I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows earlier today. I won't comment on the details of the story in this post, except to say that it's an engrossing read, and had many clever plot twists. In a later post, I may note some reservations about the Potter series. For now, however, I will only say that any author who can get millions of kids to avidly read 700-page books deserves a tip of my Sorting Hat!

Kudos also to my local Barnes & Noble for their wizardry in handling the 800+ people who showed up to get copies of the book last night. When I arrived, I did a calculation based on what I thought were optimistic assumptions, and concluded that it would take B&N at least 5 hours to get to everyone. They did it in less than 90 minutes.