Wednesday, April 04, 2007

For When You Hanker For A Hunk of Harry

My husband and I spent a bit of our free time this evening looking at the new cover for the U.S. version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I had already seen it; he hadn't, and while I chose to make comments on the fact that Harry and Voldemort look as if they are engaging in a good round of Tai Chi, my far more analytically minded husband became obsessed with one thing and one thing only: how to use these pictures to guess how thick the book will be.

See, here's the full wraparound:

You can compare it to the front cover image to estimate where the spine will lay. After measuring the dimensions of our copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and doing some quick calculations, Brian has come up with an educated guess about the length of Book 7.

His guess: 1,086 pages. In other words, the book is a little over half as thick as it is wide.

Dude, this book could kill a squirrel!

I, personally, enjoy really thick books like this. When I get them new, I enjoy lifting them up into the air as if they were well-aged chunks of Gruyere cheese, and regarding them heavily as if I could already taste creamy dialogue and sharp descriptions that go down so well with a big wheat cracker.

Hmm.

I've got to stop writing these posts when I'm hungry.

5 comments:

Julia said...

Brian overguessed, no jelly beans for him! HP:DH is 784 pages, longer than Goblet of Fire but shorter than Order of the Phoenix. And it weighs 2.5 pounds... honestly, buy a couple of those and you'll be well on your way to some hefty, defined muscles. :)

Brooke said...

Yes, yes, yes. I knew there was already an official page count. But it's just so much fun to make conjectures like this. Or, at least, to watch Brian make them.

the chocolate doctor מרת שאקאלאד said...

And, after all, dust-jacket kremlinology is all we have to keep us going during the Potter Interlibrum--those of us who did not use our spring break to fly to London to see the Naked Harry Play, as one colleague did.

Brooke said...

Whoa. "Naked Harry Play" is now on my list of great names for rock bands. Sweet.

lifelongreader said...

The cover also makes HP look like he is serving in a tennis match.