All done

Well, I've finished the book. Last night at about 9:30, as a matter of fact. I've been trying to ponder what to post here and I'm going to avoid spoilers for a bit.

Apparently I was not the only person annoyed by the HP review in the New York times - they got thousands of letters from angry people. I still think while what they did was technically legal, it was morally wrong. One of the commenters suggested submitting it to Randy Cohen (The Ethicist from the Sunday Times Magazine) - I think it's a great idea.

We went out for a curry with Ian & Caroline on Friday night in Ipswich - we'd reserved our books so we figured that it wouldn't be too bad of a line at Waterstones. Er, yeah, we were wrong. Not only was there a HUGE line of people, going all the way down a v. long block and around several corners, we were only about 150 metres away from the store and we were in line for almost 2 hours after midnight. They only had 3 registers open and it was taking forever. And it was FREEZING cold - I had to put my fleece on over my HP shirt. We were, however, waiting next to a v. nice college student who kept us entertained.

Here they are:


And here's the line:


And here we are WITH OUR BOOKS!


We staggered back to the house, where I read the first chapter and tumbled in to bed. I woke up at 6:30 with the sun streaming in to our room, and started from the beginning again. We left at 9, had the best Little Chef breakfast I've ever had, and then came home, showered, and settled in. John was upstairs on the bed, and I was downstairs on the couch. I had two small interruptions to hang washing on the line, and was about 3/4 of the way through when we left for a bbq at my friend's house.

She's American, married to an Air Force navigator, and we were the only civilians at the party. It was fun, though. We had Bratwurst (she's from Minnesota) and lots of American food from the base. John thought it was all very strange.

We got home about 8, and I read straight through until 9:30. John read until about midnight, and then woke up at 7 this morning to finish.

I thought it was EXTREMELY good, and while I'm definitely feeling HP withdrawal, it's much more of a peaceful feeling than with any of the previous books.