Harry
Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling (Read by Jim
Dale) Tape Format
Brand
New (still shrink wrapped): Unabridged. 19 hours 12 Cassettes 
The long-awaited, eagerly anticipated, arguably over-hyped Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has arrived, and the question on the minds of kids, adults, fans, and skeptics alike is, "Is it worth the hype?" The answer, luckily, is simple: yep. A magnificent spectacle more than worth the price of admission, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will blow you away. However, given that so much has gone into protecting the secrets of the book (including armored trucks and injunctions), don't expect any spoilers in this review. It's much more fun not knowing what's coming--and in the case of Rowling's delicious sixth book, you don't want to know. Just sit tight, despite the earth-shattering revelations that will have your head in your hands as you hope the words will rearrange themselves into a different story. But take one warning to heart: do not open Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince until you have first found a secluded spot, safe from curious eyes, where you can tuck in for a good long read. Because once you start, you won't stop until you reach the very last page.
A darker book than any in the series thus far with a level of sophistication belying its genre, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince moves the series into murkier waters and marks the arrival of Rowling onto the adult literary scene. While she has long been praised for her cleverness and wit, the strength of Book 6 lies in her subtle development of key characters, as well as her carefully nuanced depiction of a community at war. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, no one and nothing is safe, including preconceived notions of good and evil and of right and wrong. With each book in her increasingly remarkable series, fans have nervously watched J.K. Rowling raise the stakes; gone are the simple delights of butterbeer and enchanted candy, and days when the worst ailment could be cured by a bite of chocolate. A series that began as a colorful lark full of magic and discovery has become a dark and deadly war zone. But this should not come as a shock to loyal readers. Rowling readied fans with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by killing off popular characters and engaging the young students in battle. Still, there is an unexpected bleakness from the start of Book 6 that casts a mean shadow over Quidditch games, silly flirtations, and mountains of homework. Ready or not, the tremendous ending of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will leave stunned fans wondering what great and terrible events await in Book 7 if this sinister darkness is meant to light the way. --Daphne Durham
About the Author J K Rowling:
Joanne Rowling was born in South Gloucestershire, England on 31 July
1965, on the outskirts of Bristol. There is some confusion as to exactly where; Rowling has said she was born in Chipping Sodbury, whereas her birth certificate apparently claims she was born in the Cottage Hospital at Yate. Her sister Di was born when Rowling was almost two
. The family moved to Winterbourne, Bristol when Rowling was four, and then to Tutshill, near Chepstow, Wales at the age of nine. She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College. In December 1990, Rowling's mother succumbed to a decade-long battle with multiple
sclerosis.
After studying French and Classics at the University of Exeter, with a year of study in Paris, she moved to London to work as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International. During this period she had the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry while she was on a four-hour, delayed train trip between Manchester and
London. When she had reached her destination, she began writing immediately .
Rowling then moved to Portugal to teach English as a foreign language. While there, she married Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes on 16 October
1992. They had one child, Jessica Isabel, before divorcing in 1993. Their daughter was named after Rowling's heroine, Jessica
Mitford.
In December, 1994, she and her daughter moved to be near her sister in
Edinburgh. Unemployed and living on state benefits, she completed her first novel, doing some of the work in local Edinburgh cafes whenever she could get Jessica to fall
asleep. There was a rumour that she wrote in local cafés in order to escape from her unheated flat, but in a 2001 BBC interview Rowling remarked, "I am not stupid enough to rent an unheated flat, in Edinburgh, in mid-winter; it had heating"
In 1995, Rowling completed her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on an old manual
typewriter. Upon the enthusiastic response of Bryony Evans, a young reader who had been asked to review the book's first three chapters, the Fulham-based Christopher Little Literary Agents agreed to represent Rowling in her quest for a publisher. The book was handed to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected it.
. A year later she was finally given the greenlight (and a £1500 advance) by the editor Barry Cunningham from the small publisher
Bloomsbury. Although Cunningham happily agreed to publish the book, he claims he advised her to get a day job, as she had little chance of making money in children's
books. She then received an £8000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to enable her to continue
writing. The following spring, an auction was held in the United States for the rights to publish the novel, and was won by Scholastic Inc, who paid Rowling more than 0,000. Rowling has said she "nearly died" when she heard the
news. In June, 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher's Stone with an intial print run of only 1000 copies, 500 of which were distributed to libraries. Today, such copies are valued at between £16,000 and £25,000 each.
Five months later it won its first award, a Nestle Smarties Book Prize. In February, the novel won the prestigious British Book Award for Children's Book of the Year, and, later the Children's Book Award. In October 1998, Scholastic published Philosopher's Stone in the States under the title of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, a change Rowling now claims she regrets and would have fought if she had been in a better position at the time.
.
In December 1999, the third Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,won the Smarties Prize, in the process making Rowling the first person to win the award three times
running. She later withdrew the fourth Harry Potter novel from contention to allow other books a fair chance. In January, 2000, Prisoner of Azkaban won the inaugural Whitbread Children's Book of the Year award, though it narrowly lost the Book of the Year prize to Seamus Heaney's translation of
Beowulf. That June, the Queen honored Rowling by making her an Officer of the Order of the British
Empire.
To date, six of the seven volumes of the Harry Potter series, one for each of Harry's school years, have already been published and all have broken sales records. Upon its publication, both the fourth novel, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and the sixth, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, were the fastest-selling books in
history.
Rowling is currently writing the seventh and final book of the series. Its name is currently
unknown. (from Wikipedia)
