Had to replace a collection and my daughter loved this.

I've held off on purchasing Harry Potter in hard back until now,WAITING TO GET ALL 7 VOLUMES WITH THE BRITISH COVER ART-- and I had to go to the UK Amazon site to get mine, but they were well worth the price--even with the extra shipping and the several weeks wait.

The UK cover art is just prettier than the American, and what I really appreciated was that the same art is reproduced on the actual book covers and not just the book jackets.

The covers themselves have a nice powdery soft feeling when you hold them, and the books have a nice legible font. The new book smell is a bit much at first, but that soon clears up.

Not sure I care to keep the box they came in, but it's a nice way to package them-it kept the covers from damage during shipping, even though the blue box itself had a few dings.

Thanks Bloomsbury, for a gorgeous set of Harry Potter books--these are fun to look at and to hold, and they will certainly look colorful on the book shelf.

If you are a Harry Potter fan, or have someone on your gift list who is, these books will be read over and over. You've probably already read them a few times, and if you have children or grandchildren, you will be reading to them--so why not get a quality set that will last.

*updated 12/21.12

Well, I don't know about the "last" part. I have since read my HP collection and I treat my books like holy relics and the spine/papers creased right away. Yes the books have jackets, but I was a little bummed out by this.

LOL Now maybe I need to get the American issues for repeated readings and just let the British versions be decorative.

Hope this was helpful.

I just recently bought this series as I had to go on a business trip and needed to bring along something to read.  I had avoided this series up til now because I always thought it was geared more towards kids.

Well, I'm glad I bought it.  I'm on book 5 right now and it's amazingly good.

I really like Rowling's writing style.  The pace and overall "feel" of the series reminds me very much of good old Lord of the Rings.  It's got just the right mix of action, dialogue, intrigue and suspense to make it hard to put down once you've picked it up.  The characters are detailed and interesting and I feel a real investment in where the story is heading next.

The invention of "Quidditch" was brilliant, as well.  It's basically a vehicle for the characters to display more qualities and social interactions in an aggressive setting without constantly putting the characters in truely dangerous situations (which makes it that much more edge-of-your-seat when the characters DO get into truely dangerous situations).  Basically, it's school sports, but "football" wouldn't make much sense at a wizarding school, so Rowling invented a wizard sport that helps get across all the character interaction that a good sport tends to deliver.

Anyway, I'm in my 30's, a old school fan of the genre ever since I had read "The Hobbit" as a kid of possibly single digit age and this series belongs on my shelf right up there with the best of them.  You're doing yourself a disservice if you aren't reading them simply because you think you're too far above the age of the target audience.

I love the Harry Potter series and when I saw the new covers I decided that I wanted to get a new set of the older covers. These are great, and in good quality

The books are in good condition, the dust jackets have faded spines, but otherwise the books are good. But I only had books without a box, although as I understand it, there should have been a box.