I figure by now that about half the US population has read the last Harry Potter book. As we like the British editions, we're waiting on our copy's arrival from Amazon UK (according to an email I got yesterday, it has been dispatched and is estimated to arrive via international mail on or about July 30). In the meantime, I'm doing whatever I can to remain spoiler-free. I've stopped reading newspaper stories about the book, even stories about midnight madness events at bookstores, just in case. That may sound excessive to you, but one of the Chron stories from Thursday quoted from early reviews of the book, and what they excerpted from Michiko Kakutani's review in the NYT talked about how the saga ended, and that's already more than I wanted to know, even if it was one of the scenarios I figured JK Rowling had to use.

So, I'm trying to maintain complete radio silence on all things Potter for the next week or so. I'm also going to have to wait till Tiffany reads the book first once it gets here, but at least she reads fast. If you've already read it, feel free to gloat about it in the comments, but please please please don't say anything more about it than "I liked it" or "I didn't like it". Thanks.