Potterday

[sartorias]

How many people over the world are buried in their Potter book right now? Nothing like this in my experience (blah, blah, we all know that--nothing like it in anyone's experience) except maybe the sense of community and mutual excitement that we felt when the first Tolkien Society picnics happened, and we all came in costume and discussed the

Comments

[robling_t]

How many people over the world are buried in their Potter book right now?

Not me, I've already finished... {rather smug look}

[sartorias]

Yeah, saw that, but you didn't post what you thought of it! *g*

[robling_t]

Surprisingly dark for YA, is my overall impression; the last hundred pages or so in particular are the sort of thing I'd be thinking it might freak out the youngest and most sensitive viewers. I think she's done everything she had to do to set things up for the knock-down drag-out "YOU DIRTY RAT, YOU KILLED MY BROTHER" sort of deal that we've always known #7 will be (I can totally see the logic of The Death, and in fact I was thinking it would be this character in #5 but I can see how much better it works at this story-beat of the overall arc) , but I'm not decided yet on how well she actually pulled it off, as such. Will sleep on it and let other people have a chance to catch up before I risk saying anything more...

[gfjames]

It's a well known fact that paper--and thus books--can do a wonderful job of home insulation. I can think of no better use (except, perhaps, of using the pages of Potter books as toilet tissue in prisons) of Harry Potter to warm a cold house--in fact complete houses have been built from book materials.

I think thousands and thousands of homes and shelters could be built for people in need.

[gfjames]

I like me, too. There aren't any others.

[sartorias]

and i have yet to make it all the way through a Steven King book.

We all have our druthers!

[sartorias]

I haven't on that one...Robinson and I don't quite seem to mesh. I begin 'em but never seem to finish 'em.

[malkingrey]

In fact, back then, there were no gigantic book stores. Our local one was a rack against the back wall of the drug store for years and years.

In our town, the paperback book outlet was the corner news stand. The sf and fantasy were on a single wire spinner rack near the rear of the store, right next to the soft-core porn.

In retrospect, I sometimes wonder if the news stand owner wasn't an sf fan himself, because -- in a small town in North Texas -- he stocked all three of the major mags (at that time Analog, F&SF, and Galaxy) and a couple of the second-tier mags (mostly If, at the time, plus various short-lived other contenders for a regular slot), and regularly put up the new paperback releases. He was also surprisingly patient with me and my best friend, who used to come in and scour the racks for reading material every month as soon as the new stuff arrived.

[sartorias]

Our drug store guy stocked them all too--I read something years ago about magazine distribution though I don't remember the details now. But in those days, most people seemed to read magazines instead of books, if they read at all. (Gross generalization.) Even in my grandmother's house I could find a copy of LOOK or POST or McCALL's, though of course she always threw them away. Books, never.

[sartorias]

I haven't felt the urge to reread any except perhaps the third (but haven't as yet)--but I do have to read them all, as the kids at school generally choose to do HP as their first book report in September, if one came out in the summer.

[ex_greythist387]

heh. I was starting to wonder whether I were the only person who'd read HP once through, no rereading.

(Hardly anyone believes me because of the work I do for FictionAlley, but the relative detachment is partly why I can keep doing it.)

[sartorias]

Yeah, that makes sense!