About this title: This highly acclaimed, international bestseller tells the captivating and hilarious story of a young boy who starts off as an unloved orphan, mistreated by his hideous relatives, and ends up a hero in the world of magic when he is accepted at a famous school of witchcraft and wizardry.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Salamandra
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780320037825ISBN:0320037827
Description: Very Good. No Jacket as Issued. Very minimal wear to cover. Nice, clean, tight copy. Spanish language edition of the first book in the Harry Potter series. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Salamandra
Date Published: 2004-03
ISBN-13:9788478888610ISBN:8478888616
Description: Very Good. Book has a different cover but the same ISBN. The book has some very minor shelf wear, but is square, flat and clean, with no spine creases. read more
Binding: Pictorial Cover
Publisher: Emece, Argentina
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9788478884452ISBN:8478884459
Description: Good+ with no dust jacket. 8478884459. HARRY POTTER Y LA PIEDRA FILOSOFAL by J. K. Rowling, translated into Spanish by Alicia Dellepiane Rawson-Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first book in the series. Hardcover without DJ, binding is pictorial cover, minor corner wear, very small indentations at top of front cover, pages are tight, text clean, book in GOOD+ condition! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Emece/Argentina
Date Published: 01/10/2000
ISBN-13:9789500419574ISBN:9500419572
Description: Used-Good. Book in good or better condition. Dispatched same day from warehouse. Please email with any questions for quick response. read more
"I don't really understand what the fuss is about with these books. They're good, but nothing particularly special. I've read a lot of books in the same genre that are as good or better. I may get flamed for being lukewarm about them, but here goes.
They're pretty well written. Harry and his supporting characters are engaging, if not overly deep. (All of the characters are so archetypal that it's sometimes hard to get past it. Boys are sport-obsessed. The nerd (Hermione) is exceptionally nerdy. The good characters are GOOD. The bad characters are BAD. They're even divided into Houses that embody their characteristics. By and large, the characters who have the most depth are dead: Harry's parents. The only living characters who shows some depth is Severus Snape.)
The stories themselves are fairly well-crafted. The world is interesting and hangs together pretty well, although it's not really clear why some people are wizards and some people aren't. It's also rather unbelievable that, given the large number of wizards, none of them seem interested in trying to make the Muggles aware of their existence in contravention of the prevailing wisdom.
The overall plot is fairly typical of the young-adult fantasy genre: A young orphan boy fostered with relatives learns that he has a special gift, a magical history, and is expected to save the world from a great evil despite being, at the beginning of the story, entirely untrained. The execution of the plot is pretty good.
One thing that I liked about this book and the others that follow is that Harry, the hero, doesn't save the world by himself. Without the support of the many good people around him, Harry wouldn't have had any hope of fulfilling his quest."
"It wasn't called this at all - but for some reason the title changed in the US and there is no original title versions of this on this site, which is also strange. How terribly odd.
Anyway, I read this to the kids - in fact, the first four books to them - just before the tidal wave of popularity. We had just finished reading all the books of Dahl and were looking for something else to be getting on with - and there was this article in the paper saying that the Fundamentalist Christians wanted this book banned.
Well, let's face it, there is no higher recommendation for a book and I remain grateful to the Christian community for pointing me in the right direction with this one.
After the forth book my youngest daughter started reading them to me - there are few joys in life that are surpassed by books or daughters, mixing them together was always going to be a highlight, and how could it not be?
These books got better as they went on - the last one was particularly good."
"Since pretty much everyone I know has read these books, I figure reviewing them is pretty pointless. But with the new book coming out in a couple of weeks, I have to go through them beginning to end. To make the reviews more entertaining, I will be doing them in a variety of unexpected formats. For this review, I will be writing as someone incapable of suspending his disbelief.
This book was terrible! I mean, this author is obviously on drugs or insane or something like that, and why she has been allowed to publish such patent nonsense is beyond me. What is even more horrifying is that so many people, adults and children, are supporting this madwoman. I mean, even some of my friends and family, people I respect have come under her spell!
Her spell. Ha! As though such things as spells and magic really exist. I know she and her hoard of followers believe so, but we, the right-thinking, rational people of the world know better, don't we?
The beginning was okay, and I had high hopes for it. I thought it might be an interesting story about this family, the Dursleys, who seem to be people after my own heart. Sensible, no-nonsense folk, these, who know what's real and what isn't. But within ten pages, I knew something wasn't right. Think about this - some crazy old man in robes shows up with a tiny device that can put out streetlights from a distance? A cat changes into a woman? Outrageous! And then the flying motorcycle, and nonsensical ravings about magicians and dark lords and curses, and that's where it all started to go downhill.
I forced myself to slog through this mess of nonsense, though by the time I got to chapter five, I had pretty much given up. Nothing this book describes could possibly take place in the real world, and it is almost criminal that she should get this kind of fame and attention. She is a font of nonsense and mayhem, poisoning the minds of everyone her work touches. If you haven't read these books, I recommend that you stay away from them. If you have, then I beg you to come to your senses and embrace the real world. Give up this madness and join us over here in the world where truth is truth and Harry Potter is meaningless vapor."
"OK, it is possible that I could have delayed reading Harry Potter any longer? That wasn't my intention at all! I bought the first Harry Potter book on what I believe was the midnight madness release of the third book in the series and I simply never had a chance to get through the thing. I cracked the spine, last year, during a power outage, but never made it very far.
I hadn't seen any of the movies, because I wanted to read the books first... so basically, I was culturally way behind. Nothing new there, at all. So I used the occasion of the release of the third movie and my first vacation in four years, to pick Harry Potter up. The obsession struck and, well, I almost never put it down, blowing through the book in four days.
Apparently, very little separates me from the rest of the population of junior high school aged kids, who've been bitten by the Potter bug.
I might have rather liked to have summed the book up this way, "It was an enjoyable book and I could easily see how a youngster could get caught up in the story". The trouble with that assessment is that there's no doubt that I'm caught up in the story.
If there's anyone out there who hasn't read it, it's a great book and a great story. Really.
J.K. Rowling introduces us to a boy who's immediately a sympathetic character and lays down some amazing character development. It's a good thing, too, because in the 309 pages of the first book, I'm astonished at the sheer number of adventures that Harry has. Somehow, the authoress paints such vivid sets in the readers mind that you can flawlessly picture Harry's world, and she accomplishes this without blasting us with page-filling detail. She gives us just enough detail to let our minds paint vivid, colorful scenes. We meet Harry Potter, a young boy who's rescued from a miserable, downright abusive and mundane existence, by a past and a family heritage that he has never known. This first book in the Harry Potter series follows the boy through his first year at a new school, far away (literally and figuratively) from everything he's ever known.
This story is straightforward, but delightfully complex, and it seems that each adventure plays some part to help Harry assemble the mystery behind the secret that's being poorly kept by Harry's school's dean and highly affable and personable groundskeeper.
While most of western society has been exposed to the amazing world of Harry Potter, if anyone is unfamiliar with the details of Harry's world, I'll do little to spoil all the pleasant surprises in store, if you PROMISE to read this book!
My only qualm is that J.K. wraps up the mystery's puzzle almost too quickly. While I raced from page to page, I had to re-read the last few chapters to make sure I 'got' the outcome. Nonetheless, even a quick re-read is a joy and does nothing to douse my recommendation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."
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