The "Nature" of Harry Potter
The current issue of "Nature" magazine has a short feature on wizarding genetics and their use as a teaching tool for kids learning about heredity and alleles.
Joss Whedon, Veronica Mars and...HP
Buffy, Angel, Firefly and Serenity mastermind Joss Whedon - who has been a very vocal supporter of HP in the past - waxes poetic about his love for the TV show Veronica Mars in a recent blog post, and in doing so (eventually) ascribes his long list of superlatives about it to Harry Potter:
"Best. Show. Ever.Continued...
Zogby Poll Places Politicians at Hogwarts
An interactive survey of 6,819 adults across the United States have determined that President George Bush and New York Senator Hillary Clinton would both land smack in Slytherin, while the US's First Lady, Laura Bush, would find herself among the badgers of Hufflepuff. Meanwhile 57% of respondents saidContinued...
Harry Six Goes 'Into the Gloom,' says The Guardian
In a review published Saturday by The Guardian, reviewer John Mullan says HBP leaves readers with "a gloom not to be dispelled."
The odd glumness of this novel is partly a consequence of its loss of a satisfying plot, its lack of shape. There is, I think, a clear reason for this, evidentContinued...
NYT on the Continuing Love for Harry
Harvard sophmore and soon-to-be-published novelist Kaavya Viswanathan writes in today's New York Times about first reading Harry Potter just before begining eighth grade, and her continuing love for the series.
Harry is an endearingly normal hero, enduring the same romantic insecurities, friendship pressuresContinued...
The Appeal of Harry
The Guardian has a look at the strong appeal of the Potter books for readers of all ages, as well as at others series often classified as 'children's books':
Although we can measure the size of the phenomenon by crunching numbers, that doesn't help us to understand why Harry Potter stands quite so large in ourContinued...
Vatican Radio Broadcast Addresses Papal Opinion of Potter
Many Leaky readers have forwarded us links to reports that Pope Benedict disapproves of the Harry Potter series, based on two 2003 letters supposedly authored by Pope Benedict (then Cardinal Ratzinger) to German Gabriele Kuby, author of Harry Potter - Gut Oder Böse (Harry Potter -Continued...
More Harry-Fan Bashing by Disgruntled Muggles
The Sydney Morning Herald's Emma MacDonald joins Joel Stein from the LA Times in criticizing adult fans of the Harry Potter series. One of her "criticisms" is interesting, because JK Rowling herself has said that she never intended the books to be children's books. MacDonald writes:Continued...
Harry Potter: The Times They Are A-Changin'
Joel Garreau of The Washington Post (free registration required) offers up an interesting look at the impact of Harry on today's generation:
So I found myself looking for the muse of my daughter's generation, for its Bob Dylan -- the seer who would announce to this new generation that "theContinued...
Scotsman: HP Books Instigated Adults Reading Children's Fiction Trend
The Scotsman reports that a survey by Waterstones shows that there are more adult HP book readers in Edinburgh than in any other British city, and that the HP books have instigated a trend of adults reading children's fiction, including books like The Curious Incident ofContinued...
Scholastic.com: New HBP Poster, Updated Poll
Scholastic. com has updated their Harry Potter section with a new unique poster for the Half-Blood Prince book. It features a montage of all the five previous book covers by Mary GrandPre, and has a picture of Dobby in the section with the title and release date for book 6. You can click here to printContinued...
2004: The Year in HP: A Leaky Cauldron Review
Happy New Year everyone! Because 2005 is going to be such a big year for Harry
Potter fans, we thought now was a good time to look back at 2004, which
wasn't too shabby either where we're concerned. Editor Sue scoured our archives
and found all our 2004 highlights, so we hope you enjoy this littleContinued...
Stephen King: Azkaban One of Year's Best Films
Many readers have let us know in the December 24th issue of Entertainment Weekly author Stephen King, in his Pop of King column, lists his top ten movies of the year. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was ranked at number 5. Writes Mr. King :
"5. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of AzkabanContinued...
"Rowling should receive the Nobel."
Prolific, best-selling Chilean writer Isabel Allende, author of Daughter of Fortune and other books, said in a November 25th interview with Spanish newspaper La Razon that JK Rowling should receive the Nobel Prize.
"I admire immensely the author, I love her books and the movies based in them and I thank her,Continued...
Harry Potter Lecture, Notre Dame
Jean Bethke Elshtain, Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago's Divinity School, will deliver a lecture, "St. Augustine, Harry Potter and the Confrontation with Evil", at 4 p.m. Nov. 3 (Wednesday) in the McKenna Hall auditorium at the UniversityContinued...