Listening to Potter

Now, let me state up front that I am not a Harry Potter fanatic. I read the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, after much prodding, and liked it fine, but hadn't been drawn to read any of the others. We'd both been curious about this reading (or "performance," as the case has it) because friends had raved about it. And Jim Dale's work here really is a performance: He gives every character a distinctive voice -- from the hissing nasality of Professor Snape to the pathetic cockney-esque snap of Dobby the house-elf -- without resorting to squeaks for the girls and grumbles for the boys. (Dale won a Grammy in 2000 for his interpretation of the fourth book.) The only problem was when we arrived at our destination after finishing only half of the six tapes, and then had to wait the whole long weekend to hear the ending. It was Potterus interruptus.