I used to fancy myself as a bit of a photographer. One of my art classes in high school had a photography section and I talked my father into giving me his old pentax for me to use. It was back in the days when digital photography wasn't on anyone's radar. We had to develop our own film in a darkroom of our own design. I'll never forget spending almost my entire personal budget (we were poor) on a roll of film for my art project, then after taking what I was sure was was several award winning photos I made my contact sheet and saw that I'd managed to take exactly two photos. 
 Not, two GOOD photos, just two photos. Either through a failure of the advancing mechanism, or my own ineptitude, the film wouldn't forward after a couple of shots. 
 So, there was this one pic of my nose, or toes, or something, and there was this other picture of a face that looked like it was in pain superimposed over someone playing an electric guitar. Then there was a single frame of black - followed by an exposed roll. 
 So, one normal picture, one where two shots were exposed on the same frame, and one where the additional 21 images I tried to take were superimposed one the third frame. 
 Like I said, oops. 
 Turns out, that first screwed up picture was pretty cool. It got me an 'A' on whatever assignment I had at the time as well as an entry into some larger competition the school submitted it to. I never confessed that my image was the result of poor equipment and/or incompetence. I just know people loved it. 
 Aside from briefly trying photography again years later (deep in the grunge rock era of the 90's) by doing album covers (which sucked) I didn't dabble any more until I got my first digital SLR as soon as Canon released their first digital rebel. 
 I don't know what made me do it. I had money, I loved photoshop, it seemed like the thing for me to do. 
 Anyway, I took tens of thousands of photos, took a continuing education class in digital photography, and ended up being pretty good at it. I sent a photo I liked to a competition and lo and behold, I did okay. 
 I didn't win, but I did really well, so well that the fine folks at the Smithsonian put up my photo in their museum of american history. It was in a display right there beside Dorthy's red slippers from The Wizard of Oz. On a whim, I decided to go see it. 
 I took my girlfriend at the time (now my wife) and my kid, since he was my subject, and I think a few more family members tagged along. During that eight hour trip to D.C., my then girlfriend brought along the audio CD's of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. 
 I had not, at this time, read the first book, but I had seen the movie, and didn't care enough about it to be concerned about missing anything. Turned out, I ended up liking the story so much that I couldn't wait to get back in the vehicle and come home so I could keep listening to it. 
 At the end of that trip I ran out and bought the entire series of books and read them all in a couple of days. What happy memories. 
 So, this book, while no my favorite of the series, does have some strongly associated memories that go along with it. I loved rereading it. Loved it.