>>I've found that by reading the books to the kids at bedtime, over a long period, by the time I've got to the end of any of them, they make ref. to incidents or things near the beginning, and by that time I've forgotten what the hell she's talking about. She's not so hot on supplying little recaps, to remind you (they ARE quite thick the books). In short, I've no idea what's been missed out from the books when I see the films (and it was a few years ago I read this last one). BTW, still got the last 2 to read yet, but I'm not breaking my neck to get there.
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>I've read the first two, I think, while our youngest was learning English. By middle of book two, it was "I read one page, then you read two paragraphs", then she read the third by herself. I don't know whether she finished the fourth, and when fifth came out, nobody bothered to mention it. Actually, we had a laugh with it - in the morning of the day it got published (with all the rush at the bookstores supposedly taking place at midnight), we saw a heap of maybe fifty of those, on sale in the grocery, at 30% discount.

All the more stooopid these campers are. Here they camped round the block and for several days just to get in there asap and start reading. We've only just seen the film and the studio was practically deserted (Sat or Sun afternoon too!).

>Nobody we saw had as much as farted in their general direction (um, hearing Lumberjack Song on the radio as I write this).

You sure you're not watching "Holy Grail" too? :-)