Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling (2003)

it is a great book and when i go someplace, a lot of the time i can't get a station on the radio that i like to listen to , so i will get a book on tape or cd and listen to it. one thing i like about the potter series is it is comforting to listen to, also suspenseful, and it is a book you can read over and over again or a cd that you can listen to stain, or a movie you can watch again and again. also when i listen to a book on cd i catch things i might not have picked up when i read the book myself.

It was exactly as described. The package came on time and in great shape.All the disks were perfect.

I have read and listened to Jim Dale read it and I think J. K. Rowling is one of the best writers of the day and I look forward to reading any future books she may write

You get a chance to learn more about the history of Harry and he connection to The Dark Lord. As usuall it leaves you hanging and dieing to read that next book. It has a sad ending though that makes you feel bad for Harry.

I ordered this as an additiion to my set of all seven in the series. The order arrived in a timely maner and in good conditiion. Seller was very easy to deal with. Will buy from this seller again

LOVE IT. I'M LISTENING TO IT RIGHT NOW. I REALLY HELP SO ICAN LISTEN TO IT WHEN EVER I WANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I first read all of the books on hard copy. I had long since wanted them on CD. Well, the collection is being completed. These books on CD are a great companion the books and the movies too.

I received my CD in good time and I am enjoying listening to it.The box set was in good condition.Thanks again!

I love this book so much that I cried at the end. I knew it would be good, but it was a beautiful story line. This book had everything going for it and I am very glad I got it.

I purchased a set of Harry Potter audio CD's from Kristin Snow on 7/27/07 and paid thru Paypal same day. I received package 8/08/07. There were 3 dics missing in a set of 23. I notified seller same day. seller apologized for mixup and told me to return package and he/she would send refund. I sent package by UPS 8/4/07. UPS tracking information states package put on porch 8/9/07. I received my master card statement showing the purchase on 7/27/07 I contacted seller on 9/4/07, I have had no response to this date 9/7/07. Thank you Don Doehring (babybirdmarbin).

I love it, It's Harry Potter!!! I am slowly purchasing all the harry Potter Books on CD for my young Children to Listen to.

This was the only book in the Harry Potter Series that I would not rate Excellent. I feel that she finally fell into the "middle book funk" that plagues so many other book writers and movie producers.

My theory on avoiding the "funk" is to provide the characters a few clues they can work for and give them some small victories to show they are at least making progress for their pain. It worked in JK's other books, so why she chose to change her formula here is beyond me. The only "victory" won here is that the wizarding community finally knows Voldermort is back. Small consolation, since those that can do anything about it (the Order of the Pheonix) already believed Harry.

The Mininstry of Magic, in an attempt to keep Harry Potter quiet, assign Delores Umbridge to the school. I would call Umbridge worse than Voldermort in many respects. Voldermort kills for the pleasure of killing, but is generally quick and painless about it. Once he sees the fear in his victim's eyes, he is satisfied and finishes them off. Torture is used to either get information from his victim or to make a point to his underlings. Inflicting pain for sport was something his underlings did.

Although Umbridge is never specifically mentioned as being a Death Eater, loves to leave people in perpetual misery. In particular, she bans Harry Potter (and the Weasley twins) from Quiddich and locks their brooms up. She also has a magic pen that, when used, prints the words in blood on the paper and etches the words on the writer's hand. These scars remain on Harry at least to the end of the 7th book. Just to keep people on edge between these major attacks, she produces an endless array of Ministry approved prohibitions and takes it upon herself to micromanage every teacher in Hogwarts. She threatened firing just about every staff member at Hogwarts at one time or another, except for Filtch (who loves her changes).

What Voldermort and Umbridge do have in common is a desire to impress their idea of a perfect society on others. The fact that their ideals are based on the genetic makeup of people, and therefore impossible to change, does not phase them at all. The obvious solution is to banish or kill those who don't measure up.

But this evil is not why I gave this book a low rating. The heroes, Harry in particular, never fully grasp what what is happening and are completely unable to stop it. Figuratively speaking, they are little more than test dummies and take whatever is given to them.

There were only two times that Harry and Co took a stand and the both backfired disasterously (three if you count the Weasley twins revenge, but that was short lived and had no lasting affect). The first was when Harry formed Dumbledore's Army, which resulted in Dumbledore being fired. The second was when Harry rushed to save Sirious Black from Voldermort. I won't say how that one ended for the sake of those that haven't read it yet, but suffice to say it caused the only regret Harry had in any of the seven books.

There is a difference between suffering and sacrafice, and this book was all suffering. No good came out of what Harry went through, either in this book or the sequels. However, in order to get the full effect of her last two Harry Potter books (which I think are the best in the series), reading this book is a must.

John Holland-author of The Necklace of Terrersylvanous

I've been reading HP books for years now, but my husband is a slow reader, so he's been working his way throught the series via CDs. He absolutely loves the reader, and it's great to have him come home from his commute and want to talk about what he "read" on the way home. We haven't bought book 5 yet, and he's really anxious, but I'm making him wait! After all, I have to wait for Deathly Hallows! :-) The book is wonderful--although my husband has had to turn it off a couple of times when it got too intense. Without giving a spoiler to the 3 of you in the world who haven't read this already, let's just say that Deloris really drove my husband nuts! He just couldn't stand to keep listening at times. I think that's the mark of a truly great story.

However, I must say I didn't buy the audiobook through eBay or Half as I originally planned. I purchased it from a Half.com seller who claimed to have mailed the book, but then "removed himself" from the sellers list. Half had to refund my money. We waited over a month for this to get resolved, and finally bought the book from Amazon. Hurray for Amazon! Got it in a week, and my husband has already finished listening to it.

I enjoyed reading the book and I am getting ready for the new release so I decided to buy the book on CD instead of re-reading the hardback. Great book on CD. I highly recommend.

Jim Dale absolutely brings this, and all the Harry Potter series, to life! If the stories themselves weren't fascinating enough, it is really fun to listen to Mr. Dale's ability to individualize each character. Mr. Dale is an accomplished voice actor, and I look forward to hearing what he does with subsequent volumes.

Of course the story itself is engrossing. We purchased it in anticipation of an 1100-mile road trip, and it really saved us through those long, dark interstate stretches, or as we sat for two long hours waiting to cross the border from Canada into the US!

As much as we love the Harry Potter movies, nobody brings these stories more alive, in my opinion, than Jim Dale! I wholeheartedly recommend this volume!

My son had some difficulty with reading until he spent the summer of 5th grade listening to Harry Potter books on CD while following along in the book. It boosted his ego and gave him confidence when he could follow along and comprehend. Without the CD he would have gotten hung up on trying to figure out pronunciation of the words, then loose comprehension. He also had visual scanning difficulty. Again, listening and following along with the book (in addition to intervention) helped build this skill. The actors voice and expression make it especially magical and appealing to a kid who may be struggling a bit. This is not the answer for a disabilty (get help), but a tool that MAY help if your kid really loves Harry Potter and would like to read it like other kids. I hope this helps.

This audiobook is better than reading. Jim Dale does a great job using different character voices through the book. Even after reading the book twice I still the love audiobook while commuting.

I actually bought this book on CD for my husband, who is extremely busy with school and doesn't have time to read anything other than textbooks. The movie is coming out this summer, but he wanted to read the book first, so I purchased the set of CDs for him to listen to on the way to and from school. He enjoys listening to the CDs as it gives him a small break from the monotony of studying textbooks all the time. He has mentioned that it is only one person reading on the discs and some of the voices he uses for the characters are not what my husband expected to hear, but other than that he loves listening to the book. I would recommend buying any of the Harry Potter books on CD or tape if you're interested in the series but don't have the time (or patience) to sit down and read the books.

I bought this as a gift for my husband who had not read the book yet. He spends alot of time in his car and I thought this would be entertaining. The books on cd are so great! He is almost all the way done with the cds and I am looking to buy the next book on cd as well. I have also been listening to the cds with him ( I have read the book ) and this was a great way to get a reminder of the story before the movie. The best gift I bought this Christmas! The voices are clear and easy to understand and the narrator changes voice tone to make characters easily identifiable. Very entertaining!

This is wonderful! After watching the first 4 movies I couldn't wait for the next one to come out....well that is not until June or July of 2007. Wanting to find out what was next for Harry, I purchased this set. It is truly wonderful! I don't really have the extra time to sit and read a book, but this I can listen to while I am running errands and all the daily running around I do. This is wonderful! I can't wait to finish it and get the next one!!!

I can only imagine the kind of pressure J.K. Rowling faces when she sits down to write a Harry Potter book.

Though she's said she worked out the whole seven-book series on a fateful train ride she took in the late '90s, she couldn't possibly have imagined that the series would turn into this: midnight bookstore parties, record print runs, and a generation of children (and adults) hanging on to her every written word.

"This" has now reached a new apogee with its fifth entry, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the longest (870 pages) and most dense (more characters, more complexity) book of the series.

And Rowling once again pulls it off.

Harry's adolescent funk
"Phoenix" begins in the usual place, the Dursleys' house at number four, Privet Drive, in Little Whinging, England. The Dursleys, Harry's guardians, have become more frightened of Harry's magical abilities -- and the now 15-year-old Harry, having sunk into an adolescent funk of bitterness, anger and self-pity, is more than happy to keep them guessing.

But Harry soon has bigger problems. Once he's back at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he's treated as a pariah by most students for his insistence that the evil Lord Voldemort is back -- and, indeed, played a role in the death of a student at the end of "Goblet of Fire."

Only a handful of professors and Harry's close friends -- among them Hermione and Ron -- support him.

Harry also struggles with the series' latest villain, Dolores Umbridge, a condescending representative from the Ministry of Magic who assumes a leadership role at Hogwarts. The students' psychological battles with the odious Umbridge are the best parts of "Phoenix," and Rowling writes them with a wicked zest.

Rich imagination
"Phoenix" does have its problems. The book starts running out of steam before the climactic battle, and that battle itself -- full of noise, flashing spells and wand-handling straight out of a grade-B Western as produced by Jerry Bruckheimer -- is the most poorly constructed scene in the book.

Rowling also engages in a stylistic tic, the paragraph-ending ellipsis, that seems to have become more popular with thriller writers. (It's all over Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," too.) Is something wrong with the humble period?

But those are minor issues in the face of Rowling's rich imagination and robust writing. The scope of Potter's world seems boundless; Rowling has added new characters and new locations, and added layers to those already existing. Potter's world, though fantastic, seems utterly believable.

That's doubly true of Harry himself. Rowling doesn't make Potter into an unblemished hero. Instead, he's a classic conflicted boy-man, struggling with issues both large (the death of both parents, fighting an evil power) and small (love, relationships and his own wildly changing hormones). He may not be as much fun as he was in Book One, but he's become more realistic and sympathetic.

Well, when he wants to be. After all, he's a teenager.

Recently, a friend asked me if Potter was worth the hype. I'm not sure if anything is worth the hype that the modern entertainment industry produces: overblown publicity machines for works that will vanish in a weekend.

But if anything is worth the hype, it's Harry Potter. The books enrapture children, entangle adults, and are full of wit, wisdom and wonder. Who could ask for a more magical experience?

I liked this book for a reason, I can relate to the people in it. When choosing books, any book, like Harry Potter, Relating is a good way to read it because it helps you connect and get intrist in it. I also enjoyed this book because of the way the author adressed the things written in it.

I have read and listened to all of the Harry Potter books and seen all of the movies thus far. This book was the longest but it had lots of different things going on. I enjoyed the readers voice (Jim Dale) because he brought so much bravado to the reading and it made you feel like you were right there with Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

There was just so much was happening in this book, From Harry's developing relationship with his God-Father, to romance, and of course all of the hullabaloo at Hogwart's. It was long but I read as fast as I could because I really did not want to put it down. Overall, a good listen and worth every minute!

Jim Dale is an excellent reader with a captivating command of voices in telling the thrilling tale of Harry Potter's fifth year at Hogwart. Lord Voldemort has returned in bodily form, and the wizarding world is once again at war. Harry finds himself fighting his own war against the new High Inquisitor (and soon Headmistress) Dolores Umbridge. Despite the significant length of this tale, the hearer never loses interest, as Harry, Ron, and Hermione tackle one chalenge after another in fighting against the aministry's denial that Voldemort is back. This set was worth every penny, and I will listen to it more than once.