I picked up on the Harry Potter thing around the time of the 4th book (Goblet of Fire) and while I'm certainly no fanboy, I've enjoyed the series so far, books and films.
Given that the release of the final book in the series seemed such a hullabaloo, I thought it would be worth at least cruising past the lines at the bookshops on Saturday morning to see what was going on. (No small ask given the frostiness of Canberra mid-winter mornings)
Arriving at Dymocks at around 7.45, I was a little surprised to see that there were only about 20 or so people waiting and given that I had my pre-order receipt sitting in my bag, I thought I might as well be a part of the whole lining up thing.
Here are some of the pics I snapped and thoughts I had in the 1hr 15mins waiting time - as painstakingly typed in to draft text messages.
Here at 7.45 and there are about 20 people here already. Think im older by around 10 to 20 years at least. No costumes to speak of - one witch hat. General nerdy chatter.
Feel slightly self conscious with the people walking by.
One guy turned up who has already read the thing.
The guy 2 in front of me got here 30 mins earlier.
Borders opened at 8 to let people wait inside (ie browse) until 9.01.
The girl in front of me is reading sun tzu art of war.
My feet are cold.
A woman just shushed some singing magpies.
Shops open. Thats good.
Photographer would be a good cover to q jump.
Inside now. I handed over my docket.
Had to follow a black line of tape that winds around the book stacks. Makes sense.
Stuck in front of the motivation section right now.
Young gen y kids in front reading romance novels out loud.
Maybe I'm being a little cynical but giving out balloons from the local pie shop just seems a little lame.
Next to the classic novels as well.
Interesting to see ray bradbury in there with f451. The original 16th c monkey as well.
I must admit that it was a tiny bit exciting to see the books with their embargo tape passing by. Also that the bookshop (dymocks) staff at least made an effort to dress up.
This was the scene behind me.
The line starts to move - after a somewhat pissweak cheer.
Just a couple of people from the front now - see the books going into the cheap cheap bookbags.
The funny thing now is, that after going through the whole standing in the freezing cold, lining up with nerds and geeks and whatnot, i still haven't started reading the thing yet.
I decided at the start of last week that I should probably re-read HP6 first, to get back up to speed and put the whole thing into context but I haven't finished that one yet. (In fact, Harry has just arrived at Hogwarts for the start of the school year)
Which might seem to have made this whole endeavour a bit of a fools errand but it was interesting being there all the same.
