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Title: why now?
Review: This is an excellent and subtle, but unfortunately too brief (hence four stars), overview of the Harry Potter craze. The main question Blake seeks to answer is: why now? Why and how did the Harry Potter series become so popular and why now? He situates the books in historical context--easier said than done. There was much going on in English culture and education that contributed to the books' success. Beginning in the mid-90s, Blake looks less at the books' possible past textual sources and spends more time exploring the books' contemporary cultural sources. I'm currently teaching a university course with _Azkaban_ as a text and may assign readings from Blake's book as secondary reading, both as overview of what came before and as an example of how to read carefully and respect a text and its attendant complications.
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