It's a dark time to be a Harry Potter fan. The book series has drawn to a close, the next big-screen installment of the hit fantasy series has been unceremoniously delayed, and scientists have announced they're getting close to a real-life invisibility cloak--hence sucking just a little bit of the Potter magic out of it.
OK, maybe that was a little melodramatic. But in case you don't have enough Harry Potter in your life, U.S. publisher Scholastic wants to help that...with an all-day read-a-thon.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the release of the original Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Scholastic has organized a cover-to-cover reading of the book to take place at its headquarters in New York. Fans can show up and participate, or can watch a live Webcast if they don't happen to be in New York.
Getting to read a paragraph of Harry Potter for a live Web broadcast doesn't strike me as the sort of thing I'd be willing to wait in line for, but hey, those Potter fans are really dedicated. And here's a bonus for them: they would get to sit in the same "throne" that author J.K. Rowling sat in during readings at New York's Radio City Music Hall and Carnegie Hall.
It starts on September 23 at 8:00 in the morning, Eastern time. Show up early, and you'll get a free copy of the 10th-anniversary edition of Sorcerer's Stone. Oh, Harry--still a marketing wizard.
Yeah, yeah, I know. Harry Potter this, Harry Potter that, OMG-does-Harry-die, OMG-OMG-it's-on-BitTorrent... We're so ready to move on to the next cultural obsession from across the pond. Regardless, here's some video from Friday night of some of the people who showed up at the official New York book launch event hosted by Scholastic, the publisher that handles Harry Potter in the States.
The wizardly confab was held in New York City's shopper-friendly SoHo neighborhood, on a stretch of Mercer St. between Prince St. and Spring St. Conveniently, not only is Mercer St. right around the corner from the Scholastic bookstore, but it also happens to be paved with cobblestone--a rarity in Manhattan. Folks, welcome to Diagon Alley.
P.S.: In case you were wondering, this video is spoiler-free, unless you consider weekend book sales data to be spoilers.
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