The Sorcerer's Companion: A Guide to the Magical World of Harry Potter

by Allan Zola Kronzek

Paperback, 2001

Status

Available

Local notes

793.8 Kro (Shelved with Harry Potter)

Barcode

498

Collection

Genres

Publication

Broadway (2001), Edition: 1st, 304 pages

Description

Explores the true history, folklore, and mythology behind the magical practices, creatures, and personalities that appear in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books.

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2001 (first edition)
2004 (second edition)

Physical description

304 p.; 6.95 inches

User reviews

LibraryThing member aimless22
Published after the fourth Harry Potter book, this book serves a reference to the magical creatures, practices and beliefs that populate the series about the young wizard. Arranged alphabetically, one can easily look up Broomstick, Magic wand and veela. It is interesting that the author has
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described some of the ancient beliefs that many of the magical creatures are rooted in.
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LibraryThing member particle_p
While not actually a horrible book, this didn't contain many facts that I didn't know already. I suppose it depends on who the book is read by — I might have gotten more from it at age 12 than at age 28 (when I read it a bunch of years ago). If you're reasonably fluent in mythology and so forth,
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you won't learn much.
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LibraryThing member waltzmn
To start with, the Disclaimer: I am working on a project regarding the folklore of Harry Potter, meaning that, to an extent, it will be competing with this book.

It's not much competition, though. This book is a compendium of data about the "real world" tie-ins of the Potter series, with particular
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attention to the paraphernalia of magic -- "wands," "spells," and so forth.

Because I've been researching similar topics, I've had to work my way through a number of Potter references. And "work my way" is generally the relevant word; too many are shallow and silly. This book stands rather higher on the list. The entries are relatively comprehensive, and often give hard-to-find material (e.g. on tea leaf reading).

Sometimes it's not as accurate as might be desired; as with many such books, some of the articles could have been stuck together based on little research except Wikipedia reading. There are no footnotes. But the defect is rarely that the book is actually wrong; it's that it fails to appreciate the cultural differences between classical Greek, British, Roman, and other traditions.

Do I trust it? Not entirely. It is my reluctant conclusion that no reference work on the Potter series is entirely reliable -- perhaps because J. K. Rowling herself had no qualms about producing a universe full of logical and economic inconsistencies. But if I had to pick just one Potter reference, this would surely be the one.
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LibraryThing member writercity
A great book for enjoyment as well as research for beginning writing topics.
LibraryThing member Shahnareads
I have the first edition of this book. It only included the first four novels, because that was all that was published when I bought this one.

I love this book. I read from it all the time. So many interesting things.

Pages

304

Rating

½ (156 ratings; 3.6)
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