Azkaban was always my favorite novel. I really love the relationship between Sirius and Harry. I felt so bad for Harry losing Sirius in Pheonix; the world keeps taking away his closest father figures Lupin is also my favorite character in the entire series, and that is a major reason Azkaban is my favorite.
Half Blood Prince is such a close second. I think it is the best of all seven books and written so well, but it isn’t as close to my heart.
As I said before, I love them all. Deeply, madly.
But I’ve to disagree with you, because I find Half-Blood Prince to be too short and simplistic, more like the first three books and less like the fourth, fifth and seventh. I’m sure it had something to do with J.K. being pregnant during this one. Besides, it has so much of romantic relationships, which is the part I despise the most.
Azkaban is an excelent book, and it was my favorite when I read it, but when you look back at it, this one didn’t add so much to the overall storyline as the rest of them.
I have to disagree Spirit of Adventure.
To start with, I don’t see how the half blood prince could be too short, its a long book and IMO doesn’t suffer from a rushed story.
Whilst the half blood prince has a romantic elemant, its not the first in the series to have this. And to be honest, I got fed up with the word ‘snogging’. I understand this is a childrens book as well, but lets face it, a large group of hormone driven teenagers would not just ‘snog’.
I think the main reason I like the book so much is for the bold step it took with killing off Dumbledor . I have to admit at the time I hated this, it actually made me feel sick ( which I guess should be a compliment to her writing)
But now I understand, whilst I don’t enjoy the first 2 books as much, I feel the series as a whole is the greatest saga to happen in my lifetime, and I will continue to support it as long as I can.
Sorry if this is a bit of a rant, alcohol will do that to ya 
Alcohol is a bad thing, I agree. That’s why I never drink.
I’l explain what I said about Half Blood Prince (I think you were under the impression that I don’t like it, and believe me, I don’t know anyone who enjoys it more than I do).
First, it IS short. When your last two books 734 and 840 pages, a new entry of 652 is short. So the story has the kind of rush of teh first three books (because the ellipsis is bigger).
Two, the romantic element has an evolution in the books. In the third one, it’s limited to one casual line of narration. In the fourth, there is some insight of Harry’s feelings and , well, the thing we all know about other two characters
The the fifth takes the big step. But, as you can easily confirm, it doesn’t takes as much of the percentaje of the story as the sixth. I’m not a fan of love, romance, intimate relationships, or anything like that, and that’s why I prefer the other elements.
About the step you mention, it’s not so bold as it appears. It was almost a certainty.[spoil] If you are familiar with Joseph Campbell’s writings, you know that in an epic story, the mentor figure has to die in some manner or another (but he almost always returns in a way). Think of the very similar fates of characters like Gandalf and Obi-Wan Kenobi.[/spoil]
And yes, we should see the series as a whole. When you do it, it’s flawless. It’s the greatest saga of my lifetime and I will support it against anything too.
I like The Sorcerer’s Stone, but, like Twilight, the fan base has gotten out of hand. That, and I hate the whole cool, popular action-movie series thing. I’m a movie person, and haven’t read the books.
Well, I understand you like the movies, but they are nothing like the book. They’re not as fulfilling.
As I know these books from heart, I’m a canon addict. So I have to hate the films.
I can see where you’re coming from. For instance, all my friends say the Twilight books are better than the movies. I’ve only seen the first movie, and I don’t read the books; it’s all stupid, but I thought it may illustrate that I can sympathize with you. I hope all these lame adaptations stop; they’re just unnecessary…
Yes, this is one on the lame ones.
But there are some seldom cases when the adaptation is better than the original.
Thanks for clearing that up spirit of adventure.
I don’t know much when it comes to literacy, so it was interesting to read.
I wasn’t making a whole lot of sense last night so I’m just happy my post was readable.
I think the sixth is my favourite book. I wasn’t a huge fan of the order of the phoenix the first time I read it, I got fed up with reading about detention and Harry yelling all the time.
I can see why fans of the books dislike the films, the ammount they have to cut in order to make the film a certain length takes a lot away. I still manage to enjoy them, but they certainly don’t compare to reading the series.
Yes, Harry’s tendence to yell in Order of the Phoenix made the character a little anoying.
And I don’t dislike the films cutting out scenes as much as I hate when they add something that is totally irrelevant.
Agreed! 
Glad I’m not the only one. God, I gave up halfway cos’ it got so irritating.
For me, the first book will always be my favourite. It’s the most ‘innocent’ one (with not as much as the emotional baggage of the subsequent ones) and for sheer sense of wonder, it’s hard to beat. There is always the pressure to make subsequent installments ‘darker’ and more ‘adult’ (such that they actually had to have children and adult editions from Goblet of Fire onwards, though I can’t tell the difference). And the later books develop a sinister overtone to contemporary events like terrorism and cultural imperialism (though it was established from the very beginning when Malfoy called Hermoine a ‘mudblood’).
So it’s always nice to return to brighter days when Harry didn’t have to [spoil]suffer the lost of a living loved one[/spoil], or when Ron and Hermoine [spoil]were just platonic friends[/spoil], etc.
I haven’t voted yet because I’m in the middle of the final book. It’s riveting stuff, I tell you!
Thirded, and I know lots of other people who didn’t like it. I believe that JK Rowling responded to the criticism though, since she never made Harry so perpetually aggressive again, and it was quite strongly toned down for the OotP movie (I’m not a huge fan of the film adaptations, but I am grateful for that much).
For my favourite, I’d have to say Prisoner of Azkaban, because it was at this point that the series really got going for me. I enjoyed the first two books, but they were a little safe and formulaic - it was at book three, I found, that things started to get deeper and more involving, and that a more obvious cummulative storyline was beginning to emerge. I also really liked the Deathly Hallows [spoil]chiefly, learning more about Snape and Dumbledore’s respective back stories, which had been a long time coming.[/spoil]
J.K. did have it all planned out from the start though. It makes sense to have the books mature as the readers are maturing too.
They have adult editions for all the books and there’s no difference between them and the originals. It’s for people who are overly self-conscious about carrying around a “children’s” book.
Yeah. I hate when they call them “children books” as much as I hate when they call Pixar’s films “children movies”.
Hmm. I really enjoyed all of them except Prisoner of Azkaban and Half-Blood Prince.
Prisoner of Azkaban and Order of the Phoenix were my least favorite movies. The others really were great. Half-Blood Prince’s movie really redeemed the book. But Goblet of Fire’s movie seemed a bit… hollow. Order of the Phoenix was even more hollow, and not very satisfying.
I know they’ll do the final two films justice, though. I hope they improve the Wizard battle aspect that Phoenix really flunked in.
I watched the order of the phoenix again the other night and it dawned on me that [spoil] the death eaters and members of the order Appear to fly throughout the battle sequences [/spoil]
Does anyone else think this have quite an affect on [spoil] The part in the final book where they see voldermort flying. In the book it seems to show just how powerful he is. But in the films we have already seen numerous characters fly [/spoil]
Just a thought
How can any of these horrible movies “redeem” one of their great book counterparts? This is the first time ever I hear someone saying the movie is better than the book. There are all kind of opinions, apparently 
But I do agree with an opinion of the last two posters:[spoil] the battle scenes in OOTP and HBP movies are terrible. The people just fly in “smoke mode” all the time (which by the way is an impossibility in the canon, except for two cases in the last book, as St_Jons said.[/spoil]
My favorite book was The Deathly Hallows, for a few reasons. One, I thought it concluded the story nicely. A lot of characters died 
([spoil]Fred [/spoil]), but I think that’s more realistic than everyone getting a happily ever after. Two, I just really enjoyed the plot. It lagged a bit in the middle, but I just couldn’t put it down. Third, it proved me right. 
I told all my friends that Snape [spoil]wasn’t evil[/spoil] and they didn’t believe me. I always knew [spoil]he was an okay guy deep down[/spoil]. My favorite chapter in the entire series is Snape’s flashback sequence, The Prince’s Tale. As for the movies, my favorite was The Chamber of Secrets. The most recent movie focused too much on the love triangles in my opinion, and not enough on the actual wizarding. It was like watching a regular high school drama, with magic thrown in as an afterthought.
Apropos Deathly Hallows, I must admit that I was quite surprised by the number of readers who were upset about [spoil]Fred drying. Fred in particular, I mean (I’m not saying that his death wasn’t shocking, or sad), given the notably high body count of the book. I know one person who even went so far as to say that she thought the whole book sucked just because he died. I had no idea he was so popular.[/spoil]
For those readers, I have a question. Would it have been any less upsetting if [spoil]George had died instead? If so, what was it about Fred in particular? I’m just interested.[/spoil]
mogwai_milkshake, for me I didn’t find [spoil] fred’s death upsetting because i loved his character exactly, what hit me was wondering how George would cope without him. If George had died it would have been the same for me, picturing one without the other is dreadful. [/spoil]
Thats just me though, I may be alone in this