9th out of 78 books
—
96 voters
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter #1)
by
J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter has never played a sport while flying on a broomstick. He's never worn a cloak of invisibility, befriended a giant, or helped hatch a dragon. All Harry knows is a miserable life with the Dursleys, his horrible aunt and uncle, and their abominable son, Dudley. Harry's room is a tiny closet at the foot of the stairs, and he hasn't had a birthday party in eleven...more
Paperback, 312 pages
Published
October 1st 1999
by Scholastic Inc.
(first published 1997)
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Aug 14, 2011
Lora
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
anyone who is still waiting to read it
Recommended to Lora by:
Tina, Morgan, my own curiosity
I'm going to keep this brief since there isn't much to say that hasn't already been said. *clears throat*
I think the reason I waited so long to read this series is because I just couldn't imagine myself enjoying reading about an eleven-year-old boy and his adventures at a school of wizardry. I thought it would be too juvenile for my taste. I was wrong, of course.
I can honestly say that I loved every minute of this. It's a spectacular little romp with funny, courageous, and endearing characters t...more
I think the reason I waited so long to read this series is because I just couldn't imagine myself enjoying reading about an eleven-year-old boy and his adventures at a school of wizardry. I thought it would be too juvenile for my taste. I was wrong, of course.
I can honestly say that I loved every minute of this. It's a spectacular little romp with funny, courageous, and endearing characters t...more
So originally I wrote a review about Harry Potter vs Twilight. I now see how stupid this is, as the two are incomparable. Twilight does not come close. It is not even worth thinking about.
There was a day when I originally thought I needed to defend Harry Potter, and you can see that just below:
A note in regard to the on-going Potter vs Twilight debate:
Go ahed, tell me Twilight is better.
Tell me that James is scarier than Voldemort,
That the Cullens are a better family than the Weasly's
That E...more
There was a day when I originally thought I needed to defend Harry Potter, and you can see that just below:
A note in regard to the on-going Potter vs Twilight debate:
Go ahed, tell me Twilight is better.
Tell me that James is scarier than Voldemort,
That the Cullens are a better family than the Weasly's
That E...more
Mar 28, 2013
notgettingenough
rated it
1 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
childrens,
will-be-regretted-on-my-deathbed
28 March 2013: given the announcement that Amazon is now goodreads, I am now boycotting goodreads until this changes. SHAME ON GOODREADS.
So, I keep getting hate comments for this review and I thought it would be nice if you all had a place you could get together and badmouth it. Announcing....
A new group:
People who hate my Harry Potter review....
Come this way:
http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/4...
I'd be honoured if you joined. And I'm really sorry to all the people who wrote comments here whi...more
So, I keep getting hate comments for this review and I thought it would be nice if you all had a place you could get together and badmouth it. Announcing....
A new group:
People who hate my Harry Potter review....
Come this way:
http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/4...
I'd be honoured if you joined. And I'm really sorry to all the people who wrote comments here whi...more
Aug 17, 2011
Nikki
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fantasy,
children-s-and-ya
EDIT NOTE in 2012: Since this apparently isn't obvious, I wrote the review years ago. I do not necessarily have those opinions now. I wouldn't know; I haven't read Harry Potter since. With a degree and five more birthdays behind me I do not necessarily agree with everything I said when I was seventeen years old. I'm happy to chat about the definition of literature with you, or what I think about the Harry Potter phenomenon now or whatever, but try and be civil and don't attack me right out of th...more
Nov 14, 2010
K.D. Oliveros
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to K.D. by:
Purplycookie, Jzhun and Ruby
How can more than half of my Goodreads friends be wrong with this?
I have to get this right. As of this writing, I have 98 Goodreads friends. 61 (62%) of them have read J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Out of those who read this, 39 (64%) rated this with 5 stars. 11 of them with 4 stars. All the others gave 3 or 2. Only 2 rated this with 1 star. One of them admitted not being able to finish it.She should not have rated it really since she did not read its entirety. (But she...more
I have to get this right. As of this writing, I have 98 Goodreads friends. 61 (62%) of them have read J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Out of those who read this, 39 (64%) rated this with 5 stars. 11 of them with 4 stars. All the others gave 3 or 2. Only 2 rated this with 1 star. One of them admitted not being able to finish it.
On my list of reasons why my daughters are the bestest thing to ever happen to me, Number 14,577 is that they gave me, at 41 years old, the perfect excuse to revisit the Harry Potter series.
When my oldest angel told me she wanted to start reading the Harry Potter books, I couldn’t have been happier. As I was collecting all seven volumes off the shelf to bring up to her room, I started feeling nostalgic for the whole Hogwarts gang, and I realized that I’d never done more than a perfunctory revie...more
When my oldest angel told me she wanted to start reading the Harry Potter books, I couldn’t have been happier. As I was collecting all seven volumes off the shelf to bring up to her room, I started feeling nostalgic for the whole Hogwarts gang, and I realized that I’d never done more than a perfunctory revie...more
May 29, 2007
Harold Bloom
rated it
1 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
children, the carrion-eaters of scholarship
Shelves:
therabblement
Can 35 Million Book Buyers Be Wrong? Yes.
Taking arms against Harry Potter, at this moment, is to emulate Hamlet taking arms against a sea of troubles. By opposing the sea, you won't end it. The Harry Potter epiphenomenon will go on, doubtless for some time, as J. R. R. Tolkien did, and then wane.
The official newspaper of our dominant counter-culture, The New York Times, has been startled by the Potter books into establishing a new policy for its not very literate book review. Rather than crowd o...more
Taking arms against Harry Potter, at this moment, is to emulate Hamlet taking arms against a sea of troubles. By opposing the sea, you won't end it. The Harry Potter epiphenomenon will go on, doubtless for some time, as J. R. R. Tolkien did, and then wane.
The official newspaper of our dominant counter-culture, The New York Times, has been startled by the Potter books into establishing a new policy for its not very literate book review. Rather than crowd o...more
What's your favorite book from childhood? Do you remember? I had two, but both written by the same author; they were The Secret Garden and A Little Princess. I can remember reading them over and over again. I remember pestering my mother and librarians for books like them. I remember reading them into my teenage years, when I was home sick and needed something more comforting than the softest blanket and ginger ale. For me, these are two of the greatest books ever written because they're mine, m...more
I'm very ashamed to say that I only made it through half of this and then got stuck with summer courses.
----
So I'll go with a chapter a day for now...
----
It's tomorrow! Also, I think we have another member joining us. I have a 7 year old little sister. She's not much of a reader... so I'm going to read the books to her. I'M GOING TO MAKE HER LIKE IT OR ELSE.
She has seen the movies, so she knows a bit. Let's hope she sticks around till the end.
------
IN THREE DAYS GUYS! :D
STARTING MAY. Find you...more
Fairly standard kid's fantasy fare from Rowling as she re-introduces the world to the classic British fairy tale, which had been mostly forgotten since Tolkien spliced it with the epic. She mines gold from this rich and storied tradition, but doesn't really fashion anything unique from it.
We can see the beginnings of Rowling's authorial failings (and a hint of her strengths as well). She adopts Rouald Dahl's 'awful family' trope, though it's clear that Rowling does not have the gift of bizarre c...more
We can see the beginnings of Rowling's authorial failings (and a hint of her strengths as well). She adopts Rouald Dahl's 'awful family' trope, though it's clear that Rowling does not have the gift of bizarre c...more
Mar 19, 2009
Books Ring Mah Bell
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
kidsbooks
I read this long long ago to see how "evil" it was. You know, does it encourage children to become witches and wizards? Does reading Harry Potter cause evil?
After chopping off the heads of chickens, bats, a stray cat, and mixing it up in acauldron pot, I dipped in my voo-doo doll and put a curse on my neighbor. (nothing too bad, just a case of incurable body lice) I then decided there is absoultely nothing wrong with Harry Potter!
*disclaimer for those who don't get my sarcasm: I never cut heads...more
After chopping off the heads of chickens, bats, a stray cat, and mixing it up in a
*disclaimer for those who don't get my sarcasm: I never cut heads...more
Nov 29, 2010
Mariel
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Harry is the one I'll marry
Recommended to Mariel by:
Potter you rotter
I'm not the usual Harry Potter fan, I don't think.
To the well organized mind death is but the next great adventure." - Albus Dumbledore I don't wanna die! Who cares? My favorite Dumbledore is Aberforth. Y'know, the one who performed an experimental charm on goats and got sent to appear before the ministry for it. Albus isn't even sure he can read, for that matter. I'm more Aberforth on the wisdom scale, fo' sho'. (I once asked JK Rowling what the charm was. She said my guess was as good as hers...more
To the well organized mind death is but the next great adventure." - Albus Dumbledore I don't wanna die! Who cares? My favorite Dumbledore is Aberforth. Y'know, the one who performed an experimental charm on goats and got sent to appear before the ministry for it. Albus isn't even sure he can read, for that matter. I'm more Aberforth on the wisdom scale, fo' sho'. (I once asked JK Rowling what the charm was. She said my guess was as good as hers...more
I'm not going to comment on the literary shortcomings of this book, the cliches, the painfully long narrative, the fact that the characters will not think about an issue for months, but then suddenly it becomes important again. Smarter people than me have already said all this.
What bothers me about the Harry Potter universe is its characterization of magic. Why is magic so easy in the Harry Potter universe? It's only moderately a matter of skill to use magic. Magic is mostly saying the correct w...more
What bothers me about the Harry Potter universe is its characterization of magic. Why is magic so easy in the Harry Potter universe? It's only moderately a matter of skill to use magic. Magic is mostly saying the correct w...more
Supermarket literature for fresh generations of illiterates. What's not to like? For the TV-stunned audience of today, I think frantically marketed childrens books are about all we can focus on. Actually, I think the first few Potters were not too bad but after ''Harry Potter and the Crock of Shit'' and ''Harry Potter and the Forest of Embarassment'' I think they started to go down in quality. I fucking hate them. No, really. I don't hate the books themselves but they are books for kids at the e...more
Dec 06, 2010
Becky
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Shelves:
owned,
2010,
fantasy,
favorites,
highly-recommended,
multi-dimensional,
young-adult,
reviewed,
challenge-1010
I wasn't sure if I was going to write a review of these books, but I try to write a review of all of the books that I read, and it's been kind of nagging at me that I didn't write one for this. It's hard to write a review for a book that is so dang popular and well known. What is there to say that's new? I dunno. I think pretty much everything's been said, but still I wanted to write a review for this, and to talk about these books, even if I'm just rehashing everything that's already been done....more
I read this years ago...my kids were still young.
Did it bother anyone else that the publishers assumed Americans were too ignorant to know what the "philosopher's stone" was?
yeah, me to.
Well anyway, I've read and listened to this (these) and gone back to them several times since. Even though my children are grown I still enjoy this series of books. As originally written the series (considering the time between publication of each volume) actually grew with the first generation of kids who read t...more
Did it bother anyone else that the publishers assumed Americans were too ignorant to know what the "philosopher's stone" was?
yeah, me to.
Well anyway, I've read and listened to this (these) and gone back to them several times since. Even though my children are grown I still enjoy this series of books. As originally written the series (considering the time between publication of each volume) actually grew with the first generation of kids who read t...more
Aug 31, 2009
Brad
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Brad by:
Michelle Svenson
Is there any point in saying anything about Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone anymore? Not really. Not as far as critiques go.
If I were to delve into some interesting critical analysis of an issue raised in The Philosopher's Stone, or take a critical look at Rowling's authorship, then maybe...but most everything that can be said about liking or disliking the book, about its excellence or its shabbiness has been said.
And while I feel I may eventually take a stand for those who appreciate...more
If I were to delve into some interesting critical analysis of an issue raised in The Philosopher's Stone, or take a critical look at Rowling's authorship, then maybe...but most everything that can be said about liking or disliking the book, about its excellence or its shabbiness has been said.
And while I feel I may eventually take a stand for those who appreciate...more
Harry Potter is the most miserable, lonely boy you can imagine. He’s shunned by his relatives, the Dursley’s, that have raised him since he was an infant. He’s forced to live in the cupboard under the stairs, forced to wear his cousin Dudley’s hand-me-down clothes, and forced to go to his neighbour’s house when the rest of the family is doing something fun. Yes, he’s just about as miserable as you can get.
Harry’s world gets turned upside down on his 11th birthday, however. A giant, Hagrid, info...more
Harry’s world gets turned upside down on his 11th birthday, however. A giant, Hagrid, info...more
Jul 24, 2012
Brandon
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Brandon by:
Alaina
I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on this one. I speculate that I may be the last person on earth to start this series so I'm pretty sure the plot doesn’t require a lot of summarizing.
I will say that I'm glad I've finished this book. I've seen the movie adaptation twice and going through the story a third time in this format wasn't really all that enjoyable for me. Overall, I think that hindered my rating, which probably isn't all that fair.
Seeing as I haven't seen the other movies nor...more
I will say that I'm glad I've finished this book. I've seen the movie adaptation twice and going through the story a third time in this format wasn't really all that enjoyable for me. Overall, I think that hindered my rating, which probably isn't all that fair.
Seeing as I haven't seen the other movies nor...more
Wow, I can't believe I read this book almost 14 years ago! Time flies, but it just go to show how great this book actually is. It's memorable, so much so that I can remember so much from it, and also remember the excitement I had opening this book for the first time not knowing what to expect at all. These books are wonderful fantasy that do their job. Grab you, pull you in and take you for a fun ride! If you haven't read these do so ASAP! No matter what age you are.
Harry Potter's world is just pure genius. This first book is a brilliant start to the captivating series that so many people have grown to love all over the world.
If you are one of the remaining few who have not yet followed Harry's journey through Hogwarts and the Wizarding World, you need to hurry up and do so!
It's definitely the best series in existence.
If you are one of the remaining few who have not yet followed Harry's journey through Hogwarts and the Wizarding World, you need to hurry up and do so!
It's definitely the best series in existence.
GINNY'S FANGIRLING IN THIS BOOK IS JUST TOO GOOD.
Also, the Dursleys aren't as bad as people think they are, because after all, they DID pick Harry up at the end of the year rather than just abandoning him. So THAT'S worth something.
mmmm, this book smells so good. It's good to be back.
Also, the Dursleys aren't as bad as people think they are, because after all, they DID pick Harry up at the end of the year rather than just abandoning him. So THAT'S worth something.
mmmm, this book smells so good. It's good to be back.
In my gradual return to books after my harrowing experience with Mockingjay, I've built myself up to Harry Potter:
Five stars to a book that is what it is and isn't what it's not. Make sense? This is a middle school children's book and when it's read as such it's great. I see people giving this one or two stars and I scratch my head in wonderment. Do they compare it to Shakespeare or Hemmingway? Do they read it as it was meant to be read or are they bringing snooty, intellectual baggage to the ta...more
Five stars to a book that is what it is and isn't what it's not. Make sense? This is a middle school children's book and when it's read as such it's great. I see people giving this one or two stars and I scratch my head in wonderment. Do they compare it to Shakespeare or Hemmingway? Do they read it as it was meant to be read or are they bringing snooty, intellectual baggage to the ta...more
I highly doubted that I would ever write a review for any of the Harry Potter books. Instead, I created a shelf called "seven greatest books ever" and threw them all in there, hoping that would be enough to display my immense love for them.
After seeing Part 1 of the Deathly Hallows movie, I decided that I would kick start the re-reading process before the release of Part 2, so I picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for probably the 15th time, and began to read. I realized part way th...more
After seeing Part 1 of the Deathly Hallows movie, I decided that I would kick start the re-reading process before the release of Part 2, so I picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for probably the 15th time, and began to read. I realized part way th...more
I was expecting my return trip to be something of a dampener. I had finished the series…and after all, how many more surprises could the first book unveil? The magic must have faded over time and the characters must surely have achieved the status of house-guests who had overstayed their welcome.
Predictably enough, I was proved wrong. It offered me new avenues of thought. It was interesting to see how the complex and brave heroes of the later years started off as grimy, nervous, ickle-firsties!...more
Predictably enough, I was proved wrong. It offered me new avenues of thought. It was interesting to see how the complex and brave heroes of the later years started off as grimy, nervous, ickle-firsties!...more

Okay, let's see here.
I somehow recall reading (and not particularly enjoying) a book called Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. So what is this sorcerer GoodReads speaks of?
Granted, my copy was a UK one, and came out eons before the movies. I think I was about twelve when I read this.
Ugh. You know, props to Ms. Rowling. She's an absolutely fabulous writer and her imagination is completely mid-blowing. I just cannot endorse stories about witches/wizards/quidditch. They just don't do it for...more
In his excellent little book Art and the Bible, Francis Schaeffer says, "We are not being true to the artist as a man if we consider his art work junk simply because we differ with his outlook on life. Christian schools, Christian parents, and Christian pastors often have turned off young people at just this point. Because the schools, the pastors, and the parents did not make a distinction between technical excellence and content, the whole of much great art has been rejected with scorn and rid...more
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Although she writes under the pen name J. K. Rowling, pronounced like rolling,her name when her first Harry Potter book was published was simply Joanne Rowling. Anticipating that the target audience of young boys might not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name. As she had no middle name, she chose K as the second initia...more
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May 06, 2013 11:49am
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