Word: wizard
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Three and a half years ago, no one on earth had heard of Harry Potter except J.K. Rowling, the writer who dreamed him up, and the publishers' readers who had rejected the manuscript of her first book featuring the bespectacled boy wizard. And now? Four Harry Potter novels later, translations into 42 languages later, 76 million copies sold worldwide later? Strange, strange things are happening wherever on Earth the young fictional hero and his friends can be found...
...separate category for children's books. The move came just in time to prevent Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire from zooming to the top of the fiction list--and joining the three earlier Harry Potter titles firmly ensconced among the 15 slots. By shunting the wizard books out of its main chart, the Book Review fiddled with logic but appeased publishers and authors who believed they had been "Pottered"--denied best-selling status by the J.K. Rowling juggernaut...
...sense, the boy wizard has slipped beyond her control; he is out there, everywhere, and legions of people feel a sense of ownership. But in the most important way, Harry still belongs to her. His future is in her head, as is that of the entire fictional universe she has set in motion...
While tout Hollywood purloins comic books for its scenarios, Joel and Ethan Coen raid noble antiquity: not just Homer's fabulous travelogue in verse but Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels (for the movie's title) and MGM's The Wizard of Oz (for a delirious production number starring the Ku Klux Klan). Toss in enough gorgeous blue-grass music to make the movie's CD a must-have, and you get prime, picaresque entertainment. It celebrates the chicanery of the human spirit, the love of raillery and rodomontade...
...tired! If we want to preside over more than one screen, we'll open a multiplex. In one week, we had to ban Eminem from our home, coach our 8-year-old through the scary parts of The Wizard of Oz and trick the 3-year-old into believing that our unplugged TV was broken...