Crazy for Harry Potter again!

This news article entitled Potter spell strong in France: 1.15 million copies sold in 48 hours, published on Tuesday, 30 October 2007. The news article is about the final volume of Harry Potter, "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows" in french edition has already sold 1.15 million copies in 2 days time. This is the link of the original news article, click here.

The latest and last book of the Harry Potter series:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (pic courtesy of Weekly Reader)

It was a "storm" when the final edition of Harry Potter, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" started selling in Malaysia. Fans and readers were spending night in front of bookstores just to be the first reader of this "magic" novel or first owner of the novel. The price of Harry Potter final editioin was a topic before in the newspapers because there were some bookstores selling the privated "magic" novel with lower price and quality.

There is a question passed by in my mind. Why are they so many people like to read Harry Potter? What is it so special about a thousand pages of a novel book? I, personally read Harry Potter and the Globet of Fire before and it was really impressed me.

There must be a reason why million of readers and fans of Harry Potter support this "magic" novel. For my point of view, the author, J.K. Rowling is the professional in using text and visuals. She combines text and visuals perfectly. The words she uses to describe a scene or a situation in the novel is so appealing and descriptive. According to Gunther Kress and van Leeuwan (1998), the written text is no longer structured by linguistic means, through verbal connectors and verbal cohesive devices buy visually, through layout, through the spatial arrangement of blocks of text, of pictures and other graphic elements on the page. A successful combination of text and visual by the author of Harry Potter is successfully holds the reader's attention and interest. This is the reason why people will go crazy for Harry Potter and willing to spend time outside a bookstore just to be the first owner of "Harry Potter" novel.

So, are you planning to get a Harry Potter to read now? Ok, see you guys in the world of "Harry Potter" then.



References:

AFP
[Online, accessed on 31 October 2007]
URL: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g3aFuCQQuVBRKncEIBX-2Nc_zuMA

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 1998, ‘Front pages: (the critical) analysis of newspaper layout’, Approaches to Media Discourse, chapter 7, pp. 186-219.