The first four chapters of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone are available to stream for free, through Audible, to your Alexa, from now until June 26th. Narrated by English actor Jim Dale, this 90-minute excerpt of perhaps the most popular book series of our generation is being released in celebration of the launch of “the official Wizarding World Book Club.”
The book club, from what I can glean, is essentially a Harry Potter subreddit, except it’s an official joint project of Pottermore, Scholastic, and Bloomsbury. The “free, online club to examine and debate every book in the Harry Potter series,” began its discussion of the first installment today.
This excerpt, should you choose to stream it, will take you right up to “You’re a wizard, Harry!” before you’re prompted to stream the full audio book by signing up for a 30-day free trial of Audible. Honestly, this seems like a good marketing idea? Assuming, of course, that there are people alive who are just getting around to maybe starting the Harry Potter series. Those people, if they exist, are going to be hooked, there’s just no way around it.
Alexa, read me to the cliff-hanger!