While I eagerly await the release of William Dalrymple’s Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, 1839-42, I’ve decided to review a book I’d never read, despite its popularity, until now: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

For regular readers of my column, this choice may surprise given its limited application to the study of international relations and the historical forces that shape them.

But you don’t become known as a modern day renaissance man by staying in ‘safe harbors’, so here goes.

Harry is born an orphan and is sent to live with his aunt and uncle Petunia and Vernon Dursley, and their fat son, Dudley.

It is in this domestic sphere that Harry is treated appallingly. His aunt and uncle are really mean to him and favor Dudley over poor Harry.

This part of the book I found quite harrowing. I had to regularly stop reading and take a few minutes to compose myself.

At one point I started sobbing uncontrollably for almost an hour, which seemed to significantly concern the executive sitting next to me in business class.

The story then takes a huge detour, when a letter arrives informing Harry that he has been accepted to Hogwarts, the nation’s elite school for wizards.

Here was I, thinking this was a memoir along the lines of Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes but this tome takes a very different path, revealing something much worse than life in Ireland during the 1930s and 1940s.

At this point, I didn’t know what to think. I know England’s a real place; I’ve played rugby really, really well against English people. But Hogwarts?

How did I not know about this? You’d think the existence of magic would be something people talked about.

I was so shocked that I turned to the guy next to me, who had been so nice about my earlier crying and said, ‘How come I only find out now that sorcery is real. Did you know?’

He stared at me with this look on his face of shock. I mean he just went white and without him saying a word, I knew, he knew it was real.

I wanted to ask him so many questions like, ‘Is magic how this plane flies?’ and, ‘Are unicorns real?’ but he just mumbled something about having to talk to a work colleague and disappeared down to economy.

Now I was sure he was a wizard and he was loose in the plane.

I broke out into a sweat. A flight attended passed by and I motioned for her to come closer.

She lent in and I whispered, ‘Magic is real and there is a wizard loose in the plane!’

The flight attendant laughed but I said, ‘I’m serious; he’s in economy; we have to do something!’

She just backed away from me slowly and a few minutes later the pilot announced we were making an ‘emergency landing’.

If only my phone could have worked! I would have called Anthony Mundine, easily the smartest person I know.

But I feel I’ve gotten away from my review.

The rest of the book explains how Hogwarts works and most worryingly, that dark forces exist in the world using magic.

I haven’t slept properly since I read this book and every time I try and talk to someone about it, I get the same look that businessman/wizard gave me.

When I raised it with my coach, Trent Robinson, he started by saying it wasn’t true but when I refused to believe him, he instead said that he knew magic and if I didn’t behave this year he would not be afraid to use it!

How am I going to manage this?

It’s hard enough transitioning between codes but doing it when your coach knows magic?

My suggestion is to not read this book. Sometimes you are better off not knowing. No stars.

In a word: Terrifying.

Next Week: The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order.