Harry Potter and The Final Sacrifice!
Well, it’s a book, now. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows went on sale at the crack of Saturday, and the world will never be the same. (Or something.) For this link round-up, I’ll corral the stories into groups, by theme, proving that there are only about a dozen potential Potter stories, each of which is being endlessly recapitulated around the world. (And thus I’ll refute Bishop Berkley.)
The last few “anticipation” stories from before the launch:
PopMatters wonders if all of the Potter-readers will become writers. (Because what the world needs is more wanna-be writers.)
Associated Content, writing on Friday, says the book is already on sale.
The Free Lance-Star announces that Fredericksburg shops are ready for the onslaught of young muggles.
The Dallas Star talked to people in line.
Savannah’s WSAV told eager readers they would have to wait just a little longer.
The Money Times reported on the leaks a few hours before Deathly Hallows’s release, which would also be several days after the story broke.
The Motley Fool also reported on the leaks just before the release. (I thought the financial press was supposed to be sleek, fast and up-to-date?)
The Philadelphia Inquirer had a quiz.
The Irish Times had the usual “we’re waiting, none-too-patiently” story.
Then came the day Jo Rowling’s financial planners were waiting for: July 21st. Every media outlet on the planet felt the need to recognize the occasion somehow. Luckily for me, those responses tended to fall into distinct categories, as I will now demonstrate.
- “Gosh, there sure are a lot of people here dressed up like wizards:”
- Aurora Beacon News
- Edmonton Sun
- Rock Hill Herald
- Chicago Tribune
- a different Chicago Tribune story
- NBC6, South Florida
- Boston Globe
- Boston Herald
- Reuters
- Arizona Republic
- Carroll County Times
- Channel NewsAsia (reporting from London)
- National Post
- NDTV
- Oregon News
- Victoria Advocate
- Houston Press
- Citrus County Chronicle
- Cook County Herald
- Brooks Bulletin
- Ventura County Star
- Press-Register
“And then these young people sat down to read a very long book – aren’t they something?”:
- Indianapolis Star
- San Jose Mercury News
- Dallas News
- Houston Chronicle
- Houston Chronicle, again, with a different story
- CNN
- Sign On San Diego
- Bakersfield Californian
- Dallas Morning News
- London Free Press
- LAist
“We are a very serious newspaper reporting on a very serious event in which a book was wantonly published:”
“Serious experts say serious things about Harry Potter:”
- Baltimore Sun (talking to kids about death)
- Daniel Nexon of The New Republic (magical realism)
- CBS News (child psychologist on post-Potter depression)
- Saptarshi Ray in the Guardian (racial allegory)
- Deccan Herald (lots of numbers)
“We have no budget, so we talked to two nine-year-olds and filed a three-paragraph story:”
“Ten years ago, a single mother named Jo Rowling sat down in an Edinburgh café…:”
“Harry Potter Place” was assembled in New York at the headquarters of Rowling’s US publisher, Scholastic:
“Even people in <insert exotic part of the world> love Harry Potter:”
- China View
- News Post India
- Bangkok Post
- International Herald Tribune on Thailand
- Sydney Morning Herald
- TVNZ — New Zealand, including two videos
- All Things Pakistan
- Outlook India
- NDTV in New Delhi
- Economic Times, with a military metaphor in Mumbai
- Economic Times, with total sales in India
- China Daily
- Daily Times on Pakistan
- Jerusalem Post
“Screw the other crap, who dies at the end?”:
“I, your faithful reporter, am otherwise a completely normal person, but here is the story of how I became a Potter reader:”
“Early reports indicate that people are buying a lot of books:”
“We never noticed books for young readers before Potter, and now they’re everywhere!”:
“Isn’t it cute when families read together?”:
“We expect all of these kids will be writing their own books soon:”
- Pop Matters — with quotes from Gordon Van Gelder and Robin Wayne Bailey
- The Ledger
“Some book stores have gone to extraordinary lengths to make the event special:”
- Detroit Free Press
- International Herald-Tribune (reporting on a steam-train event in Portland, Maine)
“How dare book reviews actually…sputter, sputter…review books!!!”:
- Hartford Courant
- Seattle Times, which ran the Baltimore Sun review, responds to angry readers
- The Courant tries to be reasonable about it, but fails
- The Los Angeles Times has the business angle on the story
“I hate Harry Potter:”
Actual reviews of the book itself, filed starting mere hours after a 784-page book went on sale:
- Kansas City Star – bonus points for quoting John Clute!
- The Times (of London)
- Globe and Mail
- Silver Chips Online – a school newspaper, so I tend to believe it’s by someone who did sit right down, read the whole book, and then pump out this review
- Elizabeth Hand in the Washington Post
- Blogcritics 1
- Blogcritics 2
- Blogcritics 3
- Time
- Christian Science Monitor
- Scotland on Sunday
- New Zealand Herald – several short reviews by different people
- Entertainment Weekly
- USA Today
- Sydney Morning Herald
- Green Bay Press Gazette
- Clarksville Online
- Monsters and Critics
- Times Picayune
- East Valley Tribune
"Deaf people like Harry Potter, too!":
- The BBC visits The West of England School and College for Children with Little or No Sight in Exeter (which does not believe in ambiguity in names) to report that Deathly Hallows was available in a simultaneous Braille edition, unlike the earlier books.
- In the US, Boston’s National Braille Press also published Deathly Hallows simultaneously, reports the Boston Herald.
"What’s really interesting is the postal service story:"
"Scholastic is financially doomed now that Potter is over:"
"Harry Potter, is, like, so totally over! So what’s next?":
And the few, the proud, the brave, the original stories:
The Times of India’s editorial page endorses Harry Potter.
The Australian’s Peter Craven is a serious bloke who can put the whole thing into perspective.
SF Signal stuns us with the (fake) Top 10 Deathly Hallows Spoilers.
The International Herald Tribune actually followed up the story from earlier in the week, and determined that the leaked pages were the real thing.
The BBC digs up unlikely beneficiaries of the Harry Potter craze, including a Lucius Malfoy lookalike.
Michael Gilitz, at the Huffington Post, writes about one of the things that annoys me the most: that the “bestseller” list of the New York Times only count books published for adults, so Deathly Hallows won’t be there.
The Age (very appropriately given their name) helps parents figure out if their kids are old enough for Deathly Hallows.
The Hindu reports on the smashing of a counterfeit-Potter ring.
Will Hutton in the Guardian thinks Potter’s success is all down to globalization.
BBC News talked with a bunch of kids about their Potter experiences.
Indian Television reports on a giveaway by Radio Indigo in Bangalore.
Blogcritics lists ten classic novels – you probably know them all – to keep kids reading post-Potter.
Blogcritics on Potter queues.
Blogcritics also bet on who would be snogging whom by the end of Deathly Hallows.
Boing Boing links to horrible pirated Harry Potter books from the mysterious East.
And, finally, Biology in Science Fiction links to a whole lot of other articles, posts, and less-categorizable things in which the biology in the Potter books is scrutinized.
Thank you, and good night.
Great round-up! Thanks!
I was fortunate enough to have the support in my house to get me in a short media seclusion so I could read the book as fast as humanly possible so then ending wouldnt get ruined for me. NOW I can go click on all of you links :)