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Bad Wolf posted:Going through the books again, Rowling sure likes to use "beaming" a lot. As in "X was beaming at Y". I swear the verb "beaming" is used more in the Potter books than on Star Trek. Like her obsession with socks?
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# ? Mar 30, 2012 17:36 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 03:20 |
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UndyingShadow posted:Like her obsession with socks? Blame Dobby for that one.
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# ? Mar 30, 2012 18:04 |
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UndyingShadow posted:Like her obsession with socks? You mean food. (and alliteration) Also there is a positive correlation between magical power and being described as having exceptionally long fingers (Dumbledore, Voldemort, Snape)
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# ? Mar 30, 2012 18:29 |
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RichterIX posted:Once it's on your personal documents on Amazon, you can download it from there as many times as you want. It's really not bad once you see how they've done it, and I think it's great that they offer all the formats, including raw epub. What artwork? Is this another difference between the US and UK/Canada books? Because I don't remember any artwork in mine, and I've read them a fair few times.
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# ? Mar 31, 2012 16:25 |
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PT6A posted:What artwork? Is this another difference between the US and UK/Canada books? Because I don't remember any artwork in mine, and I've read them a fair few times. I think in some of the US editions and maybe the fancy more expensive editions that came out later everywhere else once it really got ridiculously popular had illustrations between chapters. My UK ones that I bought as they came out starting with Goblet don't have any at least.
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# ? Mar 31, 2012 16:39 |
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thebardyspoon posted:I think in some of the US editions and maybe the fancy more expensive editions that came out later everywhere else once it really got ridiculously popular had illustrations between chapters. My UK ones that I bought as they came out starting with Goblet don't have any at least. Yeah, I should have made clear that mine were the Canadian editions. Definitely no illustrations in the book itself.
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# ? Mar 31, 2012 17:10 |
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PT6A posted:What artwork? Is this another difference between the US and UK/Canada books? Because I don't remember any artwork in mine, and I've read them a fair few times. The little pictures at the beginnings of the chapters. It might be pretty spergy but they should be centered, but instead: edit: sorry for the gigantic image
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# ? Mar 31, 2012 17:32 |
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So, what editions of the books were those illustrations printed in? The Canadian releases didn't have any beginning-of-chapter graphics like that.
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# ? Mar 31, 2012 17:56 |
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The american editions.
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# ? Mar 31, 2012 18:06 |
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I can confirm the following things about the e-books: linking to an Amazon account counts as a download, but after that it may be synced with kindles or kindle apps without affecting the download count. The UK versions of the e-books are formatted properly on the Kindle and do not have any beginning-of-chapter artwork, just like the paper books.
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# ? Mar 31, 2012 19:35 |
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So is it best to wait to purchase for the Kindle and see if they fix the formatting if you're in the US?
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# ? Mar 31, 2012 21:16 |
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Levitate posted:So is it best to wait to purchase for the Kindle and see if they fix the formatting if you're in the US? How much of the formatting is messed up? If its just the chapter header images being misaligned, that's not too big of a dealbreaker for me.
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# ? Mar 31, 2012 21:19 |
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iolo_the_bard posted:How much of the formatting is messed up? If its just the chapter header images being misaligned, that's not too big of a dealbreaker for me. Yeah that's what I'm wondering
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# ? Mar 31, 2012 21:20 |
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Yeah, it's only the chapter headers that are misaligned. The rest is perfectly readable, and I'm sure if they ever fix it they'll just issue an update through Amazon.
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# ? Mar 31, 2012 21:53 |
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RichterIX posted:Yeah, it's only the chapter headers that are misaligned. The rest is perfectly readable, and I'm sure if they ever fix it they'll just issue an update through Amazon. Not sure if I should thank you for confirming this, or curse you for giving me another $50 of debt.
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 02:41 |
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I've had misaligned illustrations on a couple of Kindle editions. I bought a terrible YA book awhile back and a big selling point was the fact it used photograph and they were all aligned and sized wrong. Not to scare anyone, just saying.
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 02:52 |
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GoodApollo posted:I've had misaligned illustrations on a couple of Kindle editions. I bought a terrible YA book awhile back and a big selling point was the fact it used photograph and they were all aligned and sized wrong. I think a lot of the problem is that the people responsible for kindle editions many times seem to have just taken the epub, mashed "convert," and uploaded it without looking at it. I've tried Calibre and Kindlegen and both will occasionally give me weird formatting, and I'm not really savvy enough to start dicking around with the epub's xhtml or whatever. For what it's worth, converting the Pottermore epubs using Calibre's default settings for Kindle fixes the artwork alignment, but makes some things sit weird vertically. Chapter starts and things like the dedications and table of contents start halfway down the page, for instance. RichterIX fucked around with this message at 07:05 on Apr 1, 2012 |
# ? Apr 1, 2012 07:00 |
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Regardless if it's legible or not it's a pretty bad error on JK Rowling's publisher's part. For the amount of money these will make you'd have thought they'd ensure compatibility with one of the largest e-readers.
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 10:12 |
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Paragon8 posted:Regardless if it's legible or not it's a pretty bad error on JK Rowling's publisher's part. For the amount of money these will make you'd have thought they'd ensure compatibility with one of the largest e-readers. Does a couple inches of mis-alignment of something that isn't even part of the main text of the book really count as that big of an error? If the images were overlapping the text or something, yeah that'd be a problem, but as it stands the books are apparently 100% readable and the chapter illustrations are 100% viewable.
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 12:53 |
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iolo_the_bard posted:Does a couple inches of mis-alignment of something that isn't even part of the main text of the book really count as that big of an error? If the images were overlapping the text or something, yeah that'd be a problem, but as it stands the books are apparently 100% readable and the chapter illustrations are 100% viewable. It's technically a non-factor but for one of the highest grossing intellectual properties of all time it's pretty bad that they'd be this sloppy with an e-conversion. Like, nobody put it on a kindle until they set up the store?
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 13:36 |
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GoodApollo posted:I've had misaligned illustrations on a couple of Kindle editions. I bought a terrible YA book awhile back and a big selling point was the fact it used photograph and they were all aligned and sized wrong. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children?
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 15:16 |
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innocent_deadly posted:Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children? Ugh, my friend LOVED this book and gave it to me and it literally made no sense. I was so confused and bored throughout the whole thing, and I usually at least like most "weird" YA books.
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 18:34 |
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Maybe it's a ploy to encourage people to buy the proper version of the book instead of the bastardized American version
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 20:54 |
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innocent_deadly posted:Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children? Yes. Amazon recommended it to me after I bought The Magicians. It didn't start off too bad but boy did it nosedive.
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 21:17 |
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SlenderWhore posted:Ugh, my friend LOVED this book and gave it to me and it literally made no sense. I was so confused and bored throughout the whole thing, and I usually at least like most "weird" YA books. GoodApollo posted:Yes. Amazon recommended it to me after I bought The Magicians. It didn't start off too bad but boy did it nosedive. I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't like it. I saw it on the library shelf and the cover intrigued me so I read the flap and then I put it back down because it didn't sound good. Then my friend recommended it. It became super popular at the library and I ended up waiting 4 months for it... Not worth it. I like the idea of making a story based on photographs, but it didn't seem to know where to stop.
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 21:33 |
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innocent_deadly posted:I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't like it. I saw it on the library shelf and the cover intrigued me so I read the flap and then I put it back down because it didn't sound good. Then my friend recommended it. It became super popular at the library and I ended up waiting 4 months for it... Not worth it. The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey is probably my favorite YA book, if anyone wants a recommendation that's somewhat along the lines of Mrs. Perenguine. Very creepy and gory but with a certain childish glee that I know I would've devoured if I had read it in my teens. I wish there were more YA novels with male protagonists, especially of the nerdy, loves-to-read loner kind. I don't mean to sound sexist, but as both an English tutor and aspiring English teacher, I have a hard time finding books to recommend to male students who enjoy reading. Do publishers just assume girls are the only ones who read (and further, assume girls only like Twilight-esque novels)? I mean, when I was a kid, I completely devoured books like Goosebumps and Animorphs and good old Harry, but there don't seem to be that many of those books around anymore and if there are, then they're very elementary. There are YA series with female leads that are boy-friendly due to their heavy action & fantasy slant, such as Hunger Games and Mortal Instruments, but very few with actual male leads. And finding good YA with a gay male protagonist? Forget it. Captain Mog fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Apr 1, 2012 |
# ? Apr 1, 2012 22:19 |
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...Catcher in the Rye?
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 23:30 |
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JK Rowlings new book has a name and a release date! http://www.amazon.com/The-Casual-Va...rd_i=B000AP9A6K I'll read it, but when reading the description all I could think about was Hot Fuzz.
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# ? Apr 12, 2012 19:05 |
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FateoMcSkippy posted:I'll read it, but when reading the description all I could think about was Hot Fuzz. If when I read it, I enjoy it as much as Hot Fuzz, I will consider it a very good thing indeed.
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# ? Apr 12, 2012 19:17 |
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V. Illych L. posted:...Catcher in the Rye? As a male who loves reading and absolutely despised Catcher in the Rye, let me say that is not a book I would reccomend to high schoolers who already don't enjoy reading. I suspect it hasn't aged well at all and even otherwise disillusioned teenagers that it seems to be pandering to find Holden to be insufferable.
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# ? Apr 12, 2012 22:28 |
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Maybe someone can explain it to me, but I've never understood why Harry got in trouble for Dobby dropping the cake / using magic at the Dursley's in Chamber of Secret. Why couldn't the Ministry of Magic tell that it was a house-elf that did it, and not Harry? And yet there was no mention of anything when he made the glass disappear at the snake enclosure in Sorcerer's Stone, and that was in public. Maybe it doesn't count if a child is ignorant of the wizarding world.
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# ? Apr 13, 2012 17:37 |
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bean_shadow posted:Maybe someone can explain it to me, but I've never understood why Harry got in trouble for Dobby dropping the cake / using magic at the Dursley's in Chamber of Secret. Why couldn't the Ministry of Magic tell that it was a house-elf that did it, and not Harry? Ya muggle borns can accidently use magic until they are 11. Also the trace just registered a spell being done in their residence.
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# ? Apr 13, 2012 17:41 |
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bobkatt013 posted:Ya muggle borns can accidently use magic until they are 11. Also the trace just registered a spell being done in their residence. It was Rowling failing to follow her own retard logic. At first it was it was checking to see if magic was performed in a place where magic shouldn't be. Then she changed it to it followed the witch / wizard until they were of age - the trace She changed one or two other things for plot convenience in book 7 too which for some reason bothered me because it had gone against everything written in previous books as well as interviews and her own drat website.
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# ? Apr 13, 2012 17:54 |
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bean_shadow posted:Maybe someone can explain it to me, but I've never understood why Harry got in trouble for Dobby dropping the cake / using magic at the Dursley's in Chamber of Secret. Why couldn't the Ministry of Magic tell that it was a house-elf that did it, and not Harry? Stuff like Percy getting his results for 12 OWLs at the end of term (presumably without time traveling to get to all his classes), while Hermione got 11 and the results were delivered over the summer.
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# ? Apr 13, 2012 17:58 |
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bean_shadow posted:Maybe someone can explain it to me, but I've never understood why Harry got in trouble for Dobby dropping the cake / using magic at the Dursley's in Chamber of Secret. Why couldn't the Ministry of Magic tell that it was a house-elf that did it, and not Harry? Well, it was a public place and I kinda figured that by the time any wizard got there to do a cover up Harry would either be gone or they just couldn't prove Harry had made the glass disappear. Though for the residence, wouldn't they be able to tell House elf magic from human wizard magic? I thought Dobby et al had their own kind of 'wild magick', unless I'm reading too deep into things.
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# ? Apr 13, 2012 18:10 |
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Wedemeyer posted:Well, it was a public place and I kinda figured that by the time any wizard got there to do a cover up Harry would either be gone or they just couldn't prove Harry had made the glass disappear. Yeah, they should. They can tell instantly what spell was performed but can't differentiate who cast it, or even what species cast it? It was basically a plot hole designed to get Harry in front of an evil government tribunal. I find it hilarious that considering how very much of a pro-government liberal JKR is, she paints a VERY dim view of governments and their officials. Also, Harry performed all manner of accidental magic, both at the Dursley's and in public (shrinking Dudley's old shirt, regrowing his hair, flying to the top of the school.)
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# ? Apr 13, 2012 18:22 |
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I'm pretty sure JK Rowling is very much opposed to both the Blair/Gordon and Cameron regimes.
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# ? Apr 13, 2012 19:08 |
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So a decade ago I decided that I wanted to watch all of the Harry Potter movies before I began reading the books so that I could enjoy the movies as a stand-along piece of art. It was pretty hard trying to avoid spoilers, but I managed to avoid most of them and keep the ending a surprise. Now I ordered the 7 book set from Amazon and I'll be reading it as soon as it comes. I've been waiting a decade to read these books.
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# ? Apr 13, 2012 22:47 |
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UndyingShadow posted:It was basically a plot hole designed to get Harry in front of an evil government tribunal. I find it hilarious that considering how very much of a pro-government liberal JKR is, she paints a VERY dim view of governments and their officials. She paints a dim view of fascist governments, the idea that no government can do good, is a liberal failing. which shows how the word liberal means such different things on each side of the atlantic. Europe, Liberal = small government, big business America, Liberal = I don't even know. I suspect both are retarded.
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# ? Apr 13, 2012 23:00 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 03:20 |
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Branman posted:So a decade ago I decided that I wanted to watch all of the Harry Potter movies before I began reading the books so that I could enjoy the movies as a stand-along piece of art. It was pretty hard trying to avoid spoilers, but I managed to avoid most of them and keep the ending a surprise. Now I ordered the 7 book set from Amazon and I'll be reading it as soon as it comes. I've been waiting a decade to read these books. I'm fascinated to know what you think of them -- be sure to keep us updated as you read!
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# ? Apr 13, 2012 23:15 |