There was a time when the words “summer readings” came with much dread, a time years ago of required readings, and reading responses, and various preparation for the next level of English class. Now, while I should be somehow prepping for school (well, tell me how?), I’m spending my time reading fiction. Even while in Europe, riding on the train, in a particularly mellow mood, I would say to Ryan … “I just can’t wait to go home and have nothing else to do except go to the library and get books to read.” Ryan prefers nonfiction to fiction, so he could only share in my joy of having nothing to do but read, but not necessarily share in my choices of books … but that’s topic for another day.

So I’ve decided finally to tackle the Harry Potter books. It’s sufficiently out of the media enough now (the first book at least) that I don’t feel like I’m jumping onto some pop culture bandwagon, well at least I find some solace in knowing that I’m 4 years late in joining the parade. Haven’t started the Sorcerer’s Stone yet, because I spent all of yesterday reading Ender’s Game, another book that I’ve been meaning to read for years now.

Ender’s Game is one of those books that had I not known teachers/professors assigned it for class, I would have just read it, declared it a good book, and moved on to Harry Potter. But knowing that so many engineers speak so highly of it, I had to start thinking about what the heck those people found so capturing with this book. One of the first reasons engineering schools make their students read fiction (or anything other than a textbook) is in order to discuss engineering ethics. So without fail, I thought first of how engineering ethics could be debated with Ender’s Game.

It’s undoubtedly an excellent book. So how about a government that breeds children for their own military purposes to discover a commander worthy of leading a war 70 light years away? And what of a government that fights a war, leads an initiative without truly knowing the enemy’s intentions, assuming that they are for the evil? Sounds gloomily familiar to a war closer to home, a war that countless non-fiction books have already been written about, and countless more doubtless to come, a war that we’re just now finding out may just have been for the wrong reasons, no thanks to a certain junior in the White House.

I guess what bothers me about the book has nothing to do with the themes and plots of the book at all. It bothers me that I never would have even stopped to think about this book and its many implications had I not known that there exists debatable themes within its covers. Too often, I read just to read. I read for the story. I don’t stop often enough and think about just what am I reading, what does it really mean? Maybe that’s why Ryan likes non-fiction more. He’s more likely to be provoked into thought by those topics than seemingly meaningless ones in fiction.

I hope I don’t over analyze Harry Potter.