HiH Great Hall

HPST is a podcast I started a few months ago, and as a fan of Harry Potter, I love it.

Vanessa Zoltan and Casper ter Kuile are the cohosts. They are both thirty-something graduates from Harvard Divinity School, so there is a definite religious angle to the podcast, but not "in your face." Vanessa is Jewish, Casper is... not. Protestant maybe? He's also gay and married. They're both very open-minded, and the podcast, while being based in religion, has absolutely no intention of converting anyone.

I hope I didn't turn you all off, because I'm very not religious and I love this podcast, so this should tell you how not obnoxious it is.

Basically what they do is they read Harry Potter as if it was a sacred text. Each podcast is a chapter they read through a certain theme, like Love, Heartbreak, Responsibility, Expectation, White Supremacy...

Each episode is structured the same. It starts with either Casper or Vanessa telling us a personal story that relates to the week's theme. Then they both do a thirty-second-recap of the chapter (often hilarious XD), one after the other. They made a competition of it, with voting and all. Then obviously they discuss the chapter itself and the different places they see the week's theme in it.

After that there's a "sacred practice," which is the only really religious bit. They take a practice that religious people usually do with the Bible and do it with the chapter. First was lectio divina, where they pick one sentence and random and first read it literally, then metaphorically, then think of what it reminds them of, then of what it calls them to do. Havruta is one person poses a question and proposes an answer, the second person proposes another answer, and they discuss it. Floralegia is when they each pick a line that "sparkled" to them, read them together and analyze this "new" bit of text. There was also one where they read a passage and we had to close our eyes and picture ourselves in the story, as a specific character or just in the background, and think of how we'd be feeling, smelling, seeing, touching at that moment.

Then there's a voicemail, where a fan tells a story or something that they share with us. And they finish it off with weekly blessings, each for a character in the chapter representing people everywhere. Vanessa is making it a point to bless only women (so she was glad when we got to Hogwarts and she could bless somebody other than Petunia, lol).

So far the episodes are about 30 minutes each, but I only finished season/book 2 yesterday, and they're on book 5, I think they get longer.

Also, I love how the discussions often give me ideas for fics. Like in book 1, what Molly was thinking when she sent Harry, whom she'd met for all of five minutes, a great Christmas present. How Millicent Bulstrode's life must be difficult and insecure. How Myrtle's parents felt when they learned about their daughter's death and her decision to stay a ghost, and did they have a relationship with her until their own death?

For all fans of the Boy-Who-Lived.

Since I know there are quite a few readers here in HiH, I thought I'd take a moment to talk to you about our lord and savior Dewey's 24-hour Readathon.

Yes, it's exactly as crazy as it sounds: it's 24-hours straight of reading. The event started in 2007, and takes place twice a year, in April and October, so this will be the 20th Readathon. The next one is this coming Saturday, the 21st, which is why I'm posting this now. In the eastern US/Canada timezone, it's from 8 AM Saturday to 8 AM Sunday, and it's at the same time everywhere around the world, so start times for where you are can be checked here.

Everyone can of course participate how much, how little and however they want. It can also be a very communal event, since every hour there are different activities posted, questions or memes to answer, either on the blog I posted above, on social media, on Goodreads...

This will be my third Readathon. In October 2016 I participated with The Origin of Species (why? dumbest idea ever...), lasted until 2 AM, and gave up and went to bed. In April 2017 I read HP3 and started HP4. I again stopped at 2 AM, but because there was a F1 race in the morning (priorities) and I had things to do on Sunday so I figured I'd better get a few hours of sleep. This year I'm planning HP6 and 7 (because I'll be writing a fic for NaNo taking place in 96-98 and I haven't read those two in ages) and I want to try for the whole 24 hours. The F1 race on the 22nd is in the afternoon, and I kept the day free, so it's perfect for naps and getting enough sleep to be functional for work on Monday.

So, has anybody else done the Readathon before? Are you interested in doing it this year? Or will I be the only crazy person reading for 24 hours straight?