Greetings!

Book released, book purchased, book read. Total lapsed time about 38 hours. Most of that was because I am getting too old to wait on line at midnight to buy it, or to read the entire book through without getting a few hours sleep. Total read time about 23 hours.

No spoilers here, but I do intend to encode both the US and UK audiobook versions as soon as they arrive. (This week for the US version with Jim Dale, September for the UK version with Stephen Fry.)

So, I am ready for book six. Just another few years to wait... I hope larger hard drives are out by then...

Who dies then not that i am going to read the book probably

You have a clearly marked "spoiler" PM.

Ok, I know you don't want to post any spoilers, but how dark is this book? I keep reading reviews that say things like "what before was clearly black and white is now reveled to be shades of gray," and that has me a tad worried. I suppose I’m just too vanilla, but I like clear delineations between good and evil (unless the genre demands otherwise). I’ve heard that the books are intentionally getting “darker”, and this has been true for the previous four, but how dark is this one, really? I can handle a little political conflict and grumbling within the ranks, but if Harry starts having to engage in questionable behavior I’m going to be pretty disappointed.

Greetings!

No spoilers.

No questionable behavior that I saw, but that depends on your definition. There is a lot of political turmoil. A lot of groundwork set. A lot happening. And the children are getting older and more independent. Rebellious.

Good and evil are still relatively distinct - this is no more clouded than book 4 was. Perhaps a D&D type breakdown of good, evil, lawful, chaotic and neutral would be better. But there are scenes that show you that nobody is perfect, and a few illusions are shattered.

Darker, yes. Not Steven King, but certainly not book 1. Targeted at more mature children / teens. More grim, certainly. More suspense, yes. Lots of surprises.

A great read!

* This is an uncompensated endoresement.

There is a lot of political turmoil.

Yeah I figured, from the ending of the last one this is obvious. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.

Darker, yes. Not Steven King, but certainly not book 1.

I can't help but like the light-hearted approach of the first book better than the latter books, but it's not my story so I don't have a say! Plus it seems everyone I know likes the darker stories better.

Lots of surprises

Surprises are expected by now (does that make them still "surprises"?), so I'm anxious to see what new amazing events are revealed. Thanks for the "uncompensated endoresement", you're the first person I've talked to (written to?) who's read it and it's been a little difficult reading between the lines of some of the reviewers. We'll be getting our copy soon and I'm interested to read it (after my wife, of course, who's the real HP fan).

Greetings!

Cool! I am (in case you hadn't noticed) somewhat obsessive about a number of topics. Anything I can do to help out.

There were certainly some intriguing plot twists and changes in the book. The light-hearted approach is, to some extent, still there, but there is a lot more grim activity to this book. As you can guess from the conclusion of book 4, much will be happening. The humor is still there, but tempered by events around as well.

Surprises can be, and are, still surprises. A lot of the things I thought were certain after reading book 4 turned out completely opposite my expectations.

To me, personally, it is not that the stories are darker that makes them more enjoyable. It is the detail, the character growth over time.

To me, personally, it is not that the stories are darker that makes them more enjoyable. It is the detail, the character growth over time.

What I've enjoyed more than anything so far is the interlocking of the stories. Never in my life have I read any series in which everything fits together so tightly. Even though each book seemingly stands on its own, each new one forces you to reinterpret or re-understand what happened before it. I've read many books where authors forced new understanding onto their stories, but none that seems so well thought out as these. Part of this effect may, in fact, be the innocent tone of the first one, which belies a lot of what is happening behind the scenes.

<evil chuckle>

Just wait...

You are correct - there is a lot going on behind the scenes in book 1. You see it develop throughout. Book 5 links them all together quite well, and also sets the stage for the future.

I can't wait for book 6, now... It will be a long one -> three years...

My wife was driving to meet me for lunch today and a lunchtime DJ on the radio said ``We'll save you from reading 800 pages to find out who died in the new Harry Potter book. It was xxxxx.'' All before she could change the station. (Actually she said she flipped to it in the middle of the sentence and she didn't know what they were talking about until it was out of their mouths.)

Very classy.

I'm trying to get them fired.

Thank you! They deserve it!

I need to go get a copy of it and spend the weekend reading.

I didn't realise I was getting the book for my birthday, but my wife and friends were out on the town on Friday to celebrate a birthday and after closing time at the pub they wandered past a Waterstones (this is maybe 2 o'clock in the morning, and there had been much champagne flowing.)

End result being the drunken purchase of 5 copies. In the morning only 3 of them remembered even going into the shop so it was a pleasant surprise for them.

Personally I like the slightly darker turn.

Wow, so that's how you get a copy? You have to be drunk enough not to remember it? My wife and a good friend of ours both went around to several bookstores and were not able to get copies. They all said it needed to have been reserved.

Weird. There are huge piles of the books everywhere here. The local Tesco supermarket has a big display with them and the WH Smith's my friend works at also has loads. They must have vastly over estimated the rush for the new book.

Not here: all the bookstores my wife checked they said that she could reserve a spot in the next shipment, but that there were none available now. They had the huge midnight party at Barnes and Nobel, which reminded me of Best Buy when Win 95 was released (not that we went to the HP party, I just heard about it from a sales person). Anyway, I'm going to order my wife a copy from Amazon, so that will take care of the availability issue. She's having major back surgery next week that will keep her in bed for the next month and a half, so the timing couldn't be better as far as giving her something to do while on bed rest (or at least the first couple of hours anyway). I'm actually glad that she'll have to wait until after the surgery to read it, otherwise she'd have devoured it by now.

All my local bookstores are sold out, but the Target still had a bunch of copies a few days ago. Give them a shot (if you've got one there).

For the audiobook crowd, I received the US (Jim Dale) version yesterday, and have started to rip/encode it. Not bad, but I still prefer the UK (Stephen Fry) version. This will not be out until September, though.

Actually this will be the first "book" version we've gotten, all of the previous HP books were audiobooks. However, since my wife normally listens to these on her hectic drive to work (which she won't be doing for quite a while), this time we're opting for paperback. I haven't hear Fry read them, but I think Dale does a great job.

Thanks for the Target tip BTW, I hadn't even thought of looking there.

this time we're opting for paperback

There won't be a paperback version out for years.

There won't be a paperback version out for years.

Um, I meant "real book". I actually had to remove "paperback" from an earlier part of that post, but I missed that last reference. Apparently my brain just isn't functioning right this morning.

My parents just received their set of the Jim Dale CDs. They didn't believe me when I said how many discs it was

23. Not bad...

LOTR is 46, I believe, but that's three books and includes the appendices. Still, it takes up a third of the tracks on my player. I'm sure once I get around to putting HP on, Tolkien will loose his place as the most popular “artist” on my Empeg.

IIRC, Tolkien had intneded LotR to be one book, but his publisher convinced him to split it up due to its size. Probably one of the reasons that RotK is only about half story, the remainder appendix, et al.

I thought it was funny when I went into my local Barnes and Nobles Saturday morning, walked right to the counter and grabbed a copy sitting in a stand next to the cashier, as the guy in the next line asked for his reserved copies. I was in the store all of 2.5 minutes.

Better yet was my backup plan of an Amazon pre-order waiting in my mailbox when i got home.

870 pages go by fast when you've waited so long.

Similar to what I did. I grew impatient that my copy was not there, so at 9:30am I went to the local Borders and bought a copy there. Good thing I did - my Amazon copy did not arrive until 6:30pm!!! I would have lost some prime reading time!

I read the entire book in about 15 hours. Approximately 1 minute per page(not bad)....The book was the best one to date.

I preordered mine back in March(I know that many of you think it is crazy but it is the only series that I have kept up with).
I waited from 8:00-12:01 to receive my book at my local Barnes and Noble. It was worth the wait and then some even waiting the 4 hours and 1 minute at Barnes and Noble with all of the kids dressed up. I started it immediately when I got home at 12:30.

15 hours! That is quick! That is the fastest time I have heard so far. It reads well, and quickly though. The problem is now there will be another X year wait until the next one is released!