OK, I have to admit it, I seem to have missed the Harry Potter boat entirely. I have not read the books and I have not seen the movies. Yeah, everyone tells me to jump aboard the bandwagon, but that would interfere with my own preferred reading materials (at the moment “Kate: The Woman who was Katharine Hepburn” by William J. Mann, highly, highly recommended!)
I was, however, quite puzzled and bemused to find that the uproar over an early review of the book, published in the NY Times, seems to have re-invigorated the ages-old feud between the US and the UK. Who knew that dribbling information about the latest in a series of childrens’ books could ignite the same sort of fury as the events leading up to the revolutionary war! I quote:
“The New York Times review said its copy was purchased from a New York City store on Wednesday.
A Bloomsbury spokeswoman called the review “very sad”, adding that there was only one more day to wait until the official release in book stores around the world. Twelve million copies of the book have been printed for the U.S. market alone.
She likened the events in the United States to the Boston Tea Party, a protest by American colonists against Britain in 1773.
‘But over here it is blockades as usual, with the embargo being enforced unflinchingly and without exception by all our customers,’ she said.”
Perhaps we are taking Harry Potter just a little bit too seriously?
Not From Around Here 
Like you I’ve mostly avoided the Harry Potter craze. I did watch one of the movies once because it was there and I hadn’t seen it, but I haven’t rushed out to see any of the others or read the books. In my opinion, it seems like a poor man’s Chronicles of Narnia which I read as a kid and loved. There’s a movie based on a children’s book that’s actually worth seeing. I was skeptical at first because I loved the books so much and had created the world of Narnia in my own mind while reading the books, but the movie was done extremely well. To your point, managing to find a parallel between the release of a children’s book and the Boston Tea Party seems just a wee bit extreme…
Okay, I have not only read all the books (and seen all but the latest movie), but I have a preordered copy coming to me on Saturday that I will dutifully read that very day, both because I’m excited to know how it all ends and because I’m afraid if I don’t I’ll hear how it ends anyway and I won’t get to enjoy the book as much. I love Harry – he appeals to the same part of my brain that love Lost, Lord of the Rings, Firefly, etc. But I agree that as sad as I find the NYT’s determination to scoop everyone at all cost, the Boston Tea Party comparison is a bit much. And not even that good of a comparison, just a “those crazy Yankees are always breaking the rules” kinda thing. Also, although it’s true that all the leaks are on this side of the Atlantic, we are just a mite bigger, so one imagines the logistics of the book shipping and selling would be a little harder to manage.
Well, the bookstore holding a midnight Harry Potter party was just around the corner from me, so I could hear the revelers as I fell asleep. I also walked around a bit just pre-dusk and saw some quite remarkable costumes. I tried this morning to find something out about the plot and thus far my Googling has come to no information, so I’ll just have to wait to hear from Merry and others who actually read the book as to “who dies”. It’s gotta be important since here in the UK authorities have put extra staff onto telephone crisis lines to deal with grieving children! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6907677.stm