Book suggestions

[Scattercat]

Order of the Phoenix is my favorite Harry Potter book, too.  It feels the most "true" of the books, and I like watching fuzzy-wuzzy Hogwarts fall apart into paranoia and bickering.

Book Six of HP is a sprawling mess, and Book Seven was about four times longer than it needed to be (and yet still felt kind of rushed.)  But then, things do generally degrade over time.  I was pretty happily surprised that the Dresden Files revived itself the way it did.

[stePH]

Dude, Order of the Phoenix was Rowling at her peak, man! Well, at least until Deathly Hollows. But the sense of dread and impending doom she inspired in Order of the Phoenix astounded me.

Although I'm kind of with you on Book 6. 

I still maintain that books 5 and 6 were Rowling spinning her wheels while trying to work out how it would all end.  6 much moreso than 5, of course.

[lowky]

Dude, Order of the Phoenix was Rowling at her peak, man! Well, at least until Deathly Hollows. But the sense of dread and impending doom she inspired in Order of the Phoenix astounded me.

Although I'm kind of with you on Book 6. 

I still maintain that books 5 and 6 were Rowling spinning her wheels while trying to work out how it would all end.  6 much moreso than 5, of course.

Books are much better than the movies though.  Especially for #6  They cut the best parts of book 6 out of the movie.  spoilers follow
It's like they said ok in book 6 dumbledore dies, so we don't need to include any real story, we just need to get to that point we will throw in a few little pieces for the book geeks and then have a huge death scene for Dumbledore

[kibitzer]

S'funny. I thought 5 was way, way, way too long -- could have been at least 1/3 shorter. It was bound to be difficult because Harry and co were starting to become all teen-angsty and that's never pretty. For mine, Goblet Of Fire was the best because (a) it was a great story (b) it had some clever puzzles and (c) that's when things really started getting serious.

Also there was a cute Asian girl.

I enjoyed Half-Blood Prince a lot, especially because we see a different side of Harry's parent's -- at least as recalled by Snape.

As for Deathly Hallows -- I thought it brought the series to a close in very satisfying way. To be honest I thought the last book would be a huge let-down but it wasn't. For me, it delivered in spades.