Harry Potter

I don't know the statistics or anything, but I'm guessing that the new Harry Potter book must be running a close race for best selling book of all time including the Bible. If not that, then it must be the best selling book in pre-sale of all time, hands down. Amazon.com has a feature on each page called, "What do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?" and no matter what the item is, the stats usually look like this:
90% bought the item on this page
4% bought some competing item
6% bought Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

I mean, you can be looking at a cookbook or a history book or a biography, and it will still say that after viewing this page, some small percent ultimately went and bought the new Harry Potter.

The other day, someone asked me where I pre-ordered the new Harry Potter. Not, "did you pre-order it?" but it was assumed that I had. (I did, months ago, from bn.com)

Someone else suggested to me that the whole thing with Snape being good or evil may be hype to sell the next book. I had to explain that the book doesn't need any hype. J.K. Rowling isn't sitting around trying to think of ways to trick people into buying the next book. People are salivating for it already and no one knows what it's about.

For the record, I have no idea if Snape is good or evil. I have some idea for why he did what he did at the end of Book 6 but it still doesn't explain if he's good or evil, it only explains why he did what he did at the end of Book 6. I'm sure there are endless message boards on this subject but I'm not HP-nerdy enough to go check out my hunch. I'll just have to wait a couple more weeks and read the book to see if I was right.

And Mike and I predict that Ron is going to die in some heroic fashion that teaches Harry a lesson.