I don't think I've enjoyed anything, in a long time, as much as I've enjoyed listening to the five Harry Potter audiobooks over the last month or so.

I'm an old D&D dork at heart and Rowling's stuff, read by this genius actor named Jim Dale, just blew me away. Having read tons of that shit over the years (Eddings, Jordan, Weis/Hickman, etc., etc., etc.), I was skeptical that Rowling was any good. I'm a total convert.

Highly, highly recommended.

(I got them all using Bittorrent.)

...weird cultural synchronicity alert:

Neely explained the genesis of this fractured yet oddly literary retelling of "Sorcerer's Stone."

"I was out at a bar with some friends," he recalled. "There was this guy playing pool all by himself with headphones and sunglasses on, and we were just having a really fun time postulating, What could he possibly be listening to? And just out of the blue, I started doing that voice talking like he was listening to a book on tape of 'Harry Potter,' and ad-libbing 'Harry Potter' scenes from what I remembered of the movie."

Wasn't me, I'm afraid. Kinda wish it were.