a couple of years ago when actor govinda and a few others of his fraternity were asked what their hobbies were reading found pride of place the interviewer then made the cardinal error of asking indias hero no 1 what his reading repertoire comprised the actor stumped for once shot back with thats a personal questionone could almost bet on the fact that if asked that question now the answer that would pop out smoothly and proudly would be harry potter that is of course if its not pipped at the post by other lifechanging titles like the alchemist and who moved my cheese but since hp is currently numero uno on the bestseller index it would probably be hp a reading list that begins and ends with these two words immediately makes one fashionably literate and ushers one into the sprawling harry potter global book club which is growing with the sale of every new harry potter tshirtone is not implying that harry potter is only for minds lobotomised by the market few can quarrel with the fact that jk rowling has conjured up a riveting contemporary tale mining the ancient subjects of mystery and magic to appeal to adult and child alike combined with the authors lithe imagination the infallible theme of good triumphing over evil has touched a chord the world over harry potter says a website run by a fundamentalist christian group has made it clear that satan is doing a much better job of marketing witchcraft than the website is of peddling christianitythe problem in a sense is that harry potterunlike tolkiens staggering ring series which is its prototypeis accessible to almost anyone who wants to dip into it age iq and sex no bar while accessibility is not an unwelcome attribute in itself it has the inherent danger of being number friendlywhen you have numbers the market pounces and takes over a childs book turns into a phenomenon an object of cool a wannabe itemthe gifted boy wizard who battles the evil lord voldemort will finally be killed not by voldemort but the more amoral hydraheaded machine called hype whose weapon is not a wand but a bottomless bag of tricks from which tshirts mugs key chains round glasses movies midnight embargoes and other gimmicks pop forth squawking for attentionthe potter fan club is by no means unique childrens literature be it roald dahl or cs lewis enid blyton or richmal crompton has always had legion and loyal followings without the crutch of marketing spin harry potter is just a victim of his timea time where the two ms the media and the market hold sway a time in which on the sheer strength of sales figures potter is compared to the bible and shakespeare when bbcs list of