Saturday, July 21, 2007

Book-camping

As I write this blog entry, I am sitting on Sarah's porch waiting for the postman to arrive with our copies of the final Harry Potter book.

So I guess I am book-camping after all, it's just not a very public sort of camping. This is a little less goofy than what you might find at Barnes & Noble or Borders. Then again - I did get bored beforehand and dyed my hair blue, spiked it, and gave myself a tattoo (all temporary) so avoiding goofiness does not seem to be a high priority for me.

So why am I out here?

Pleasant anticipation, I guess. It's a beautiful sunny summer day. It's cool for Atlanta which means pleasant for me. There's a cold lemonade to my right and just a little further past that, a hot girl. So I'm in a good place.

If I wanted the book as soon as possible, I suppose I could have camped at one of the midnight parties. But those can be weird and are not entirely necessary. There is some fear of a sell-out, yes, so if you're shopping at the official bookstores, the midnight parties at least lend a certain peace of mind. If you can stand to wait about 8 hours longer (perhaps using that time for sleep), you're better off getting the book at a grocery store. Yes, that's correct, a grocery store. They tend to stock popular books and people rarely think to check them. It's usually a reasonable price and unlikely to sell out. KaCee deserves the credit for pointing this phenomenon out to me. Thanks to her I got book four without any trouble. I could have gone that route for this book if I needed to. Indeed, there was a nice front-of-store display of Harry Potter books at Publix when I did my shopping this morning.

So I could, theoretically, be several hundred pages in by now. That's okay, though. I think I like this better. I'll get the book today eventually, and in the meantime I get a pleasant afternoon on the porch with my girlfriend. Good times.

5 comments:

Mike D said...

I'm one of those who has never leaped on the Harry Potter bandwagon ...especially if you don't count the one time Traci and I kicked ass at Quidditch the boardgame. I've never read any of the books or seen any of the movies, but lately I've been thinking about ploughing through the whole series at once. Think I should jump on Rob??

Rob said...

Yes, I do. The books are many things, but above all they are fun to read. I do not believe I have met anyone who read them and did not enjoy the experience (if I'm wrong, readers, feel free to correct me and offer mike d your own recommendations).

And yes, I would start with the books, and I would certainly tell you to read them in order.

They grow, too, which is part of the fun. Characters are consistent, but they also mature (they go from 11 to 17 over the course of the books), as does the overall tone of the book. The first book is a school-boy adventure story. The last book is actually pretty dark.

If you have specific concerns or reasons you're reluctant to read them, ask and I'll address them. If not, then just go ahead and read the books. If you think you might be interested, I can think of no reason not to at least check them out.

Rob said...

P.S. I never did play another game of Quidditch. That was humiliating. Sigh.

Sarah said...

Read them you fool!!! :)

I have never once had a person tell me that reading any of these books was the biggest waste of their time or that they didn't like it.

Bandwagons are cool. It's what the cool kids are doing these days.

Anonymous said...

Mike D and I rocked at Quidditch. It's all in the capturing of the Snitch...