this entry is also in my LJ. (original) (raw)

Okay, so, I haven't read any of the Harry Potter books. *sheepish* For reasons that really aren't important, I never picked them up when the series was started, and I haven't since. What matters now is that I am GOING to read them--and I shall do it in one big swoop. As soon as I finish all of the books I have to read (this does not, of course, include books for class, which are not yet listed in my book journal, but will be as the need arises. Books for class, if they interrupt my reading of the HP series, will be read alongside it. ^_^), I will begin with book one. Unfortunately, I've seen four movies before reading any of the books, but them's the breaks, I suppose. Even so, I repeat: SPOILERS, AND YOU DIE. (by the way, this entry has not been locked, because I want EVERYONE to know of the horrible, painful death that awaits the bringer of spoilers).

These are the books I have to read/finish before I can start the Harry Potter series. They will be read/finished in the order in which they are listed. Yes, I'm anal about reading. It bothers me when I pick up a book and don't get to finish it, even if the book is horrible):
--The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens (I am reading this one now).
--Don Quixote de la Mancha, by Miguel de Cervantes.
--Henry V, by William Shakespeare.
--Llewellyn's 2005 Magical Almanac, by multiple authors.
--The Works of Oscar Wilde, by Oscar Wilde.
--Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo (this was a birthday present from my mother a while back. Unfortunately, she got me the abridged version. *makes face*).
--Fire From Heaven, by Mary Renault.
--Beethoven: The Universal Composer, by Edmund Norris.
--Stonehenge, by Bernard Cornwell (this is not, mind you, that bloody awful Age of Stonehenge book. *yucks* I wouldn't read that book again if my life depended on it).
--Middlemarch, by George Eliot.
--Mary Barton, by Elizabeth Gaskell.
--Tess of the D'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hary.

I won't even TRY to estimate how long it might take; my plan is to simply plow right through the whole lot of them, and get to the HP series as soon as possible. My goal? Get through the fifth HP book before the fifth movie comes out.