Harry Potter and the Deathly Hype

[lifeonqueen]

So... spoiler set two were correct and yes, it turns out someone actually did photograph the whole damn book and put it online Tuesday.

I'm reminded of a line from Hackers, or maybe it was Jurassic Park, about information wanting to be free. Or maybe it was life finding a way... Whatever. I kind of love the Interwebz for thwarting the Dark Lord of Publishing (the people who indiscriminantly posted spoilers to screw other people less so: to read spoilers or not should be an individual's choice).

Sitting in the new dessert place near Woodbine (hurray, we didn't have a dessert place on Queen and we needed one), I watched as the freakshow started to get underway with the arrival of costumed kidlets and kidlets at heart around 10 for the party in the children's bookstore next door. More costumes at the (wee) Chapters down the street. The kids were thrilled and I felt my grinchy heart grow three sizes a few cubic centimetres to see their excitement. I felt less affection for the adults in costume but the parents lounging about clutching their coffees and smiling patiently at their younglings were nine colours of awesome (especially the hot guy across from me. Yum. And married. With nine-year-old. However, no law against looking). The excitement was palpable enough to tempt me to go next door and buy a copy at midnight, just to be part of something - a phenomenon which the Washington Post, in an essay called "Harry Potter and the Death of Reading", rightly singles out as the biggest reason why Pottermania doesn't translate into lifelong readers: Potter isn't book, it's a group event, which is almost the diametric opposite of the typical reading experience - and the fact that it was an independent bookstore was an added incentive. Any time I can Not spend money with Heather Reismann (responsible for killing the retail book market in Canada), it is a Good Thing. But in the end, I left the kiddies and their indulgent parents to their fun and went home to read the the Guardian Unlimited's All-Night Harry Potter Book Blog. And all was well.