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Once again. Entertainment Weekly has included Harry Potter in another one of their lists.  This time it is for 20 Classical Opening Lines In Books.  And since it is the first book of the series by J.K. Rowling printed by Scholastic Books in the US, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’s opening line was added to the list:

 ”Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”

And I have to say that sentence pulled me into the book because I thought it was one of the funniest lines I ever read in a book after my mother died. Lolol.

Some of the other books in the list included:

 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen;  ”It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury; ”It was a pleasure to burn.”

A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean; ”In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly-fishing.”

Click here to see a slideshow of all the books on the list and their opening lines.

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We told you last week that J.K. Rowling would be reading from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone from the White House as part of their annual Easter Egg Roll event.

UPDATE:  She read from the portion of the book when Harry and Hagrid are at Ollivander’s and Harry is getting his wand.
She answered a few questions as well.  Here are some of them:
Why did fireworks shoot out of the wand?  It’s a sign that the wand matches with the person.  The wand matching the person is an important feature of the books
Do you think the movie producers did a good job with the motives?  Yes, I do.  They have to cut somewhere, but on the whole I think they did really great.  The actors are very like how I imagined them.
Why did you decide to write about witches and wizards?  Like a wand, I felt like it chose me; I had the idea very suddenly. I’ve always been interested in folklore.  It was exciting to write something like this.
How did you get the idea? I was on a train traveling from the North of England to London and it just came to me.  The idea was that a boy got a letter from a wizard school and he didn’t know he was a wizard.
What is your favorite Harry Potter book?  My favorite book is the 7th.  But the first has a very important place in my heart.
How doe Harry Potter get his lightening scar?  When he was a very young an evil wizard tried to kill Harry but it didn’t work. This makes him very famous and no one knows why he survived.
Why did he survive?  That’s the best question, but I can’t really answer it without giving away the end of the books.
How do you make up the characters?  They develop as you write them.  You may have to go back, because they might change as you write.
Who is your favorite character?  It’s impossible to choose.  If I set aside Harry, Ron, and Hermione, I’d choose Dumbledore. He’s the character I miss the most.  I also love Snape.  I wouldn’t like to meet him but I really like him.

Here’s the video:

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