Harry Potter and The Gap Year Girl

Let's start with books.

I love books. Always have.

Except that school, first of all, took up all my time so that I never had time to read for fun, and secondly, to be honest drained a little of my love for them.

Thinking Beyond Borders is one of the more academic heavy Gap Year programs. I love learning and I love school so I've enjoyed our twice-weekly seminars that call for discussions and debates on what constitutes productive education, how policy affects sustainable agriculture and consumption, and of course the question that's been driving our exploration for two months: what is development?

However, all this heavy reading about the Mayan Genocide, extreme poverty, banana republics, and government coups at times can be, well, to say the least, difficult and saddening material.

I've found myself with more time on my hands than I ever had in high school. So, with all that time I've decided to fill it up with what I love: reading. To be perfectly honest, reading for the pure pleasure of reading and the enjoyment of getting lost in plot, characters, and themes for myself, without having to analyze it for any class, I've been a lot happier than I have been for a while.

It started with Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" and then extended itself to Robin Hobb's "Assasin's Apprentice" (of which I have just started the sequel to). Because you can never drain my love for Shakespeare, I found "Twelfth Night" avaliable pre-downloaded on the cloud and have read myself through the opening scenes of Act I.

Madison, Sam, Charlotte, and I were out working in our coffee field. It was day number four. I don't remember who brought it up but for the next two days Sam and Madison were engaged in a fierce debate over the Harry Potter Series.

Both love the series but found points of contention over whether or not Ron proved himself to be a useful character, about whether or not he was justified to turn Harry away in Book 4, about whether or not Dumbledore did the right thing by...etc. etc. etc.

Confession Time: I have never actually read the Harry Potter series (much to the chagrin of my best friends, Natalie and Katie, who are maybe the two biggest potterheads I know) and so I could not participate in their conversation. Although when I was younger my dad read the first three aloud to me and all my friends here, while they admit that it was quite impressive for my dad to read the books aloud to me, say and I agree that it's just not the same as reading them yourself.

I finished Harry Potter and The Socerer's Stone in two days. I started Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets last night and hope to make substantial progress on it while sitting in a coffee shop later today. Hopefully, I'll be able to start Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban by Monday.

I reiterate that I have never been so happy just to devour as many books as I am now. Over the rest of my gap year and even through college and the rest of my life I hope to be able to keep this up and just read for fun again. My roommate Ellie has started compiling a list of books for me to read and I'm looking to make it as long a list as I can. So I ask, please, comment below or message me on Facebook: can anyone recommend some books to me?