Leora paves in to Potter peer-pressure

I was walking down the street today and saw a woman reading a book by one of my favourite authors. I was tempted to stop and chat with her about his other books, but didn’t. I’m pretty antisocial, and if someone stopped and tried talking with me on the street, I’d be pissed off. But I deprived her of the knowledge that I approve of her choice of reading material. Poor woman.

In other news in the literary Leora world, I finally got around to reading the Harry Potter series. And by “read”, I mean I basically inhaled all seven books in the span of a week and a half. I resisted for years because they are so popular, and when something is such a hit in mainstream culture, it’s usually populist tripe. And to be honest, they’re not going to give Hamlet a run for his money. But they’re addictively interesting, and I’m glad that I read them.

And I now have a disturbing crush on Snape. For those of you not acquainted with the Potterverse, Snape is the nasty, emotionally-stunted, morally-questionable nemesis of the title character. Oh yeah, and he has long, greasy black hair and uneven, yellow teeth. And yet somehow, inexplicably, I find him sexy. Very, very sexy. And not even how he’s played in the movies by that anti-Semite Alan Rickman, but as he’s depicted in the books, in all his creepy glory. I need help. Luckily, I have much better taste in men in real life than I do in fiction.