Richard Pelham

I didn’t read Harry Potter as a child, partly because I worked Saturdays in a book shop. My main responsibility was keeping the shelves nicely stacked, and the storeroom was down two narrow flights of stairs. I remember some of the titles that made me trudge wearily down those stairs, and, heavily laden, back up again – Bridget Jones’ Diary , the Ramses series, Stalingrad , Captain Corelli’s Mandolin , Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus – but none made me work harder than Harry Potter. The only times we ever had people queueing at the door in the morning was when a new book was released from Hogwarts. And of course, each one was a little bit fatter and heavier than the last. Yes, I resented Harry Potter. But that didn’t make me a Slytherin, and quite a few years after moving on from the book shop, I finally embarked on the wizarding adventure, hoping that book one ( The Philosopher’s Stone ) would persuade my daughter to move on from Disney’s Frozen . We have now f...