by Aseem Gupta | Jul 27, 2019 | Book Summaries and Analysis
Benjamin Hoff’s The Tao of Pooh begins with an unlikely proposition: perhaps the “Bear of Very Little Brain” understands something that cleverer people routinely miss. Instead of introducing Taoism through formal metaphysics, historical surveys, or line-by-line...
by Aseem Gupta | Jul 26, 2019 | Book Summaries and Analysis
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the fourth novel in J.K. Rowling’s seven-book Harry Potter series, but it is also the point at which the series changes its scale, emotional register, and understanding of danger. The first three novels repeatedly bring Harry...
by Aseem Gupta | Jul 25, 2019 | Book Summaries and Analysis
Hogwarts: An Incomplete and Unreliable Guide is one of the most unusual books attached to the Harry Potter series because it is neither a new story nor a conventional encyclopedia. Published in 2016 as part of the Pottermore Presents e-book series, it gathers short...
by Aseem Gupta | Jul 24, 2019 | Book Summaries and Analysis
The Tales of Beedle the Bard is an unusual book even by the standards of J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World. On its surface, it is a short collection of five fairy tales supposedly familiar to generations of magical children. Beneath that surface, however, Rowling...
by Aseem Gupta | Jul 23, 2019 | Book Summaries and Analysis
Quidditch Through the Ages occupies an unusual place in J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World. It is not a Harry Potter novel, nor does it tell a conventional story with a protagonist moving through a sequence of conflicts. Instead, Rowling takes one of the fictional...
by Aseem Gupta | Jul 22, 2019 | Book Summaries and Analysis
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is easy to misunderstand if approached through the later film series that borrowed its name. J.K. Rowling’s original book is not an adventure about Newt Scamander, Grindelwald, or events in 1920s New York. It is a...
