Last Sunday the parish priest used in his sermon Harry's entry into Hogwarts as a simile of the start of a spiritual journey transforming both the person on that voyage and his environment ( Read more... )

At
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2126717,00.html
you can find the folloing concerning the start of the book:
The Deathly Hallows: a sneak preview In a trailer for the forthcoming ITV documentary, A Year in the Life... J K Rowling, the ( Read more... )

I wouldn't have thought this possible in Germany, but alas: apparently a school in Germany has agreed to take HP (PS) from the syllabus after the parents of two pupils complained that they didn't want their childrend exposed to results of explorations of the Potterverse.
See e.g.: http://www.wizardnews.com/channels/harry-potter-books.html# ( Read more... )

No, this is not really HP-related, but it is related to magical things in the renaissance, and to fiction about such things, and it is (i.a.) about a plot were a castle mentioned in the first part is raided in a later part (yes, you might think of Hogwarts, PS and HBP …), and, well, it is fun:
The entry "All's Lost by Lust" in Blogging the ( Read more... )

Having finished my (probably) second to last reading of HP volume 1: I made the following new entries into my Pensive database:

page / subject / aspect / quotation / remarks

• 25 / Varia / De fato / fateful news report about the owls /
  
• 64 / Historia magiae / 1960s/1970s / Didn't dare try takin' the school, not jus' then, anyway. / Hagrid on ( Read more... )

Yesterday evening (when I was really tired) I started what probably will be my second to last go for a long long time to come through the Harry Potter books: I started rereading PS. The rest of the series will come after that. I started already now, as I'm still hoping for a 2007 release of "Harry Potter and the Alchemist's Cell/Chariots of Light/ ( Read more... )