Monday, July 18

Muggle Publishing

Muggle Publishing
Muggle Publishing,
originally uploaded by Gileskirk.
Magic seems to have surrounded the release of the latest Harry Potter novel as the J.K. Rowling tome set just about every publishing record imaginable on both sides of the Atlantic: for largest print run, for the biggest pre-sales, and for the most single-day sales. The security measures leading up to the release--to protect against the spoilers--were matched only by the publicity blitzes--to protect against the naysayers.

Alas, all is not magic in the world of Harry and Hogwarts. It appears that Bloomsbury and Scholastic (the UK and US publishers) are run by Muggles and not by Wizzards. While Rowling's writing and the plotting are as ingenious as ever in The Half Blood Prince, her sixth book in the seven book series, there are numerous typos throughout the 652 page yarn--"site" instead of "sight," "fug instead of fog," "their heart" instead of "the hearth," etc. Nit picking, I know! My guess is that such twiddly bits will hardly dampen enthusiasms--enthusiasms being what they are!

By the way, for those still trying to sort out whether this "wild about Harry" stuff is a good or bad thing, I recommend the helpful and balanced Looking for God in Harry Potter by John Granger (Tyndale).

1 comment:

Valerie (Kyriosity) said...

That reminds me, Dr. Grant -- last year you used hoard instead of horde in a post. I confess I was very proud of my proofreaderly prowess in catching that, even though it was probably only a typo. I suspect such errors in your writing are rare as hippogryph's teeth.