The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud

Danielle, Marina, Julius are all friends from college living in New York and looking for love and fulfilling jobs at the age of 30. Marina's family - her father Murray, her mother, Annabel, and cousin, Frederick aka "Bootie" all factor into the plot.  It takes a long time to get to a point in the book where moral dilemmas present themselves. Danielle begins an affair with Marina's father, Murray the erudite writer/speaker, Bootie becomes Murray's secretary and writes a magazine piece to uncover the "real" Murray. Marina marries an Australian who is about to launch a hip magazine. Julius moves in with his perfect gay lover.

 9/11 in NYC blows apart their world and forces each of the thirtysomethings to address the pathes they have launched on with some poor choices to take action in ways that they had not anticipated including nicely unwrapped up endings such as the disappearance of Bootie and Luddy Marina's new husband leaving for England. While I would give this book a "B" overall for the self absorbed plot of 30 year old mostly spoiled brats...the ending was worth the slog through.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

The book starts out well with Snape betraying Harry to "He Who Must Not Be Named". One of my favorite sentences is on the first page, "..his blunt features sliding in and out of sight as the branches of overhanging trees broke the moonlight." We learn that Dumbledore is not the perfect role model we had earlier thought...taking care of his brother and sister after his mother died prevented him from traveling with a chum and achieving the greatness he thought he should attain. So the plot thickens.

Alas Harry, Ron, and Hermione then spend a great deal of time dithering from place to place in the cold English countryside in a tent trying to escape Mr V and the Death Eaters while Harry tries to figure out what his mission is that Dumbledore has given him -- is it to get rid of the Horocruxes or to piece together the 3 Deathly Hallows to beat Mr V? At this point I am missing Hogwarts and evil happenings and the professors with their crazy classes.

Finally after a lot more dithering and visiting his parents' grave site and a few close encounters with evil, Harry and his chums  go to Hogwarts. They meet Dumbledore's brother. The big battle is staged with some excitement. And yes our hero is triumphant. Snape turns out not to be an ape- he loves Harry's mother, Lily. Harry is willing to face death for his friends. He has people who love him and Mr. V does not and therefore can never win without a "heart." How can it be otherwise with lots of youngsters reading it. No one really important dies - darn! (Unless you count Dumbledore from the last book and Snape in this book).

The epilogue is very unnecessary -- do we really need to know Harry and Ginny and Ron and Hermione marry and have kids and send them off to Hogwarts? Too neatly wrapped up for my tastes. But it is sad to have the 7 books at an end. Dave wrote a few sneaky things in this book. He fooled me at first. How dare he spoil my first edition??

Harry Potter books in print in the U.S. by title--

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - 29 million
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - 24 million
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - 20 million
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - 19 million
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - 17 million
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - 17 million
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - 14 million

To date, over 350 million copies of the seven books in the Harry Potter series have been sold worldwide.