Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

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Jamie with her copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter 6) [Children's Edition] Jamie and I went to our local Borders tonight to wait for the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at midnight. We got to the store around 9:45 pm. There were quite a few people already in the place, but not as many as the last time we did this.

All the staff were very much in to the spirit of the event with lots of costumes and hats. They put on a little entertainment including a Harry Potter quiz. At eleven we had a reading of the last chapter of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix so we could remember our place in the saga. Has it happens, Jan, Jamie, and I have all re-read the fifth book in the last couple of weeks.

Around 11:30 the queue had started forming and I decided to stake my place so as to not be too far down. Jamie joined me about 15 minutes later. I must say, standing in a queue for 30 minutes without moving is rather dull! We did get talking to a nice chap and his daughter who were just in front of us.

The Borders staff had been announcing regularly the time left before the ‘arrival’ of the book. At five minutes to go they started announcing every minute, then 30 seconds to go, 15 seconds, then a count down from 10. There was a round of applause and two head high palettes, encased in black plastic wrap, were brought from the back of the store to the front of the queue. Without any more ceremony, the wrap was removed, the boxes inside opened, and the staff started handing out books at a frantic pace.

We got our two copies quite quickly and we were out of the store and on our way back home by a quarter past midnight. Now Jamie and Jan are both in bed feverishly reading the book; I have to wait for the first one to finish — again. If Jan finishes as quickly as she did two years ago, I should be able to start it by the end of Sunday!

Update 16/07/2005 17:00 Jamie finished the book a short time ago!

Further Update 16/07/2005 11:00 Jan finished her copy around 10:30. I start reading it tomorrow.

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18 thoughts on “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”

  1. Wow, we’ve started a cult! :

    The Borders staff had been announcing regularly the time left before the ‘arrival’ of the book. At five minutes to go they started announcing every minute, then 30 seconds to go, 15 seconds, then a count down from 10. There was a round of applause and two head high palettes, encased in black plastic wrap, were brought from the back of the store to the front of the queue. Without any more ceremony, the wrap was removed, the boxes inside opened, and the staff started handing out books at a frantic pace.

    What country are you in? We’ve still got three hours before midnight, but I’m not that into waiting in lines (years of my high school lunch line killed that joy), so we pre-ordered.

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  4. wow, I haven’t read any of the HP books since the first… I’ve just gotten very lazy and waited for the movies.

    Maybe I should pick up a few of the old ones and start reading them again. The first one waas good.

  7. boyevul – the books are a million times better than the movies. Go borrow the older books from the library or a friend and get reading.

    PS the translation into Finnish is very well done. Menza have you read the Danish translations? What are they like?

  8. Boyevul,
    I have to agree with Lorna: The movies probably contain less than 30% of the plot of the books. In particular the characters are very poorly developed in the movies. There is much more depth to them in the books.
    You won’t regret the time spent reading them.

    Mike

  9. Hi folks! I think we pre-ordered our copy of The Half-Blood Prince months ago through Amazon. We’d almost forgotten about it when it arrived in the post first thing this morning!

    Of course, it’s one thing to receive the book, quite another to have the time to read it! Might be an idea to re-read parts of the last book first, though.

  10. im at page 230 and my sister decides to snatch it away from me, now i have to wait for her to finsish.shes at page 530…

  11. I finished it last night – we did the bookstore thing too, although I guess because it was a smaller store, the party was… not much of a party, even for the kids. Oh well, for #7 I’ll just show up around 11:45 and get the book.

    For those of you who have finished it, I’m curious as to whether the ending was what you expected?

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  14. Lorna,
    I mostly get books at the library, and when I wanted to read one of the books (don’t remember which one) the English version was out, so I had to either wait or get the translated version. Of course, I was completely unable to wait, and fortunately the Danish translation was quite good.

    However, I still prefer to read the original version of a book. Especially since we (in the case of HP:THBP) have to wait until October for the translated version.

  15. Harry potter books are so great!! i live in austria and i pre-ordered the book.
    Do you all here live in england? i’m interrested when you got it!
    thanks.. 🙂
    birgit

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