NP Harry Potter Redux

[Derek C. Maus]

>From Amazon.com's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire page:

"Customers who bought titles by J. K. Rowling also bought titles by these
authors:

Seamus Heaney 
Michael Crichton 
Louis Sachar 
Andrews McMeel Publishing 
Neal Stephenson"

Option A is funny ("gosh, mom, this Beowulf guy can't do *half* of what
Harry can do..."), B is predictable, C actually makes sense (given
Sachar's audience), D is why I hate this whole phenomenon ("if you liked
books by this publisher, why not buy books by this publishers") and E is
just plain unadulterated horse-hockey.  

I'd like to see some actual proof for this now oft-cited assertion that
reading this 734-page book is making kids want to read other stuff. From
what I read in the almost 2000 reader reviews (*almost* all of which seem
to be written by fairly young readers), it looks like they're all waiting
breathlessly for Rowling to write her next media event/book than going out
and reading Roald Dahl or Paul Zindel or Tolkien or what-not. They sure as
hell don't seem to be asking to read CRYTONOMICON, though.

Sigh. I really don't have anything against Harry Potter except for the
self-manufactured buying frenzy that it has set off. In some ways, it's
very interesting to see 3.8 million kids lined up at bookstores at
midnight waiting to buy a book. On another level, it's clearly a
phenomenon fueled by unabashed consumerism (I know, I know...that's what
modern publishing is about...) of the most reprehensible sort, since it
fuels a buying frenzy among parents who want to pacify their children with
the dual goal of a) maybe now they'll shut up about wanting this book and
b) maybe now they'll sit quietly for the rest of the summer and
read. Admittedly, b) is better in my mind than sitting in front of a
Nintendo or the idiot box, but if the net result of it is mostly to create
brand loyalty to the Harry Potter mosheen rather than a genuine interest
in reading in general, it seems like a pretty hollow trade-off.

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Derek C. Maus               |   "Heck, I reckon you wouldn't even be
dmaus at email.unc.edu         |   human beings if you didn't have some 
UNC-CH, Dept. of English    |   pretty strong feelings about nuclear
http://www.unc.edu/~dmaus/  |   combat."  --Major Kong, DR. STRANGELOVE
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