When HBP came out, USPS delivered my copy from Amazon at about 9:00 am. With Deathly Hallows, though, if I do get accepted into the MLS program I applied to (the damn letter is supposed to show up some time this week!), I'll be in Champaign for Library Boot Camp when the book comes out, so I'll have to wait to get it until afterwards (if I get it at the Borders/B&N in Champaign, I'll end up reading it instead of doing the schoolwork I have to, so I'll just wait).
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
I pre-ordered from Barnes & Noble, so I'll probably just show up there early that day, get a latte and the book.
I gave up pre-ordering after GoF came out when I realized that no bookstore on the planet was ever going to run out of copies of any HP book as long as they were in print.
This is true too, Jessica.
The problem with Amazon delivery, even if it happens on the 21st, is that it happens at 2 p.m. in the afternoon -- and I can go down to Target at 8 a.m., get a copy for the same price and start reading!
Or a bookstore that has an event the evening before, and starts selling the books at midnight.
See, but I can't because then I'd have to camp out at the store until the buses started the next night.
I did the midnight at the bookstore thing for the last book, because I was in Michigan for a wedding and going from there to a very boring conference on planes that would take all day.
It was a lot of fun to see the kids of all shapes, sizes and ages there playing the games and scoring the stickers, but they gave you a wristband as you came in (I think I got there about 11 p.m.) and you had to wait until they called your number (they called in blocks of 50, maybe) to line up so you could claim your copy. I think I got back to my hotel at about 2:30 a.m.
I thought it was fun to do... once.
I gave up pre-ordering after GoF came out when I realized that no bookstore on the planet was ever going to run out of copies of any HP book as long as they were in print.
Yes, this.
We went to a midnight release party for ... Goblet of Fire, I think. It was fun seeing the kidlings in their best wizard robes. And yes, several of them asked me what character I was supposed to be. Pete, because he is evil, told some of them that I was the professor of Arcane Etiquette.
I need to get to work on my Hufflepuff robes....
I thought it was fun to do... once.
Yep, just like NYE in Times Square.