53 Comments
Just kidding. We didn’t even peek.
Anyway, Harry Potter 7 comes out at 12:01 am Saturday morning. But you knew that already. If not from little siblings or nerdy friends, it’s probably from the fact you, yourself, are a HP freak and have joined Facebook’s Admit It, You Wish You Went to Hogwarts!, or I Trust Snape, or Equus= Harry Potter Naked. Check out the pictures. It’s like Anne Geddes meets NAMBLA.
If you haven’t pre-ordered HP and the DH from Amazon yet, don’t fret. Bwog party planner Stephanie Quan has a few suggestions on where to find this book on July 21st.
COSTCO/ BJ’S/ SAM’S CLUB– We kid you not. Every bookstore in Morningside Heights will stock up on these books. But where else other than at a wholesale clubhouse will they definitely NOT RUN OUT? Note: You do need a membership to these clubs in order to buy the books. $18.19/?/?
B&N / Borders – Along the same lines as the big boxes- they buy in bulk. Be warned, however, that this will be most people’s first choice, so either go early or be prepared to be turned away. Note: Borders has teamed up with Amazon, so you can order this book online for a great price without leaving your room. $20.99 ($18.99 members)/$17.99
Target– Not ready to trek out to the madness downtown? Take the 1 to the first stop in the Bronx. You won’t be able to miss the store. They sell the paraphernalia all year, why not the real books? $17.99
The Strand– This colossus has the older books from SS to HBP for dirt cheap prices. Beware of hipsters, cramped spaces, and long lines. $21.95
Bank Street Bookstore– They specialize in children’s literature, so they will definitely have it the 21st, along with dozens of screaming children. Bonus, they are not that far away. $27.99
Columbia Bookstore-A subsidiary of Barnes and Noble, they will not only have HP7 but also a party at midnight. Plus, it’s not well known for having a large fiction section, so chances are you’ll run into less competition… and you can pay with Flex. Probably $20.99
And for those of you who are particularly festive, or especially impatient (oh you know who are you are, Mister I-read-the-last-book-in-one-huge-sprint-all-night-then spoiled-the-ending-for-everyone-in-class-the-next-morning), here are some places where you can party it up with all the other freaks the night before.
JULY 20TH MIDNIGHT HP PARTIES
Barnes and Noble– They really go nuts for this stuff. They’ll have games and contests and really long lines. You can even make your own wand! This year, they got Jim Dale, the narrator for the audiobooks, to come to the Union Square store. He’ll read excerpts from past novels and lead the countdown the midnight. See here. Keep in mind, a long list of pre-ordered books will also have to be dealt with before you can get yours, so you might as well go pre-order now.
Borders– Their store in Atlanta is supposedly to host the largest “Grand Hallows Ball” of them all, complete with a 15 foot snake-shaped cake and life-sized checkers game. You can locate the nearest party to you on their HP website, and watch their panel debates about Snape’s loyalties (on “HP TV” –oh haha…no). As with B&N, there will probably be long lines.
The Strand– Not ready to handle all the families at the big chains? Try the Strand, they’ll sell you this book the day after (just to be different), and throw a hip little party and throw it into a hip little bag so you can pretend you just bought Faulkner. Plus their party is the day after (on Saturday), so you don’t have to sacrifice going out the night before.
Columbia Bookstore– The last party, according to some professors, was pretty good and very kid friendly. And it’s super close so you won’t have ride the subway wearing Quidditch gear.
Also look for: Local bookstores- Mostly geared for neighborhood families, the locals will be great for low key release parties. Once again, you won’t have to travel far and you will be support the small shops.
The Village (in general) – This place is going to go apeshit. The stores will decorate. The cupcakes will flow. The costumed will parade. Diagon Alley in New York.
McNally and Robinson party– The “grownups party”- Like the other parties there will be magicians, astrologers, DJs, face-painting, costume competitions, but where else will there be a party bus and “magic punch” ? More info here.
WARNING: Spoilers in comments below (in case you didn’t expect that already)
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53 Comments
@Dear Bwog,
You know you should have done something about the spoiler comment.
@Sprinkles SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE.
…Wait.
@twf The reason Potter is for me different from Tolkien or Star Wars is the young kid bildunsroman aspect. So with that in mind the maturing of the author in the choices she made, along with the maturing of the characters who manage to stay alive, was especially gratifying. Gotta catch up on some sleep after that one though.
@***** bildungsroman
@Umm... Star Wars is a bildungsroman. It follows Anakin from a young child to his death as a father.
Of course, the book to Star Wars is also complete and utter crap, but that doesn’t prevent it from being a bildungsroman.
@ump Star Wars wasn’t orginally written with that storyline though. I think most people sort of ignore 1-3. I guess you could still say that it is about Luke growing up from a whiny farmboy to a dude who talks shit to giant gangster blobs and blows them up.
@Anonymous For starters, the Bwog comments are no place for a 10 year old. Yikes. Second, I didn’t come near the comments for this post before I finished the book because, duh. Obviously the internet is a good place to steer clear of if you didn’t want anything spoiled. Third, for those upset, you shouldn’t comment on any “spoilers”- if you get mad, it seems like you are confirming them.
And finally, I just want to say that this book was awesome. As someone who feared the end of HP (the series, not the character) I am coping fairly well as a result of how much I loved this book.
@wirc I think you killed it there, bubs.
@SPOILER Smerdyakov did it.
@hahahaha good one
@spoiler alert since when to wizards go to heaven? they are of satan, and go to hell.
@wuh oh SPOILER ALERT:
Hogwarts legalizes gay marriage and Harry and Malfoy tie the knot.
@anti-rjt ROB TRUMP IS THE BASTARD CHILD OF A GANG OF ASS CLOWNS.
@rjt SPOILER ALERT:
Soylent Green is wizards.
@rjt SPOILER ALERT:
Ginny opened the Chamber of Secrets.
@OMG pt 2! Captain Ahab dies! Shit, son, no more Moby Dick for any of these readers.
@OMG! Turns out Gatsby is a bootlegger! That’s how he gets his money!
There, I ruined one of the greatest novels ever. Obviously it’s totally not worth reading now.
@oh of course People who give away the ending to a children’s book are going to hell.
@Please... For the love of all that is still pure in this world…DELETE that ‘spoiler’ comment. I don’t care how close to or far from the truth it is; that crap shouldn’t be allowed anywhere. I’ll forgive the title of the entry because I know that the book’s actual length is 784 pages, but I’ve seen Bwog staff delete comments plenty of times for inappropriateness, and this certainly qualifies.
While I didn’t get into Harry Potter until after the first three books have come out, I’m a huge fan, and even the hint of spoilers is just awful. For those of you who want to ruin it for the rest of us (like poster #3), well, you’ll burn in hell anyway…but at least the flaming has already begun on this thread.
@jkrowling After reading the book online,
I can honestly say that the series is not over since Voldemort eats Harry at the end of the book.
@the ending Actually, Harry wakes up and realizes that it was all just a big dream. He is a muggle after all…
@pfft 1) No, I don’t have a Star Wars comfortor on my bed. Yes, I know 21 is probably too old to care about Harry Potter but I started reading the series when I was 11, it was a big part of my childhood, so yeah, I kind of care how it ends.
2) Of course my niece shouldn’t have been reading Bwog comments over my shoulder, I was dumb to let her. I wasn’t paying attention, my guard was down…I forgot how awful commenters here can be,
3) None of that justifies poster #3’s asshole actions. It was completely unnecessary and rude. But, I forgot, that’s par for the course for a Bwog commenter. I feel bad for the Bwog editors who work so hard to put out new, interesting content, even during the summer, only to be repaid with vitriol and insanity by the bulk of their comment crowd. They deserve better.
@Actually I bet your niece was wearing an invisibility cloak. That whore.
@DPD Suggestion: If your ten-year-old niece is the sort who bawls at the drop of the hat – more to the point, if she is a ten-year-old girl – isn’t it worthy of consideration whether or not she should even be reading a series whose plot hinges on (and whose publicity touts very heavily) a number of violent deaths?
And if you’re twenty-one, and you take J. K. “Italics and CAPITAL LETTERS are the same as good writing! I’m off to think up some wacky character names!” Rowling seriously, uou probably still have a Star Wars comforter on your bed.
@also wtf @ the comments i’ve been making for the past couple of days, they’re gone! did bwog temporarily block my IP or something?
@wow considering the track record of bwog comments, i would be wary of reading them in the company of a ten-year-old girl. she could have come across much worse.
@seriously good call on that one. maybe an unmoderated internet forum wasn’t the best place to avoid spoilers from one of the most popular books ever.
@ALSO OTHER COLLEGE BOOKSTORES. HUNTER, NYU, ETC.
@anti-rjt Rop Trump is a bastard.
@Roderick Are you Rod Majors?
@Perspective Does having the ending of a book or movie spoiled for you suck? Yes.
Does it merit crying and whining for days? No.
@woman In case you missed it, New York Times did a book review of the book (it “legally” got a hold of the book early).
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/books/19potter.html?_r=1&ref=books&oref=slogin
@man harry potter sucks. never interested me whatsover.
@Chill Do you really think that comment bears any resemblance to the truth? Would any of the HP crew be getting married in the last book? If you’re that intent on the book not getting spoiled, go hide in your house and take a nap.
@seriously Chill? How about you give me your email address I’ll mail you a list of spoilers. I’ll even tell you that none of them are true. Would you enjoy that?
@I read it Hermione and Rob get married. The bird eats shit, so does snape… it’s alright except for Harry’s death–which was obviously a joke
@UMMM Who THE FUCK is Rob? Is Rob Trump marrying Hermione? He WOULD.
@rjt SPOILER ALERT:
I have a threesome with Hermione and the horse from Equus.
@Seriously Bowg staff, you need to either delete that comment or put a spoiler warning in the main post. I don’t care how nerdy it is, I’ve been reading HP since I was 15 and looking forward to this book for ages, and I know others that feel the same, and having some asshole ruin it sucks. Please do something.
@btw You should lock your niece into a cold dank cellar til the weekend, even if you don’t love her, because todays nytimes also has some nice spoilers so don’t let your niece read the times either. though she probably doesn’t anyway. all the same.
@well if the only draw the new harry potter has is some hit list of minor characters, then it probably would’ve been a terrible book anyway.
Or you could just try to enjoy it anyway. I mean, there are a few hundred pages between the spoilers that have to have something going on within.
also lol the internet ruined your niece’s day
@yikes I was walking by the back entrance to CU’s B+N yesterday and deliverers with many boxes saying HP and the deathly hallows on it. I would have been tempted to take one and run but I was too surprised. I didn’t realize the books came so early to stores. Also it hadn’t really sunk in that I have to say goodbye to my youth now. dammit.
@don't hate the playa hate the scroll wheel
@Legolas' Ponytail
Voldemort Kills Snape, Snape is apologetic, Harry Kills Voldemort, Harry dies and visits Dumbledore in Heaven, Harry is resurrected. Harry marries Ginny, Ron marries Hermione.
Other deaths: Burbage p.12, Hedwig 56, Mad-Eye Moody 78, Scrimegeour 159, Wormtail 471, Dobby 476, Snape 658, Fred Weasley 637, Tonks, Lupin, and Creevy 743.
@christ That was really unnecessary, you asshole. My 10 year-old niece was reading this over my shoulder because I figured I’d let her pick out which party she wanted me to take her to since she’s in town with her mom for the weekend, and stupid me scrolled down into the cesspool that is the Bwog comments section, and she caught quite an eyeful of your malicious jackassery. She was looking forward to finding all that stuff out by reading the book herself on Saturday, not some douchebag’s comment on a blog. You made a 10 year old cry, are you proud of yourself?
@Ummm “She was looking forward to finding all that stuff out by reading the book herself on Saturday”
Maybe you should have explained to your niece that the bwog comments were a joke, making fun of all the HP “2 characters are going to die” hoopla, and not actual spoilers?
@right I tried explaining that to her, but have you ever tried explaining anything to a bawling 10 year old girl who’s overtired because she just settled down after a cross-country flight from California? It doesn’t go very smoothly, fyi.
And, unfortunately, the spoilers are probably quite real…I have a friend who read the leaked version of the book. I ran the post by him and he said it matched what he read. So assuming the leaked version is real and not just a really fantastic fake, then hey, Poster #3 is a joyless fuckface who made a 10 year old cry and also managed to spoil a book I was looking forward to reading, even if I’m too old to be reading Harry Potter books at 21.
@GS sucks Fuck off GS, we don’t need your old person stank.
@um... This poster just mentioned she/he was 21. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t 21 in the norm range of ages of college students?
@FLAME FLAME Total fucking flame, no one would let their 10 year old niece read BWOG, nor would any 10-year-old nephew want to.
@steph quan seriously, legolas’ ponytail…fuck you.
@completely uncool with regards to the title. Harry Potter dying or not is a serious thing, not to be trifled with. As well as the plight of malnourished citizens of the third world. That’s very serious too.
@rmb Note that Bank Street Books is also having a party at midnight.