#01 – The Tales of Beedle the Bard

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Always warm-up before heavy activity and I have done so with this rather quick read.  Weighing in at a very not-so generous 100 pages with generous margins, this is easily an evening’s read (even for me).

The book was pretty much what I expected, nothing great, nothing terrible.  Just a nice reminder of how I enjoy J.K. Rowling’s style and descriptive adeptness.   Nothing new is really exposed in the 5 tales in the book.  In fact the only one that clearly relates to the HP series in terms of plots is The Tale of the Three Brothers, which I cannot remember if this was actually in The Deathly Hallows or not because it seemed very familiar.  At any rate is tells like a history of the unbeatable Elder Wand.

All of these stories are followed by a commentary of equal or greater length by Albus Dumbledore.  Most of these commentaries feel like filler to get the book to 100 pages.  The aforementioned, The Tale of the Three Brothers commentary does provide some historical lessons if you are into that level of HP lore.

All in all, it was a nice jaunt down not-so-distant memory lane and a decent way to spent an hour or so.  I would not expect a lot, but enjoy it over watching The Hunt for Red October for the 23 time, which is what I decided to turn off instead.

Notes:

• I need to find more occasion to use the word beseech.  As in, “I beseech you not to schedule that meeting during lunch lest you be smitten.”
• SAT word alert:  sagacity, prodigious, benison, and simulacrum
• The book actually supports a very good cause:  The Children’s High Level Group (http://www.chlg.org) that supports resources for institutionalized children in Europe to set up better environments for these children to grow and be nurtured in.

On to the next, likely longer book.  Enjoy reading!

Blake

First book off and running…

The process begins here…the first book in the list is adhering to the LIFO strategy as it was a Christmas gift.  Off I go with The Tales of Beedle the Bard.  It is a short book and the J.K. Rowling follow-up to the Harry Potter series.  My expectations are not too high despite loving HP, but we will see.

See you soon.

B

The Tales of Beedle the Bard