the book of the future, today!
Leah spent some time today reading the hottest new sensation on the internet, the *ahem* "pre-release" copy of the last Harry Potter book. She wants to get a head start so she can talk about it with me during my marathon all-day reading session on Saturday. If you haven't heard about it, it's nothing more than a series of photos of each of the book's pages that an individual took with his digital camera, and uploaded to the internet as .jpgs, so it's just like reading the actual book on your computer screen! Is this at last the ebook revolution we've been hearing about for so long?
The die-hard fans are still protesting that the leaked book is a fake, either an elaborate fan-fic hoax or a clever plot by the publisher designed to... um... give people willing to download a leaked copy of their book a free "alternate ending" to the Harry Potter saga? Folks are also claiming the whole thing as a "spoiler", but that doesn't make much sense: how can a whole book be a spoiler for itself? Like, will it somehow be a magical reading experience on Saturday but something less than that before then? Clearly attempting to rationalize Ms. Rowling's plot devices have addled their logical faculties!
Needless to say, we will be purchasing our copy of the book as planned, but considering the whole thing seems like a race to see who can finish the book first after getting it at a minute past midnight on Saturday, a little bit of a jump on the reading will not be taken amiss.