Exploring the new #Pottermore

Pottermore - Home - Mozilla Firefox 9232015 50229 PM-001My cousin Dianne and I have been on a Harry Potter high since our Harry Birthday party in July. If you don’t know us (yet), our shared love of Harry Potter is one of the cornerstones of our relationship (actual blood relation aside), and now that she’s moved out of town, tickling the sleeping dragon (e.g. our Harry Potter fandom) has been a great way of dealing with separation anxiety.

So after the party, we started a leisurely read-along of the books (e.g. one book a month; so far we’ve finished Philosopher’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets) and we’ve been running up our phone bills with a flurry of messages throughout the books because we can talk Potterverse until your ears fall off. For cousins who’ve never been far apart for very long their whole lives, who can communicate to each other with nary a bat of an eyelash — Harry Potter has offered a lot of comfort even though we’re miles apart.

Our latest obsession (while waiting for the October 6 release of the illustrated edition Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and vainly attempting to ignore the presence of a £135 deluxe illustrated slipcase edition) is the new Pottermore website.

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Harry Birthday 2015! (updated)

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July 31 marks the birthdays of both Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling, and it has always been a significant date for my cousin Dianne and I because the Harry Potter books have been such a huge part of our lives. This year, on July 31st, we celebrated over fifteen years of fandom with a redux of Harry Birthday!

We had gone back and forth on the idea of another Harry Birthday party for months now. For one, in the past decade and a half, I think we’ve already done at least half a dozen Harry Potter parties, among other crazy things for the love of Harry Potter. Also, for a while the party didn’t even seem like a possibility. July had been an incredibly busy month, with my involvement in the NCBD activities, and my cousin had just moved across the country (read: separation anxiety like I’d never known before). But because it’s Harry’s 35th birthday and JKR’s 50th, we thought the time was ripe for another Harry Birthday.

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Harry Birthday 2014: A throwback to HP7

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I’m totally swamped with work, but it’s the eve of Harry Potter’s birthday, and (aha, and it’s nearly Thursday) so I’m celebrating with a trip down memory lane: how we rang in the final installment of Harry Potter, unearthed from an old cd of photos that luckily outlived Multiply.

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Harry Potter 2013

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Before my week gets all-out crazy (it’s Book Fair week, after all), I’m channeling Zen mode right now and blogging about one of my favorite topics — Harry Potter!

It’s a significant time for Harry Potter fans, as September marks the 15th anniversary of Harry Potter, and Scholastic is celebrating it with the release of a new set of covers by critically acclaimed artist Kazu Kibuishi, best known for his #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novel series, Amulet.

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Who’s Excited?

Who’s excited for “The Casual Vacancy,” J.K. Rowling‘s new novel? I definitely am! I’ve been waiting for this since it was announced in February!

In fact, I’ll be trooping with the Flippers tomorrow to National Book Store.

<Cue happydancingsqueesquee!>

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