Welcome to our readers who have learned about this blog during the big fall Deathly Hallows lecture tour! We are thrilled to have you in the hallowed halls of Hogwarts! Do please remember that fanged Frisbees are banned, as is dueling in the corridors! Check the links to the left to see what “classes” you’d like to take as you explore our conversations on all things Harry as well as other great books, themes, and thoughts (and some fun stuff, too)! Welcome, welcome!

After a great whirlwind tour here in Western NC, our headmaster spoke this morning on Charlotte Talks on NPR.  The conversation was super, and you can listen to the podcast if you didn’t catch it this morning.  It’s been great having John here in Western NC, and those of you who are next on his dance card are in for a real treat! Pictures after the jump!

Read More “Welcome New Folks and a Reminder to Listen to John Granger on NPR!”

Can you top this?

Barack Obama and the Chamber of Secrets

No one not familiar with the Hogwarts Saga will ‘get’ that headline. I doubt anyone at the Denver Post worried that this would confuse many readers.

Well, the reviews for Mockingjay are coming in and they’re not much more than ‘like it-don’t like it’ surveys of the narrative line, i.e., commentaries on the violence and anti-war message to be found there. Here is a collection of them at The Wall Street Journal. Please post on this thread any new ones and any of the better Live Journal pieces you find.

My daughter Sarah read the first three chapters aloud to me while we drove home from Children’s Book World in Haverford after midnight this morning. I had predicted that Ms. Collins would paint a picture of a social paradise in District 13 as the world not subject to the Capitol’s metanarrative, so I found myself thinking,” My goodness. I expected Samuel Butler or Thomas More and got Huxley’s Brave New World instead.”

I’d like to read what you think of District 13, its conduct of the war, and what kind of transparency it is as social criticism.