Posted by Peter Willis on July 24, 1999 at 23:53:35 from 62.136.46.209 via proxy webcache24b.cache.pol.co.uk:
In Reply to: Re: What a scene!! posted by andy bolger on July 24, 1999 at 00:43:05:
Er, actually Andy it's HARRY Poyyrt, not Henry, and I'd been toying with the idea of suggesting them. We've all read the first two, and unprecedentedly for us have bought the new one in hardback, just now off the presses. Paula's currently having first go.
They're a cross between classic boarding-school stories (Jennings comes to mind) and a sort of weak dilution of Discworld and perhaps Gormenghast, which I've never read. Harry Potter is a wizard, and goes to a boarding school for wizards. Perhaps not quite as good as all the fuss about them might require, but jolly fun all the same, and an essential part of cultural baggage.
Interesting that whereas the Ransome Books were always(?) published in time for Christmas, but were largely about summer holidays, the Harry Potter books adroitly come out just in time for the summer hols, but are mostly about school.