Ah, summer! I hope yours has been a delight!
Here are twelve links and notes from my inbox that serious readers and Potter-philes might find as interesting as I have:
Joyce Odell, the Red Hen of lore, writes that her Harry Potter Tarot Deck is now available for $16 plus shipping and handling. Follow the links here for more.
Ms Rowling wrote (?) a piece about the Championship Game of the Quidditch World Cup that was worth a few laughs. I confess to thinking at first that she might not have written it but allowed a fan fiction acolyte the honor with perhaps a few touches of her own (Luna and the flags?), the only truly funny parts. Read about it here and here if you haven’t already. Full text here and a story about other readers not thrilled with the sort-of-sequel-update, ‘The J. K. Rowling Backlash.’
The Capitol’s propos about the third Hunger Games film(s) are coming out. Enjoy. There’s a two-part alchemical analysis of the Mockingjay teaser worth your attention here and here.
More here on Harry Potter as a force for good in the “battle against bigotry.” The MuggleNet Academia discussion on this subject can be downloaded for listening here.
‘19 Real Thoughts Harry Potter Fans Actually Have.’ Really?
Harry Potter jewelry: bling for bedazzled Muggles.
Warner Brothers and Harry Potter franchise copyright holders make it official: the building of the Death Star headquarters has begun and the subjection of earth will be complete by 2019 when there are theme parks in every time zone of the planet. Good to have that out in the open at last.
Elspeth Gordon-Smith at Renaissance Rapscallion discusses with no little humour the continuing relevance of ‘shipping in fandoms.
Amazon strikes back: why their attacks to bring publishers into line with respect to Kindle book pricing are for the greater good — readers, writers, even the greedy, backward book makers. ‘Readers United’ sounds like the kind of front that the cigarette companies used to put up (and the sugar industry still does) to distract from the obvious.
LeakyCon 2014 has just closed up in Orlando and look for a report here soon by our Hogwarts Professor on the spot, Louise Freeman. The first big news from the conference aftermath is that what has been called Leaky Con will now be known as ‘Geeky Con,’ a gathering of all fandoms with no special emphasis on the Hogwarts Saga. The good news for Potter-philes? Leaky Con will continue as a Harry Potter heavy-focused gathering. Read more about that if you like.
Fantastic Beasts, the film trilogy, is going into production and Warner Brothers has announced the release dates — November 2016, 2018, and 2020. These releases will essentially suck all the oxygen out of other holiday block buster releases in those years; the news release has the appearance of the bully on the block laying down the borders of his territory.
And the best news of all? Lev Grossman has written about C. S. Lewis at some length, with no little praise, and with the best CSL bon mot I have read in ages: the story of his mother’s encounter with the man in a pub before her final oral exams. Yes, I’ll be writing about his latest, The Magician’s Land, and I’ll join you in wondering if it’s possible that Mr Grossman is unaware of Michael Ward’s Planet Narnia.
Thanks and a tip of the hat to James, David G, David H., Joyce, and Chris C. for sending me these news updates! The rest of this week will be devoted to guest posts from the summer conferences; don’t miss a day.
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