Spellbound

Muggles everywhere are counting down the hours until 12:01 a.m. Saturday, when Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire goes on sale. Last year, A.O. Scott and Polly Shulman  pondered the series’s popularity and examined the storytelling genius of J.K. Rowling—who, Scott wrote, is “much better at the rudiments of effective fiction writing than any six American novelists under 50.”