Coyote Blog

My whole family was nice enough to choose this weekend to be away, so I could read Harry Potter 7 in peace (yes, I know, I am getting old when I use a bachelor weekend to read a book).  I thought is was a well-done conclusion to the series.

On Friday at midnight, I went out to get a copy for my son, who was driving with friends to San Diego early Saturday morning.  The Borders near us was a zoo -- what looked like a 2-hour line, and I didn't even have the right armband to get into it.  Fortunately, the 24-hour grocery store 2 blocks away had plenty and no line, so I did not have to wait.  (My bet is that if I had gone back to the Borders and shouted that there were books with no waiting a few blocks away, only a few would leave -- it was an event, not just a line.  Somehow, I think the perceived value of the book went up having waited in line for it.)

Anyway, I just wanted to make a couple of observations about the Harry Potter books:

• You can complain all you want about JK Rowling's writing style or selective character development or whatever, but anyone who can have teenagers waiting in line at midnight to buy the last 800 pages of a nearly 5000 page narrative -- waiting in line to read! -- should have a spot reserved for her in the Poet's corner at Westminster Abbey.
• Name any other book that had such an even mix of adults and kids reading it over the weekend
• I am not big on the need for shared national experiences like certain conservatives or liberals are, but the Harry Potter books certainly constituted such a shared experience.