I had to watch the Harry Potter madness from a distance, since I was travelling. Joe mentions that he was picking up the family copy in the morning. Well, I can tell you that my two Harry Potter kids (Becky and Johnny) had each ordered a copy, as did my wife. We don’t share Rowling books in our house! They went down to the local (small) bookstore at eight to pick up their tickets that would allow them to pick their three copies at midnight. Their numbers were in the high forties, hundreds of people were there at midnight. And if this isn’t bad enough, they actually re-read all the previous volumes (for the fourth or fifth time, I can’t remember) during the last month. They wanted to be prepared. The first thing Becky said to me when I got home was not, "Hi Dad, it’s good to see you, how was your trip," but this: "[character name] died." The whole phenomenon is quite remarkable, and I’m glad of it. I explained Johnny’s first encounter with Harry Potter when he was eleven years old (he is now seventeen; Becky is twenty-one) here. He is still enthralled. Good for him. J.K. Rowling made $36 million in one day. Good for her.
Thanks for the spoiler! You could have given a little warining, you know...
That wasnt nice at all. Just because your kid spoiled it for you, didnt mean you should spoil it for everyone else!!
Dude! Spoiler!
He didnt spoil it all. He didnt tell you who the half blood prince is. That is a really interesting. But you will have to read it to find out.
O.K., Peter, your family has more HP street cred than does mine. For extra doses of the potions I recommended in this post, go here and here.
Imagine how Rowlings ex must feel.
I apologize for that. The name was only up for a few hours. I then removed it. Very sorry.