As the last Harry Potter virgin in the known universe I felt lonely and picked up the first two volumes at a local library used-book sale last week. J. K. Rowling's youthful wizard-in-training romps through a cotton-candy carnival of minor adventures in "Year 1", aka Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It's reasonably well-written and fast reading, with frequent echoes of Roald Dahl (esp. James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) plus bits of some popular lightweight movies (esp. Men in Black and Star Wars). My hopes to spy shadows of J. R. R. Tolkien went unmet, alas. Perhaps in later books the situation will get less cartoonish. Don't tell me how it ends!

_{(cf. Mr. Wizard) - ^z - 2010-02-28}