It’s Beedle the Bard Day at last! Please share your praise, criticism, first thoughts, and second thoughts about these long awaited Tales from Ms. Rowling.

Here are twelve questions for to guide your reflections: [Read more…]

HP Progs gives us the perfect lead in for the release of Tales of Beedle the Bard by interviewing Travis Prinzi, webmaster of The Hog’s Head.org, friend of this blog, and author of Harry Potter and Imagination (now available for pre-order here and the Table Of Contents for which brilliant book can be found here). The discussion in the comment boxes at HP Progs took an interesting turn when Travis urged a reader to consider the possibility that Ms. Rowling’s work does indeed have an intrinsic moral message. [Read more…]

I confess: I don’t surf Harry Potter fan sites. Not Leaky, Not MuggleNet, not HPANA, no live journal weblogs, no fan fiction or slash or Wizard Rock. The Hogs Head.org I do visit regularly but that’s about it. This means, of course, that I am as clueless about what most Harry Potter readers are talking about at any given time unless the subject is sufficiently “big news” for Wizard News to pick it up. All Pros regularly send me things they think I will be interested in and they’re usually correct.

I have little need, consequently, to search the internet for Potter topics. Aeschylus, Dorothy Sayers, William Penn, Coleridge, Tolkien, Dante and friends are all in the books — and no one else, to my knowledge, has done the heavy lifting we do here that is necessary to unpack Rowling’s artistry therein.

Why, then, should I care about the websites devoted to the actors playing the leads in the Harry Potter movies? [Read more…]

Melissa Anelli has a few bon mots from her Rowling interviews that she didn’t include in Harry: A History. She has been sharing these online in periodic installments at the book’s website on a page called “The Vault.” This week’s entry is, sadly, Ms. Rowling and Miss Anelli comparing notes about how demanding and rude readers can be. I say “sadly” because, in revisiting here the unfortunate “delusional” comments made by Emerson Spartz and Ms. Rowling about Harry-Hermione shippers in the 2005 Leaky-Mugglenet interview, I’m left with the impression that both women think that the outrage expressed by the “deluded” had nothing to do with Mr. Spartz’ comments and Ms. Rowling’s agreement with same. [Read more…]

So is Global Warming the Environmental Apocalypse we were told and these nay sayers (in great numbers) the undead mob of Rita Skeeters? Or were the Gore-inspired crowd of Global Doomsayers a bunch of Latter Day Chicken Littles?

Either way, if you’re not skeptical about anything you read in the media these days (“Governor Palin strangles Turkeys in Post-Election Melt-down!”), you missed out on one of the sharper satirical thrusts of the Potter novels.

Please share below your favorite instance of popular acceptance of undeniable truth presented by reporters overdosing on SOMA, “truth” that turned out to be claptrap. (Please don’t bring up the most recent election. We have yet to see how that will play out.)