Star-narrated Harry Potter book streaming for free
New York – Spotify and author JK Rowling on Tuesday announced the release of free weekly recordings narrated by celebrities of the first book in the wildly popular Harry Potter series.
To help children – and perhaps adults – cope with confinement measures, Daniel Radcliffe, the English actor who played the beloved titular wizard in the books’ cinematic renditions, voiced the first chapter of Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone.
He will be joined by a coterie of stars including soccer legend David Beckham along with actors Stephen Fry and Dakota Fanning, who will lend their voices to the book’s subsequent chapters.
All 17 chapters will be out by mid-summer, Spotify said, and the recordings will be available cost-free on the music platform, which recently began making strides in the audio book and podcast realms.
Videos of the celebrity recordings will stream on the website Harry Potter At Home.
Rowling’s seven-part Harry Potter series is the best-selling book collection ever, with more than 500 million copies sold to date.
The first novel, published in 1997, is the series’ top seller, with more than 120 million editions purchased.
A version of the book is already available for free streaming on Amazon’s Audible, narrated entirely by Fry.
The series’ publishers have also temporarily relaxed licensing restrictions, which allows teachers to read the Harry Potter books to their students during remote classes. - AFP
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