Just a Book

At 12:01 tonight, the last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be released.

And one thing I've heard over and over is "it's just a book."

And I agree. It is just a book. So it does seem rather silly all the security measures being taken, the frantic efforts of its American publisher, Scholastic, to take legal action against those who, having received a copy of the book early, have posted reviews or, in one case, scanned all the pages of the book and put it up on the Internet.

They fear, as does J.K. Rowling, that people having already posted the book on the Web takes away some of the magic of people having the chance to read the book at (or near, taking into account time differences, of course) the same time.

But, what I find amazing is the fact that a book, a book, for goodness sake, is generating such a reaction.

In a world of cell phones, Ipods, video games, the World Wide Web, high-def, wide-screen TVs, DVDs, CDs, laptop computers, digital cameras, and so on and so forth, a simple thing as a book, with clothbound covers and paper pages, can still get so many people so excited.

Now, I've read that sales of Harry Potter books these past ten years have not exactly generated higher sales for other books. Don't know if that's true or not. But there's been a slew of YA fantasy books published during those ten years. And those authors don't exactly seem to be hurting.

Personally, book-lover that I am, I think it's fantastic that people, especially young people, can still get excited over a book. My brother is buying two copies so that he and his two young daughters and wife can read the books at the same time.

Now, will this ever happen again? I doubt it. At least not in my lifetime. But it won't soon be forgotten that a book (which, of course, has spilled over into oodles of merchandising and into a very successful movie franchise, and has spawned video games and hundres of websites devoted to Harry Potter and the Wizarding World) was able to garner this much attention, excitement and devotion.

Just a book? Yeah, just a book. And that's what so amazing.

Happy Reading!

P.S. I came across this while reading an article about J. K. Rowling. A couple of quotes from her that I think are of particluar concern to us aspiring writers. She's talking about possible future writing projects.

"I'll do exactly what I did with Harry — I'll write what I really want to write, and if it's something similar, that's OK, and if it's something very different, that's OK.

"I just really want to fall in love with an idea again, and go with that."

Fall in love with an idea. That's the key isn't it? And, of course, hope that lots of readers fall in love with the idea, the world and the characters too. *wink*