If we're talking adult books, start with The Left Hand of Darkness and keep going.

Yanbu and I agree that 'fave books' actually means 'can read a thousand times'

I've read enormous amounts of books but I only have two I can read over and over and I would call them my favourites.

They are 'Gone With The Wind' and 'Wuthering Heights' in case anyone is interested.

My gripe was not with the op reading HP every year- I read Swallows and Amazons, all of Antonia Forest, Rivals and Cold Comfort Farm every year. It was saying that they are her favourite books that brought me up short.

I've never read a Harry Potter but I wouldn't be averse to it. I've got a French version of the first one as I thought it would help me learn the language but I haven't got past page 1 so far

However I loved 'Curious Incident' and 'Truth About Leo', I also like a lot of the Jackie Wilson stuff. Kids are lucky today, I don't see why I should miss out just because during my childhood the books were rubbish!

I love children's fantasy, and regularly reread much of my children's book collection (partly because I can't really afford to only read new books). My Dianna Wynne Jones collection has seen me through some tough times and some of the books are now really very battered.

But I do think that Harry Potter is just not very good (to the extent that it might well be the next series to be culled to make room for new books on my bookshelf). I find it difficult to understand why of all series it took off so, because there just are much better children's books out there. Still if it really means children's books got a new lease of life then I will forgive the hype totally, as there are lots of new writers writing excellent stuff, and some of my favourites became easier to get hold of. I do despise the 'adult cover' thing. There is nothing wrong with reading good children's literature, and if the book isn't terribly good a less brightly coloured cover doesn't really make any difference!

For me really good children's books are fundamentally about the challenges of growing up and discovering yourself (which is why I don't like HP, as he angsts about really stupid things like kissing your best friends sister instead of anything in any way meaningful, which just makes the character either unreal or rather vapid). Fantasy should include new ways of looking at the world, and ideally be thought provoking and at the very least interesting (I think HP is fairly derivative on that front).

Oh, and the best children's books (and this is probably true of adult fiction too) should be really enjoyable to read aloud. Ursula Le Guin is a great example of really well written fantasy (adult and children).

Can I recommend "A tree grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith. Nothing formulaic about that. Amazing fresh writing and not a trace of the self-pity that oozes out of Angela's Ashes.

Also Longtime Passing by Hesba Brinsmead, for the same reason. Also any of the Little House on the Prairie series. DD2 recommended this to us A Note of Madness, written for teenagers, about a music student's descent into schizophrenia. Still perfectly good for adult consumption.

Children's literature doesn't have to be formulaic and boring but you do have to seek out the pearls among the Harry Potters more income-driven stuff.

Oh and the Digger trilogy by Terry Pratchett. Never a great fan of TP but these were great.

YANBU - they are absolutely my reliable escapism whenever I'm feeling a bit stressed or ill. I don't understand the 'not well written' comments re HP, surely if it's a book that you feel totally absorbed in and care about the characters then it's well written? Kate Mosse's books, on the other hand, are so badly written that the awful language stopped me feeling any involvement in the plot. It jarred.
Other books I re-read are Jeeves and Wooster and those by Evelyn Waugh, Nancy Mitford and Amis's Lucky Jim and various Indian authors. More comfort reading! Books I have loved and intend to re-read when I have time are War and Peace and a Suitable Boy. ALso enjoy a good who-dunnit. (Not the really vile women being raped and mutilated ones though; at reading a Peter James book think it was PD Jame)
I have never really 'got' Dickens, I find all the dialogue and silly names off-putting. I don't like reading anything miserable from any era. Chick-lit makes me feel muderous. I also really struggle with loads of modern books; the booker type ones that are supposed to be so great. I find the characters are rarely likeable. Tried to read a Zadie Smith book about a troubled chef recently and it was just so boring! ALso things like Life of Pi - nice langauage but DULL.
Infact apart from HP unless it has got detectives in it or is set in the Indian sub-contintent I pretty much don't like anything written since about 1960.

I loved the Harry Potter books. Brilliant.

Still love Noel Streatfield, Richmal Crompton and LI Wilder and newer crossover, Mal Peet

I think the original poster is entitled to have whatever favourite books she wants! I very much enjoyed the Harry Potter books - I don't think they're badly written, and I was in awe of the plotting and clever twists, which put many a crime novelist to shame, and I thought the way she managed to create a whole new world, drawing on myths and legends, was very clever indeed.

A good children's book requires just as much skill to write as a good adult one, imho - I recently re-read The Railway Children, and was just as moved by it as when I first read it as a child.

All my favourite books are adult ones, but I think there's something immensely comforting about children's literature that you don't really get from adult books.

The Once and Future King.
One of the best fantasy novels ever OP.
It has Merlin and knights, good and evil, it's funny and sad and so much more besides. And beautifully written.
My ds (16) (not a great reader) has not long finished it and he loved it too.

YANBU.

God some people are such snobs.

I read all the time, a huge variety of genres, styles etc, including many 'intellectually stimulating' books. However, I too love Harry Potter, you are right about them being comforting and escapist. I have read them all many times and I don't feel I am wasting my time in doing so because I enjoy it.

Enjoy and ignore the haters.

UANBU I love HP and Percy Jackson pure escapism.
His dark materials is brilliant, but harder work. Have so far avoided DD1 making me read Twilight.
I don't want to read things that are hard work and about miserable real life situations and chit lit where you know which boy will get which girl from page 2 drives me mad.

My is 74 and read all the HPs more than once and I am 49 and read them numerous times. They are a good comfort read, a world you can sink yourself into when you are feeling down.

DD read the whole series about 5 times in one term but she also read 50 other books in that time as she had over 70 books in her reading diary listed.

"haters"

Harry Potter is fine, I quite enjoyed them. Has anyone read The Book Thief? Have a box of tissues, you'll need them. Brilliant crossover book.
I like lots of different things, dependent on mood, Stieg Larrson is great, I also like Murakami and for light reading, I'll read Rankin and Dexter 'til the cows come home.
Mark Haddon should be shot. Now, there's a really badly written book.

CoteDAzur, please take that as being somewhat tongue in cheek.. I'm going to utter a phrase that also really irritates my mother when I throw it in her direction (quite deliberately!), chill out!

:)

I read all the HP books and quite enjoyed doing so, but can't imagine going back to them.. my comfort re-reading is Alan Garner, Rosemary Sutcliffe (children's historical fiction), Mary Renault (The Bull from the Sea, brilliant) and Elizabeth Goodge (The Little White Horse). Somehow I missed I Capture the Castle which I would have loved as a child but loved it equally first time as an adult.
Despite those tastes I cannot get on with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - so treacly.

Ooh and I forgot Mervyn Peake the Gormenghast trilogy -well written fantasy fabulously comforting to read over and over IMO

YABU

I think of them as Mallory Towers with broomsticks.

TBH there are so many books I haven't got round to reading yet I would rather read all the good adult books out there before I start on kids ones.

Comfort reading for me is Bill Bryson and Jane Austen. I have read all of them many times and will definitely read them again. (Which is why I never get round to reading anything new.)

If you enjoy reading them the YANBU, I have a few favourite books that I have read a few times even though I do read loads of other things.

I enjoyed reading HP although I don't think I would read them again but it doesn't matter whether they are children's books or not.

Enjoy your books and don't worry about what anyone thinks

TakeThisOne Daddy Long Legs is the only book from my childhood that I still have. I loved it and read it loads of times. I must dig it out and read it again.