I apologize.

But HP7/Part 1 comes out November 19! I had to reread the book!

So my first book of the new session is a retread, after last year, during which I did a good amount of rereading. And that's that.

If you want to read what I thought of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when I reread it last year, be my guest. I don't predict I'll glean anything new from it this time, but I do know I'll enjoy myself thoroughly.

One thought: Rowling includes, for the first time, two literary references at the beginning of the book. It might be a tiny bit pretentious, but I'm generally in favor of artists plastering their work with snippets of whatever it was that inspired them, acknowledging that no work stands alone. I may have Chuck Mee to thank for this.

Here's one of Rowling's inclusions:

"Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass, they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal."

William Penn, More Fruits of Solitude