My husband just read the entire series for the second time, and after watching the third movie a week or so ago, he was all achatter about differences between the books and the movies, the timing of major plot points, etc., etc. Up until this point I had only read the first book and was stoutly refusing the read the others, on the general principle that I try to avoid series of books whenever possible. Getting into a series is just way too much commitment for me and it's rare to find a series that is worth reading all the way through. So I wanted to save my time for "serious" books. Or at least more deservingly guilty pleasures like Stephen King and Robert Heinlein. Plus there's my aversion to the currently popular books, on the grounds that it's much less offensive to say "No, I haven't read that yet," than "Yeah, I read it and found it wholy unremarkable." (If I have to explain to one more person why I didn't find Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone noteworthy in any way, I'll scream.)

But finally I was worn down. It's so rare that my husband wants to talk about a book (Other than the Hitchhiker's Guid to the Galaxy series, of course) that it finally became too frustrating to not be able to talk to him about the Harry Potter books just because I was too "principled" to read them. So I gave in and read book two. I still haven't decided if I'm going to read the rest of them, as the ever increasing length of each book represents an ever increasing impediment to my reading, say, books for bookslut, books off of any of my many "books you must read in your lifetime" book lists, or any of the dozens of books that have been lent to me by varioius people, many of them years ago when both I and the lenders lived in different states.

As for the Chamber of Secrets? I think I'll refrain from comment. If I'm going to offend people, I'd much rather do it in person. ;)