Hogwarts Professor

While most of us out here in the Districts have to wait until the 23rd of March (tomorrow! late tonight!) to watch the film, the Hunger Games movie has been screened in the Capitol at a lavish roll-out event and in smaller bashes for the Mayors and Friends of the Gamesmakers out in the relative boonies. These Friends of the Capitol, friends with privileges, have written their flash impressions for those of us frozen at the Panem news trough and, in very short order, we have seen revealed the ends of the critical spectrum.

TIME magazine’s Richard Corliss says there is very little to admire or enjoy in Ross’ adaptation. Hypable.com, in strong contrast, as one might expect at a site “For fans, By fans” for all fandoms, a site that lives and dies in its relationship with the Gamesmakers, had only the scantiest of qualifications for the praise it ladles on everyone involved in the movie.

Reviewer Corliss concludes acidly in his ‘The Hunger Games: The Odds are Not in Your Favor (The movie version of Suzanne Collins’ best-seller misses the book’s ferocity, but who cares?) that “If they made books out of movies, this Hunger Games would never see print.” [Read more…]

Welcome to Hunger Games month at HogwartsProfessor.com! Let’s go shopping!

Yesterday I shared fourteen ‘companion books’ put out as accessories for the Panem faithful to enjoy with the movie. Today I think I can document that The Hunger Games has achieved ‘Shared Text’ status. Not only are evangelists writing The Gospel According To Katniss tracts, they’re putting out tee-shirts, which, in order to be understood as invitations to Christ, require no little familiarity with the Katniss Everdeen Trilogy. Hat tip to Eric for this find!

In case you cannot make out the messages —

Hunger For God... His Spirit Will Fill You! May You Ever Be in God’s Favor!

The Hunger Remains… For Those Without Jesus — Blessed are those who hunger now for you shall be satisfied (Luke)

Go ahead and walk on over to Amazon’s ‘Best Seller’s Page.’ At the time of this writing, the world’s biggest bookseller — with over six million titles available for your purchase if their marketing is to be believed (and why doubt it?) — the top three books are The Hunger Games trilogy. Number Five is the set package of the same books and number fifteen is the hardcover of the first book (I suspect it would be listed higher, even at *1, except for the publication of the trade paperback). The trilogy and set hold the same top five positions in Goliath’s list of Best Sellers of 2012.

There hasn’t been this kind of chart dominance since Harry Potter and Twilight, and, as Harry’s adventures were all published before the world went Kindle mad (hence PotterMore, etc.), The Hunger Games have set records there Harry won’t touch soon. Ms. Collins is officially Kindle’s Best Selling author. Ever. The Kindle editions of the trilogy are also numbers one, two, and three in the Kindle store.

Scholastic and other book sellers are paying attention and they’re doing everything possible to put out ancillary guides to the books for Hunger Games readers wanting more and some schlock for movie viewers to carry around and look out before the film gets out to the Districts Friday. Below the jump I list the first fourteen titles out of the gate in the order of their Amazon rank, from literary guides to cookbooks (two of those). Sadly, only the Scholastic ‘companion pieces’ are listed in the Amazon Hunger Games Store, so this list may be incomplete. Please share any others you have seen or found listed elsewhere! [Read more…]