I finished the book. Now I have ten minutes to make a few comments.

Woo. Difficult to confine it to ten minutes. ( You really don't want to be spoiled... )

I was determined not to be spoiled for the last Harry Potter book. After all, I thought, if I'm going to read it at all, and I am planning to, I want it to be worth it - I want the full pay-off. I seldom read books where I know the ending beforehand. Why would I? It removes so much of the pleasure for me. I love suspense. I love not knowing. I'm highly spoiler-phobic.

But yesterday I stumbled across a huge spoiler for the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by accident. And after my first flash of dismay - oh no! why did I read that? - I felt suddenly immensely liberated. Now I don't need to rush to read the book, I can pick it up at my leisure. Now I don't need to worry about spoilers on my flist or in the email lists.

I am highy amused by the sense of strategy and compaign and conspiracy surrounding this books. Armies of trucks with books in warehouses. Midnight costume parties at bookstores. Disapproval from religious leaders. High-level security, lawsuits, and the kind of secrecy that usually surrounds military compounds and international secret weapons. And it's fiction, and it's for kids, and it's fun.

I love this planet.