wbur.org
support wbur today!
Listen to this story
Harry Potter Goes Poof
photo

By host Tom Ashbrook:

Ten years ago, J.K. Rowling was a 30-year-old single mom living on welfare in a chilly one-bedroom flat in Edinburgh, and no one had heard of Harry Potter.

Ten years and 325 million copies later, the Harry Potter series is a legend and J.K. Rowling is a billionaire, richer than the Queen of England.

Millions of children and adults worldwide have made a huge home in their hearts for Hogwarts and Polyjuice Potion, for Harry and Hermoine and Ron and wizardry.

This hour On Point: as millions of fans line up for the last book in the series, we ask what has made Harry Potter huge?

Guests:

Lee Siegel, television, book and art critic for publications and author of “Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television”

Julie Just, Children’s Books Editor of the New York Times Book Review.

Laura Greenly, Amazon.com Harry Potter Kids Correspondent.

 
 

Comments are closed.

Recent Shows
Poker: America’s Game
Thursday, November 19, 2009 image

Poker and American history. How the game of presidents, cowboys, gangsters, and online gamblers helped shape America.

Comments [10]
 
Google vs. Murdoch
Thursday, November 19, 2009 image

Rupert Murdoch wants to block the search giant from scooping free content from his newspapers. We’ll look at the staredown.

Comments [132]
On Point Blog
Michael Wolff and Jeff Jarvis on Murdoch v. Google

We had a rousing discussion about Google vs. Murdoch, and what it says about the whole future of news, with Michael Wolff, Jeff Jarvis, and Steven Brill. Here’s what Wolff and Jarvis had to say about the delusions of both Murdoch and Google.

More » | Comments [18]
 
Video: Google CEO Eric Schmidt

Last week, host Tom Ashbrook was on stage with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, asking him about some of the biggest technology and business issues of our time.
It was part of an MIT event held on Thursday, Nov. 5, to commemorate computer science professor Michael Hammer, who died last year. Here’s video of the full interview, courtesy of WBUR.org:

Among other things, Schmidt said the possibilities [...]

More » | Comments [4]
 
California, here we come! And we need your questions!

On Point is headed west!
No, no. Not for good. Only for one show. But it’s a very special show!  The NPR station in Thousand Oaks, California – KCLU – is celebrating their 15th anniversary. We’re lucky to have been on their airwaves for nearly seven years, and they invited us out west to host a live [...]

More » | Comments [10]