Reading is proof that magic exists. There you are, looking at words, and without making any noise, you hear them in your head. They create people, voices, settings, emotions, even whole other worlds. If that isn’t magic then I don’t know what is.

That is the reason I so dearly love reading. Like many in my generation, the Harry Potter series are some of my favorite books of all time, and I love anything having to do with them: the Buzzfeed quizzes (Harry would be my BFF, just saying), the Halloween costumes (every ginger deserves to be a Weasley at least once in their life), even Pottermore (we could fill swimming pools with the tears of those not sorted into Gryffindor). But there is a part of the Harry Potter culture that I feel is extremely undervalued, and that is the audio book sets.

This might sound strange since I just confessed my love of actual reading. But in the past year, I have rediscovered them (I have going to school 1,000 miles away from home to thank for this), and I’ve decided to share five reasons why every fan should listen to the Harry Potter audio books.

1. Jim Dale is an absolute gift to humanity and we should all worship the ground he walks on. A quick search on IMDB shows that he is a pretty established actor and has done quite a bit of voice work, but to be honest, if the Harry Potter audiobooks were the only things he had ever done, I would still consider him a great talent. The man won TWO GRAMMYS for his work on Harry Potter. You can stop listening to Katy Perry and Nickelback now because how many Grammys do they both have? 0 (Although if you’re listening to Nickelback you have other problems).
2. Jim Dale needs two reasons because not only is his narration wonderfully British and perfect, but every single character in the series has their own voice. Every. Single. One. That’s over 200 characters, if you were wondering. Male and female, creature or wizard, Jim Dale does them all. He even sings for the sorting hat. Rock on.
3. You can bring Harry Potter anywhere! Okay, I know you can bring a book anywhere too, but you can’t read while you drive or while you’re walking somewhere. Download the audiobooks, throw them on your iPod (if you’re archaic like me) or phone, and you can listen to them in the car, on your walk to work/school, on the airplane, or on the subway. You could even get them on some speakers and bask in the glory as Harry Potter reverberates through your home (if this is a problem with your roommate/family, they deserve to be kicked out or evicted. At least for an hour). I’m telling you, I was driving around just to listen to Harry Potter.
4. The audiobooks could make you exercise more! Some people can run listening to audiobooks (teach me your ways), but I just can’t. If I could, however, I would do it listening to Harry Potter. And while I can’t run to Jim Dale’s angel voice, I can certainly walk to it. My dog has never been skinnier (he’s fat so this isn’t saying much) because I would take him on such long walks in order to listen to Harry Potter.
5. Like all things Harry Potter, it will bring you the greatest joy in the world. Do you really need prompting to read/listen to the Harry Potter series all over again?

~** Always ~*