To be honest, I'm not much of a reader of long stories--Pretty much Harry Potter, and that's it--but I might look into this. There are things I despised about DH, so this might be interesting.

and interminable newspaper articles tightened up

Am I the only one who feels that you could take the entirety of the plot about Dumbledore's past out of DH (say, for the movie), and not alter the plot one whit?