Beedle the Bard
I first began reading Harry Potter ten years ago. I'm surprised I wasn't put off by the ugly British edition covers. At the time I was living with my friend Matt, B and Si in a converted warehouse/office space on Taranaki St in Wellington and I remember sitting up late in my room which was illuminated with a single, very yellow lightbulb, devouring the first three books. I tried to push them onto the boys, but they weren't very interested.

Then in June 2000, the newest book was due out and Potter-mania was beginning to take hold of the world. I was living in Singapore at the time, and was off to Thailand for work. I remember getting up early, to go to Borders and get my copy of Goblet of Fire and then staying up all night in my Bangkok hotel, reading the latest and being very sleepy the next day.

I really liked the final book. I thought it was a great ending to the series. It's funny, because when it came out commentators were discussing whether the books would be popular in fifty years time, and I remember thinking "of course they will be, they're so popular!" but someone rightly pointed out that Enid Blyton had been as popular in her day, and wasn't exactly the rage anymore.

JK Rowling's latest offering is an offshoot of Harry Potter. She's previously produced books on the periphery of the Harry Potter universe for charity, and this time it's "The tales of Beedle the Bard", a collection of children's stories from the Wizarding world.

When i was taking the MTR the other day I noticed that the vending machines that sell books were selling copies of Beedle the Bard in Chinese. Were is the operative word, as they had sold out! I just thought it was pretty cool that people actually buy the books from these vending machines.