Mr. Prinzi, the webmaster and guru of The Hog’s Head, has written a book, Harry Potter and Imagination: The Way Between Two Worlds, which I could not be more excited about. It’s available now through Amazon.com or through Zossima.com (if you want it autographed).

As I said in my blurb for the book, “There is no more insightful commenter on the Harry Potter novels than Travis Prinzi.” I begged him to publish after first hearing him speak at Prophecy 2007 in Toronto. Why? His approach, his insights, and his verve were that exciting to me personally because they were so different from what I was doing and thinking and from what I had seen anyone else attempt. I know other serious readers who have heard him talk at conventions and pubCasts or read his comments at Hog’s Head feel the same way. There is nothing retread, stale, or ho-hum in what he writes; you’re going to be stretched and delighted when you read Travis Prinzi — and, if you’re like me, that’s exactly what you’re looking for in literary criticism.

There is already a reader review up at Amazon and I urge you to take a look. [Read more…]

December’s edition of Touchstone magazine features ‘Book Binders,’ by John Granger, a prolonged discussion of Harry Potter as Generation Hex’ Shared Text, a subject familiar to regular readers of HogwartsProfessor. If you enjoyed the article online, please drop the editors a note, or, better, subscribe. Touchstone is the only magazine I read cover to cover every month and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

For those of you visiting HogwartsProfessor.com for the first time after reading this article at Touchstone online or from the hard-copy magazine, welcome! Please join the conversation on any thread below that strikes your interest, raises your ire, or leaves you scratching your head.

For starters, try the longish notes on the Deathly Hallows epigraphs, Penn and Aeschylus, listen to some audio files and podcasts, or just scroll down the page to discover how Rowling speaks through Dumbledore in Beedle the Bard to make a case for Gay Marriage and patristic psychology (really) and why some serious readers don’t care about anything she writes beyond the seven canonical books. I look forward to reading your comments, questions, and corrections, and to our exchanges in the days to come.

Again, welcome! Thank you in advance for signing in and introducing yourself to the regulars and me.