4 April 2022
When the final Harry Potter installment was published on July 21, 2007, bookstores across the U.S. celebrated with midnight release parties - some with booze, befitting a series whose earliest readers were now in their 20s. These parties took place at thousands of bookstores at a time that was, in retrospect, Peak Bookstore.
"That era, 1997 to 2007, was truly a sweet spot for readers," Jenna Amatulli reminisced in HuffPost in 2017. "They watched the fandom bloom from nothing, lined up willingly outside of a physical store - oftentimes without a celebrity-sighting incentive - and read without the fear of a push-alert or Twitter spoiler."
