Books #1

Reading Material: July 2005

Books Bought: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling The Bad Guys Won! by Jeff Pearlman The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby

Books Read: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix by J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

July was all about the Potter. I started rereading the series in mid-July and polished off the fourth and fifth books for July, finishing just in time for the big book release. The evening of the fifteenth did indeed find me in a large crowd of people counting down the minutes remaining before the sixteenth. Midnight arrived and ... we stood there. I was far enough back in the line-up not to move for nearly ten minutes. After that the line did speed up a bit and by 12:20 am MDT I had book six in my hands. Within the half-hour I settled down to begin the penultimate HP adventure.

What did I think of the long awaited book six? I loved it, of course! At times there was plenty to be critical of, with the book reading like romance/pulp. Overall, I simply couldn't help but enjoy it. The end left me feeling like I'd been hit by a truck and hardly able to ponder where the seventh installment was going to take the story. Before the book came out I found myself saddened by the idea that this book would be almost the end of the Potter series, with only one book to go. Now I can hardly wait for the conclusion. Two years is a long time... a long damned time...

'Professor Snape, meanwhile,' said Dumbledore, raising his voice so that it carried over all the muttering, 'will be taking over the position of Defence Against the dark Arts teacher.'

Oddly enough, the other two books I bought in July were found while I was waiting for the HP in the bookstore. The Hornby is a collection of columns about books. It'll be interesting to see what an Author reads. The Bad Guys Won is a recent book about my favourite Baseball team ever: the 1986 New York Mets. I couldn't very well pass up new Mets reading. I'll get to those in August.