Harry Potter

• The Harry Potter season is here again with all its hype and hoopla....
  HARRY POTTER seems to be the topic of most conversations...kids to adults; everyone's jumping in the bandwagon...
  Be it television, radio or the newsprint everyone wants a piece of the action...bookstores are making a bumper, what with the books selling like hot cakes (with or without the discounts)...

Suddenly all everyone's talking about is either the Harry Potter movie being released or the latest Harry Potter book being unveiled...
People speculating as to how the series is going to end...

• Is Harry going to survive the ordeal of meeting Voldemort once again?
  
• Will Voldemort die? (Good always triumphs, doesn’t it?)
  
• Is Snape the good guy or the bad guy and why did Dumbledore trust him so much?
  
• Will Dumbledore come back from the dead to help Harry?
  
• Will Ron and Hermione get together? What about Harry and Ginny?
  

Have you observed how conventional this marketing strategy is?
First rumors about the contents of the latest book... then the statements made by the author as to how dear the characters have become and how deeply saddened she is, by the step she has to take and finish off the main characters since the script demands it...
Then the speculations...and for months together unto the date of the release the rumours spread until it becomes a frenzy...rumors about the leaking of the book's contents…the heightened security around the books...and the number of copies being booked in advance (setting record of sorts)...
But this form of marketing actually works like a charm since, who wouldn’t want to buy the book with such hype being created?

I agree the Harry potter series as such is really well written and makes for a very interesting read…
I would also like to say that to me, Tolkien is still the master, where the fantasy genre is concerned and Ms.Rowling has borrowed heavily from the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy...
But all said and done I am still a big Potter fan and I can’t wait to read the last book to see how Ms Rowling is planning to conclude this spectacular series…

I have been veering off short stories for a long time now...
I seriously don’t know where I developed this deep aversion to trying out short stories...and being a book lover who can digest just about any genre of writing, I feel I have missed out on some really great reads by keeping off this particular facet of English literature...
I guess it was mainly due to starting off with Agatha Christie...no offense but even though I am one of her biggest fans, I feel her short stories are less than awe inspiring...I have absolutely no complains against her mysteries though, they are marvelous, especially Hercule Poirot...
Then following a suggestion by a friend, I finally decided to settle on a book called "A Quiver Full of Arrows" by Jeffery Archer...
Its an absolute treat...its humorous and serious at the same time... the stories are well constructed with twists in between (that's probably Archer's signature)... and he conveys his feelings convincingly... I have read most of his books and I can say with certainty it ranks amongst his best...
There’s one story I liked in particular… its called "Old Love"...a really nice love story...really inspiring and well written...
I feel this book’s going to put me back into the "reading short stories" track...