Melissa Anelli

You could boil it down to "HP Fandom: The Book" as told by one of the witnesses to the phenomenon, and for that, I love it. I started reading them when I was roughly the same age as the characters, so I missed on some of the earlier nuances when they happened (the PotterWar and H/Hr vs H/R), but as someone who dives straight into fandom whenever I find a piece of media that I like, it's oh so relatable.

It's also kind of weird, because PotterCast was the very first podcast I started listening to, back in early 2008.… (més)

This is just crazy from every aspect! Very interesting details. I really had no idea that there was that much vicarious living through Potter, boy do I feel dumb. Mandatory reading for anyone interested in the publishing industry, literature in general, or even in understanding how to communicate with the wifi generation (whatever they are called) -- or Harry Potter. Reading is just no longer about the books anymore. I had never put two and two together about how Harry Potter books and movies were so related to the growth and explosion of the internet and all it had to offer (as well as its vices), but my eyes and brain are now definitely opened.… (més)

This tells the story of Pottermania and Anelli’s role as webmaster of The Leaky Cauldron – the # 1 website for fans of Harry. I like the Harry Potter books. I enjoy Rowling’s writing, and I’ve enjoyed a couple of the movies. But I’m not obsessed with the phenomenon. By Anelli’s own account, she first heard of Potter when she was buying her college text books. Her mother suggested “something light” to provide some entertainment and escape from all the heavy college texts. Anelli was hooked from the beginning. She quickly was spending virtually every spare moment reading, thinking, talking Harry Potter. In fairness, the book does go beyond Harry Potter to explore the world of children’s-book publishing. And she also talks about how the web-friends joined together to support and inform each other in the aftermath of the Sept 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. She nearly lost me entirely in the section devoted to Harry and the Potters and other bands that formed using various themes / characters from the books. Boring. But that was enjoyable compared to the section concerning those who would ban the books because “they teach witchcraft to children.” The most interesting part is the way in which Harry Potter changed the publishing world, the marketing world, the sale of intellectual property to the movies, etc. The best testament to the “power of Potter” is that this book debuted at #18 on the New York Times Bestseller list.

Audio book narrated by Renee Raudman, whose reading of this work is perfectly fine. She sounds appropriately young and enthused when describing the phenomenon, distressed and frantic as she reacts to the Sept 11 attacks, and doesn’t completely put us to sleep when reciting statistics or history.… (més)