Synopsis
Packed with mystery, subterfuge, and a more intimate understanding of the challenges that lie ahead of him, Harry Potter’s sixth year at Hogwarts heaves with his growing sense of responsibility regarding the defeat of Lord Voldemort, a relentlessly sneaking suspicion that classmate Draco Malfoy is a Death Eater in cahoots with the dastardly Professor Snape, and a host of romantic entanglements that hilariously plague everyone. Harry’s busy N.E.W.T.-level schedule includes Potions, where he surprises himself by excelling due to strangely helpful, hand-written margin notes in his book, ascribed only to the enigmatic "Half-Blood Prince." Sporadic, private lessons with Dumbledore center on the personal history of Lord Voldemort, which both unnerves and fascinates Harry. At the same time, the romantic ups and downs of Ron and Hermione threaten to destroy their friendship. The sixth installation in the phenomenally successful Harry Potter series opened with record-breaking sales of an estimated 6.9 million books on July 16, 2005. Named both one of Publishers Weekly's Best Children's Books of 2005 and a New York Times Notable Book of 2005.

Details
Publication Date:	2005-07-16
Narrated by:	Jim Dale
Series:	Harry Potter Series
Edition Description:	Unabridged

Size
Height:	6.0 in
Width:	5.5 in
Thickness:	2.2 in
Weight:	12.8 oz

Industry Reviews
"[T]he achievement of the Potter books is the same as that of the great classics of children's literature, from the Oz novels to THE LORD OF THE RINGS: the creation of a richly imagined and utterly singular world, as detailed, as improbable and as mortal as our own."
New York Times Book Review (07/16/2005)

"To read Rowling's novels as an adult is to sink into a half-remembered state of childhood rapture, the trance produced when you gobbled up fantasies for the first time. In the series's fourth volume, ''HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE,'' Dumbledore lets Harry stumble across the Pensieve, a collecting dish for excess memories. To extract a memory, a wizard holds a wand to his temple, draws a silvery strand of thought from his head and taps it into the basin. Any wizard who touches the swirling contents of the bowl drops into the visions it contains, reliving them as if he had been present at their inception. Dipping into the fiction that is Rowling's Pensieve, adult readers tumble into an eerie but familiar realm, containing not only Rowling's images of Harry but their own memories of books they loved when they were Harry's age and younger."
New York Times Book Review - Liesl Schillinger (07/31/2005)

"I admit, it's a bit of a shock to realize that Harry Potter is quite nearly an adult...It's heartening, both as an author and a reader, to see that J.K. Rowling is brave enough to experiment with her beloved series, and that she has remained true to the emotional and physical development of her characters."
Entertainment Weekly - Christopher Paolini (07/29/2005)