Well, nothing yet… I live in a security building and I missed the freaking phone call from the FedEx guy. So he left a note on the door and now I have to wait for them to redeliver Monday. (My husband and I both tried to convince each other that we need two copies anyway, but no go.) Sorry for such a boring story.
I went to the midnight release party at the little independant bookstore in my neighborhood. The place was packed elbow-to-elbow with adults and children, many in robes and pointy black hats. Leave it to me, though- in a crowd of people who come out at midnight to get a book, I was stuck in line in front of a woman who had just come because a niece had asked her to get it. “I’m really not one to pick up a book and, you know, read it,” she told me, but still wanted to chat in line though, not having read the other books, she had nothing of interest to say.
There seemed to be plenty of books for those who had preordered, but the owner was not selling to anyone who was not on the reserve list. I guess he wanted to make sure we got ours first.
After twenty minutes in line, the treasure was mine, and I scampered off home to start it.
I had to do Family Bonding yesterday, which slowed me down, but I finished the book happily this morning.
And when a sudden loud noise woke me in the middle of the night, I opened my eyes convinced that I was at Hogwarts, and that I would shortly have to use my limited magical skills to defend myself against something horrible. It took me about five seconds (and turning on the light) to recognize that I was me and this was my bedroom, and the noise was the cats fighting.
Well, my sons and I got home from a party yesterday, eagerly anticipating that the book I preordered in February would be lying there on my doorstep–instead we found a slip from FedEx saying they were unable to leave the package because no one was home! They’ve left them in the past but yesterday, for some perverse reason that I can only suspect was meant to torment us, they didn’t!
Now we’re waiting till Monday 
And they’d better leave it this time! Good thing we have the fourth season of Buffy to keep us occupied! 
I popped into a book shop wearing my GANDALF THE GREY t-shirt. I got a lot of dirty looks!
i went to a midnight party at b&n. i got there at 8:45 and went over to the reg. desk, i got a red book ticket, a pair of hp glasses, schedule of events, and a house assignment (hufflepuff).
they started at 9pm with a magic show, followed by costume contest (sorting hat won a set of paper packs), and a trivia contest (hufflepuff won, so i got a wizard hat), then at 11 they told us to look around, get something to eat or drink and that they would read the first chapter over the pa. (i got a book release pin and a sticker, and headed down to the cafe for ice tea and a lemon tart.) they also said that they had run out of books, if you did not have a red book ticket you would not get a book.
at 11:30 they started with tickets numbered 1-50, as i was number 543, i found a comfy corner and continued to read “goblet of fire” chatting with people as they went by. at midnight they cut the police tape on the book boxes and started selling the books.
i figured i wouldn’t be called until about 4 am. at 12:15, they announce numbers 525-565, huh? did they just jump 400 numbers? turns out they did, from 150-524 were pre orders that didn’t come to the party so i was out by 12:25 and heading home to read it. i decided to go to sleep at 4:30 am and finish the book later on sat. which i did.
b&n did a great job with the events and keeping people happy and content while they waited.
I got my copy for free! My grocery store had a promotion - buy $300 worth of groceries, get the book free. THe downside was the store is only open until midnight, so they didn’t hand them out until Saturday morning. I still had to reserve my copy, and it was waiting for me Saturday morning when I went to pick it up.
My neice went to a party at her local bookstore, but hadn’t pre-reserved her copy so she couldn’t get hers. Then she went to Wal-Mart, where the line was an hour and a half long. She did manage to snag the book, but later she went to Target (on Sat. morn) and they had plenty.
I sit and hold my book and think to myself -“This book was worth thousands just a few days ago”.
Reading some of the above responses, I think it must have been a madhouse in some places.
It was much duller when I bought my book yesterday morning. I hadn’t preordered or anything like that, but I took a chance and went into the small independent bookstore a few blocks away. It really was a chance, prompted by their small sign out front that I saw as I passed by: “The New Harry Potter is Here.” I went in–it was definitely not busy in the store–and when I didn’t see any copies on the shelves, asked the clerk if he had any left.
“Sure,” he said, reaching into a box of HP books behind the counter. “How many do you want?”
I was kind of stunned–not only could I have a book, without preordering or standing in line or waiting for my number to be called at a late hour of the night, but I could have as many as I wanted! And with a small discount, too.
Needless to say, I bought one. I’d been planning to anyway, since I’ve read the others and have been looking forward to the new book. But it was sure a lot easier and less painful than I had expected. Total time was about three minutes from the time I walked in until the time I walked out with the book.
You know, I’ve been doing the same thing! I imagine there are a lot of people who have been doing it too.
Well, despite my resolve not to purchase it until I finished both papers, I went out last night around 9PM and bought it. Went to WalMart first, and they were sold out. The lady told me that they’d been out since about 5 Saturday afternoon. So I stopped at Target on the way home from there, and they had plenty of copies - $16.36.
I read some last night, and a little this morning (I’m about 200 pages in), but I’m off to the library shortly, so I can finish paper A and start on paper B.
I went to a local bookstore for the party, thinking to meet my niece and her mom there. I guess they called ten minutes after I left, to inform me that they’d gone to a bookstore in the next town over (which makes sense really, as they’ve just moved there). So I was at the party by myself, in my Harry Potter baseball cap and t-shirt, wishing I had a kid to hang out with. Picked up my Mom’s copy there, then sped all the way to Sam Goody, where my copy has been on hold for over a year now, because I got overexcited when I saw the first signs announcing you could reserve a copy.
Apparently, I missed an awesome party with good costumes, all the rest, because I left home ten minutes before I should have. But I have the book, and that’s the important thing.
In this vein, is anyone surprised they haven’t made a “Harry Lives” t-shirt?
I haven’t seen the book, but used to work for a publisher.
Publishing has certain standard numbers of pages in a book so sometimes books have a few blank pages at the end because the number of printed pages didn’t add up to the page break.
When you say 870 pages, I think you mean 870 numbered pages; 896 is most likely the publishers “page break,” or total number of bound pages; ISBN page, acknowledgments, blank pages at the end, etc.
My story is guaranteed to be the most boring one in this thread. On Friday night, my husband gave a friend of his $15 to reserve a copy of HP for me when she gets her shipment in this week (she’s a bookseller at a local flea market).
Unfortunately, I won’t actually get my hands on the book until Weds., which means that I was forced to drool over the dozens of copies sitting on the shelves of Walmart today when I went grocery shopping. In hindsight, I suppose it would have been a much better idea to just spend an extra $3 so I could buy a copy at Walmart this weekend instead of waiting 3 more days.
Ah well. At least it will be worth the wait.
Was actually up and driving at 12:01 but having been in transit across the country for 22 hours, we elected to go home. Got up at 9-ish; amazon copy arrived by FedEx at 10-ish. After trading back and forth for the first 4 chapters, went to get some groceries. Copies at $19 at Albertson’s, so I picked up a spare. We were thus able to read in parallel, at least until midnight when my partner stopped and I continued. I finished at about noon today. She’s still working on it–but I’ve never seen her willing and able to concentrate on fiction this long.
I’m cheap; daughter whiterabbit finished hers already, so I’m going to read it. But I have to get some work done first.
Young Tiger decided he needed his own copy, but wasn’t in a huge rush, so we ran to Target this afternoon and he picked up a copy from one of several overflowing racks scattered around the store.
Not exactly an exciting tale, but with the UK copy coming in the mail shortly, we’ll have THREE copies soon. We’re already trying to decide where to donate one of the two American copies. (I’d given my mom the first four as a complete set for Christmas a while back, and she donated it to an elementary school for homeless kids when she was done, so I want to find a similarly worthy cause.)
Speaking of the UK version, anyone seen the cover? I think the US cover is a hell of a lot better fit for the book. I didn’t even realize the different versions had different covers.
I saw the UK cover on the net, I agree that it’s much better than the US one.
The covers that interest me are the Japanese ones, they’re very dark. I’ve also done some hanging around on Japanese Harry Potter sites to see the fanart, it’s very interesting.
I wonder when the new book comes out in Japanese?
I placed an order about a month ago, went in yesterday afternoon, told them my name and got my book. Yay! No drama. I’ve already finished it too, but now I’m starting back at the beginning again.
I was working in a bookstore when the last one came out, and we took orders only for people who wouldn’t be in town on the release date and wanted one held for them. We were pretty sure we had enough copies ordered to make everyone else happy.
Unfortunately, a big hunk of our order was delayed, and we ran out of books earlier than anticipated. It sucked. We had grown people throwing temper tantrums in the store.
Yep, it’s true Gundy and I got farted at while waiting in line. It wasn’t as much of a madhouse as I thought it was going to be, apart from the utter uselessness of having people come in and get ticket numbers before midnight. They didn’t even call the numbers out; it was just sort of a free-for-all to get in line after the people who preordered.
I got mine Saturday afternoon at Target. The price was lower than B&N and Borders, and I didn’t have to wait in line. I did, however, have a woman behind me ask if I’d read the books. She also then started talking about how much she hated Hillary Clinton and how we live in the US, not communist Russia. I then informed her that Russia isn’t communist anymore, and she may need to update her little rant to include Red China.
Why do people thrust their politics on strangers in public? How odd!
Went to Barnes and Noble Saturday afternoon. They were out of copies, said that all of the local B&N’s were out, and they wouldn’t get more for a week. I remembered my sister bought the previous book at WalMart, so we went there, spent less money, and I finished it last night. 
Julie