Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. RowlingMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I'm a slow reader. Maybe you couldn't tell that by my list of books read this year. I'm on track to read 30 books this year, and that's a lot for me. After reading so much dense material on the how-tos of writing, I felt I needed something light and fun, so I picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone the other day, and within five hours (spanning four days) I finished the book. I was amazed.
Now, it could be that with all the additional reading I've been doing lately, my reading skills have increased and my words per minute are beefing up. I do, however, tend to read everything out loud still (part of a habit I have for reviewing my own writing), and this type of reading tends to be slower than silent reading.
That being said, I don't even feel like I read a book. I feel like I watched a movie made from words. This first book is 83,000 words long, but it felt like no more than 20,000. I couldn't find a single extraneous word. Every single scene did double and triple duty, building or developing character, advancing the plot, adding humor, hinting at theme.
If you want to write a bestselling novel, I suggest reading and analyzing this first book to discover exactly how it is done. There's no wonder Rowling hit it big with this series. It's amazing.
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