Harry, A History: The True Story of a Boy Wizard, His Fans, and Life Inside the Harry Potter Phenomenon

A wonderful, insightful look at the fandom of Harry Potter from an insider's perspective. Anelli gives parallel histories of the Potter phenomenon: her own personal journey from novice Potter reader to super-fan, webmistress of The Leaky Cauldron as well as the stories of J.K. Rowling, the series' inception, and various big players in the Potter fandom. Covering topics like fan fiction, wizard rock, spoilers, and book challenges, Harry, A History gives an enthralling look into the deep and diverse Muggle world of Harry Potter. This well written guide will give any Potter fan back stage glimpses to the real world of Harry Potter, and the forward from J.K. Rowling doesn't hurt.

On a personal note, this book opened my eyes to the breadth of show more the Potter phenomenon. I'm what I like to call a periphery fan, not a FAN in the purest sense of the word. I obsess privately, don't own much merchandise, and only geek out once in awhile. This book makes me wish I had taken greater part in the greater phenomenon while it was still fresh and ongoing.

Favorite quote (context - Anelli's private interview with Rowling several months after the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

"I have one last question: What does she [J.K. Rowling] hope people will take with them about this time?

She pauses, but then the answer is right on her tongue.

'When all the fuss and hoopla dies away, and when all the press commentary dies away, I think it will be seen that the phenomenon was generated, in the first instance, bu kids loving a book. A book went on shelves, and a few people loved it. When all of the smoke and lights die away, that's what you'll be left with.

'And that's the most wonderful thought for an author.'" show less

Let's start with a fact: I hate false advertising.

This book therefore started off on a very bad footing, since it called itself "Harry: A History." An evocation of "Hogwarts: A History," I'm sure -- but it's not an accurate title. This is not a history of the Harry Potter phenomenon. It is mostly a story of Melissa Anelli's interaction with the Potter phenomenon. As well as of her absolute lack of critical skills in dealing with the books.

It's a constant breathless pangyric, and one that ignores all the minor inconsistencies in the books. That's merely irritating; what is obnoxious is there is too much Melissa and too little Harry for that title. Call it "My Life with Harry" and I'd give it probably another star. Because I wanted to show more like it. A good history of how the Potter books came to be published would be welcome by both fanatics and general readers. This... is only for the fanatics. And not all of those. I was constantly skipping chapters to try to find some real content.

Please, change the title for the next edition. show less

Having read several negative reviews here and elsewhere, I was prepared for a long, boring saga of Harry Potter sites and frequent quotations from message board postings, liberally laced with minutia only a true insider could love. Instead, I got a history – personalized in the very best way – of a series loved by millions of readers around the world, including me. As a librarian I have been touched by the excitement that the release of the later books brought; I occasionally read some of the more famous Harry Potter sites (including Melissa’s own Leaky Cauldron). I listened to a few podcasts and knew fanfic existed, but after reading Harry, a History, I realize I had seen only the tip of the HP phenomenon iceberg.

First, a caveat: show more Melissa’s book concentrates on the meaning of Harry Potter to youth. Oh, it isn’t that she doesn’t mention the adult fan, but the theme of this book is Kid Power, and the unique confluence of the series and the rise of the Internet which gave young people an opportunity to create, interact, and have control over their lives in a way that is generally denied the young. I’m sure there’s another book waiting about how Harry brightened the lives of those of us stuck in our adult ruts of commutes, car payments, and families to support, and I hope some day Melissa will write it. But this book is about growing up with Harry, and how he changed lives.

Beyond Kid Power, Melissa gives an in-depth look at many other facets of Harry: the fan sites and the people (in many cases, kids) who ran them; the artistic tributes to Harry in art, (fan)fiction, and music; the anti-Potter movement featuring Laura Mallory who campaigned against the series because she felt it promoted witchcraft; and finally, that rarified world of JK Rowling herself, as Melissa’s interviews (including a famous – or infamous one – with Mugglenet’s owner Emerson Spartz) and interactions with Rowling and her associates gave the reader a glimpse of what was happening to our beloved author.

I had one quibble with the book – one that was minor, but awfully annoying by the end. Melissa has a tendency to re-write phrases almost verbatim, for example, repeating her description of how she squinted to avoid spoilers twice just a few pages apart. If you listened to the audio version as I did, you started to think your player was frequently skipping backwards. This was nothing a good editor couldn’t have fixed, but it was distracting.

Overall, Melissa’s book is charming, moves along well, and is well worth the time of any Harry Potter fan. I’d especially recommend it to those who only read the books, so they can finally be aware of the magical world that existed around them. How could we have missed it? I guess that’s why they call us Muggles. show less

I read this back in 2104 and enjoyed it quite a bit. Was looking for something on audio to be background while doing a lot of chores and putting books into LT and whatnot and thought this one would be fun to revisit. And it was. Anelli does a great job giving the history of the HP phenomenon. A few parts dragged for me this time (mostly the bits that I was never super interested in (like Wizard Rock) in the first place), but that's really just an interest-level thing. I wasn't in love with Raudman's reading (she makes everything sound really precious. Yuck.), but she did a good enough job I was content to carry on listening. I very much recommend the book if you're interested in the history of HP or fandom. ~April 2017, audio show more version

Does what it says on the tin and does it well. Anelli ran the website The Leaky Cauldron for years (she might still do, I don't know), so is able to write from an inside perspective (she was given press access to aspects of the films and developed professional and sometimes personal relationships with members of the publishing team and Rowling herself) as well as from the perspective of a fan. Her writing is very engaging, and she does a great job exploring many different aspects of the HP phenomenon, including fan fiction, wizard rock, massive release day parties, and book burnings in protest of HP-ian witchcraft. The book uses the countdown to the release of Deathly Hallows as a kind of framework for the story of the whole phenomenon, and we get a really good sense of what the HP craze was all about. I have two quibbles--one is that chapters sometimes forget that they're in a book instead of standing on their own (events summarized again, sometimes in the same language as last time), though this was only a minor annoyance. The other is that Anelli doesn't do much to situate the HP craze within the context of what else was going on at the time. There's no doubt that as a publishing phenomenon Harry Potter did things no other books had ever done before (and in spades) and that Harry Potter fandom was (is) enormous and in many ways a new thing, but it didn't spring up out of nothing. Anelli doesn't suggest that it did, but a little context about how HP fandom fits into the greater picture (other things (Star Trek and Star Wars, just for instance) laid the foundations, and there was at least one other pretty significant fandom (The Lord of the Rings films) traipsing along during much of the HP years) might have been nice. But, the book was a joy, and I highly recommend it to HP fans and anyone interested in fandom. ~July 2014 show less

I have wanted to read this book for a long time. Harry Potter was my life for about ten years, and the characters became my family. While the books were being published, all the other Potter devotees felt like family too. How many hours-days-months did I spend obsessing over every little detail J.K. Rowling let slip, reading MWPP fan-fiction and making fun of the people that actually thought Hermoine would end up with Harry? I'm pretty sure the amount of time I invested in this world is slightly insane - but I'm positive I don't regret a single second.

I wanted this book to capture that. For the most part, I think it does. If anyone can understand devoting yourself to Harry Potter, it is Melissa Anelli. She made a career out of it! She show more accurately captures a lot of great memories from the years when the books were still being released. She had me smiling through a lot of the book. So, while I enjoyed it, I can't imagine a lot of people that don't understand and appreciate the Potter years getting much out of it.

In many ways, it tells the story of my generation (it even touches on 9/11!), because no one else will ever read or experience Harry Potter the way we did. We got to be a part of the process - we were told the story a little at a time, so we appreciate each book more than anyone that gets the whole series at once ever could.

But at the same time, we can all envy new readers. Melissa Anelli says it well (to set the stage, the following takes place a few days after the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows):

"I leaned against the metal pole of the subway car as we started chugging into the heart of New York City. If my music hadn't stopped playing I might never have noticed - one, two, three, four at least ten people were holding up their giant orange books. Some were halfway through, some nearly all the way through. Some propped it on their legs, and a few more had taken off the jacket so as not to be inconspicuous. They spanned all ages, and were all engrossed.

One young woman, not much younger than me, sat near the end of my eye line; she was reading too, her colorful backpack on her lap and her arms circling it, her book acting as a buckle to hold it in place. I traveled to the next pole down to get a surreptitious closer look; she wasn't reading Deathly Hallows at all. Her book wasn't orange but rose and water and sand, and featured a kid on a broomstick and a white unicorn. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. She didn't notice me staring at her.

Oh, I envy you, I thought, but was smiling for her. She had just begun." show less

I confess, I’m a Harry Potter addict. I love J K Rowling’s books. And now, after reading Harry, a History by Melissa Anelli, I finally know that Rowling rhymes with bowling. I know a lot of other things too that I scarcely guessed before, and while I was slightly reluctant to read a real-world Harry tale, I’m very glad I finally did so.

Melissa Anelli became web-mistress of the Leaky Cauldron partway through the Harry Potter phenomenon. I remember visiting her site, enjoying her snippets, checking up on release dates, and delighting in her “no spoilers” policy. As I dream more and more of one day being an author, I look to her website as an example of how advertising “should” be done. And then I find myself wondering, how show more did it all come about.

So, at last, I’ve read Melissa’s story and taken an inside look at the selling and advertising, and even the writing, of a wonderfully successful series of books. I’ve learned how Ms Rowling knew and kept her characters’ secrets. I’ve met the film actors and enjoyed their conversation. I’ve seen the workspace, and even, eventually, the home. I’ve imagined that moment when J K Rowling shakes hands and Melissa shakes in her shoes, all words and poise flown like magical spells into nowhere. I’ve shared, and I’ve enjoyed, every turn of the page, and now I’m just waiting for the next film. Like I said, I’m an addict. show less

Harry, a history, might be a bit of a misnomer for some, although the story of how J.K. Rowling created the world of witches and wizards is certainly covered in this captivating book. A more accurate name might have been Harry Fandom, a history, but that doesn't have quite the same inside joke ring to it.

Melissa Anelli begins her book at the bittersweet "beginning of the end": the day that we finally discover the release date of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Once we're hooked, she flashes back to her first reading of -- and subsequent love for -- Harry Potter and the wizarding world. For those of us who consider ourselves fans (in whatever degree of zealousness), we might also recall fondly our first experiences reading the show more Harry Potter series.

It seems that Melissa leaves no stone unturned when it comes to documenting the history of the Harry Potter phenomenon. In this book we learn many fascinating things that have been inspired by Harry Potter: fanfiction, "shipping", bands, bans, theft, spoilers, conferences, and much, much more. To me, all of it was fascinating, but what really drives this book is Anelli's heart, and her ability to reveal her personal experiences so that we see her less as a persona, "Melissa from Leaky", and more as a person. Moreover, we get to see a more personal Jo Rowling; she is not merely The Author.

Overall, Harry, a History is a page-turner. There were only a couple of places in which the narrative seemed to drag a little, but it was to convey important information about fandom and its many trials and tribulations, and therefore necessary. Legal entanglements just didn't seem to hold my attention as much as other topics in the book.

The end of Anelli's book is satisfying in the same way that Deathly Hallows satisfies at the end: we have closure, maybe not in the way that we expected, but we are satisfied nonetheless. A chapter has closed on the literary world of Harry Potter and Melissa Anelli's deft documentation of the phenomenon of fandom.

But hey, there are always the last three movies to watch and discuss, right? show less