Ian McEwan, Khaled Hosseini, and J.K. Rowling were all honoured at the Galaxy British Book Awards last night, but much of the subsequent media coverage has focused on a brief moment after the awards, when Rowling came perilously close to a boob reveal.

From The Daily Mirror’s pun-tastic take on events:

She may be a wizard with words – but Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling keeps getting herself in a right old muggle with her frocks.

At the Galaxy British Book Awards on Wednesday night she almost revealed everything in her Chamber of Secrets as her figure-hugging purple satin gown suddenly started Slytherin down.

Luckily her press aide Mark Hutchinson gave new meaning to the phrase PR handout – by quickly grabbing the top of the dress to spare her blushes.

J.K., who picked up the Outstanding Achievement Award at London’s Grosvenor House, suffered more overexposure on a U.S. tour last year when her dress slipped to reveal her white bra.

Not to dedicate too much more time to this, but be sure to scroll down in the Mirror piece for the three-picture slide-show of the dramatic rescue as it unfolded.

From The Los Angeles Times:

Warner Bros. Pictures and the producers behind the $4.5-billion film franchise featuring the beloved boy wizard will split the seventh and final novel in the J.K. Rowling series into two films.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I” will hit theaters in November 2010, followed by “Part II” in May 2011, a decision that is being met around the world with fans’ cheers but also plenty of cynical smirks.

“Cynical smirks”? I can’t imagine why, when everyone involved says the split “would be to serve the story, not the bottom line.” Why would Hollywood producers lie to us?

Though won’t those kids be in their forties by the time this thing is finally over?

From Reuters:

Billionaire Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling would feel “exploited” if a fan’s unofficial encyclopedic companion to the boy wizard series was published, she said in court papers made public on Thursday.

Steve Vander Ark has written The Harry Potter Lexicon – a 400-page reference book based on his popular fan Web site (www.hp-lexicon.org). Rowling and Warner Bros. are suing RDR Books, which planned to publish the book last November.

“I am very frustrated that a former fan has tried to co-opt my work for financial gain,” Rowling, 42, who wrote the seven hugely successful Harry Potter novels, said in a declaration filed in U.S. District Court this week.

We’re not copyright lawyers, but we’re pretty sure that lexicons, literary guides, book-length exegeses, annotated editions, and literary companion volumes existed long before little Harry took his first trip aboard the Hogwarts Express.

(And note how Rowling dubs Ark a “former fan” – zing!)

A handwritten book of fairy tales by J.K. Rowling was auctioned off for more than $4-million (Cdn) yesterday, and U.K. newspapers were full of speculation this morning as to who the deep-pocketed buyer was.

As The Times Online reported:

An anonymous collector, bidding through a dealer who usually specialises in Old Masters, paid £1.95 million for The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a 160-page Potter spin-off of five “wizarding fairytales” that relate to his final adventure. The proceeds will go to the charity Children’s Voice. […] The Tales was estimated to go for between £30,000 and £50,000.

[…]

As the Sotheby’s auctioneer opened the bidding, a white-gloved porter held up the book at the front of the room. There were five or six players, all concealing their identity by bidding through someone in the room or through a member of Sotheby’s staff on the phone. At £1 million, there was applause from the room, and murmurings of astonishment as six-figure increases were tossed around the rooms.

A few children in the saleroom jumped with excitement as the hammer came down on the final bid, but the man at the back who bought it could not have looked more miserable as he scurried off into the street muttering “no comment”.

After most of the U.K. papers went to press, however, the buyer was revealed as none other than Amazon.com. As the CBC reports:

Amazon revealed later on Thursday that it had crossed over from the sales side to become buyer for the rare tome, with a spokesman saying the company is planning to take The Tales of Beedle the Bard on tour through libraries and schools.

The company has also posted on its website a host of large, close-up photos of and from the book — for which Rowling also created the illustrations — as well as staff reviews of the tales inside. Staffers will also answer questions fans have about the book via an online discussion board.

You can see the Amazon reviews here, but if you think they’re going to have anything remotely critical to say, you’ve got another thing coming. Just a sample:

So how do you review one of the most remarkable tomes you’ve ever had the pleasure of opening? You just turn each page and allow yourself to be swept away by each story. You soak up the simple tales that read like Aesop’s fables and echo the themes of the series; you follow every dip and curve of Rowling’s handwriting and revel in every detail that makes the book unique – a slight darkening of a letter here, a place where the writing nearly runs off the page there. You take all that and you try and bring it to life, knowing that you will never be able to do it justice.

Weighing in on the controversy over whether or not you-know-who is you-know-what, The New York Times cultural critic Edward Rothstein makes the reasonable assertion that “it is possible Ms. Rowling may be mistaken about her own character.” He goes on to say that “Ms. Rowling may think of Dumbledore as gay, but there is no reason why anyone else should.”

While this seems to be consistent with Rowling’s own views on the matter – all she said in the first place was that she “always thought of Dumbledore as gay” – Rothstein’s clear-eyed insight is nevertheless buried amidst an elaborate exegesis of the Potter oeuvre – at the end of which he rules that Dumbledore is decidedly not gay:

There is something alien about the idea of a mature Dumbledore being called gay or, for that matter, being in love at all. He may have his earthly difficulties and desires, but in most ways he remains the genre wizard, superior to the world around him.

Elsewhere, Rothstein places Dumbledore in the canon of other a-sexual wizards.

The master wizard is not a sexual being; he has shelved personal cares and embraced a higher mission. And if he indulges in sex, it marks his downfall, as it did, so legend tells us, with Merlin, the tradition’s first wizard, who is seduced by one of the Lady of the Lake’s minions. Tolkien’s wizards — both good and evil — are so focused on their cosmic tasks that sexuality seems a petty matter. Gandalf eventually transcends the physical realm altogether.

Well, excuse me, but “blahbitty blah blah” to you, too. While Rothstein takes obvious delight in his pseudo-intellectual take on Harry Potter, it leaves this Quillblogger cold. Jeez, grown-ups can be such bores.

Here’s a shocker: Bill O’Reilly said something incredibly stupid on his show yesterday, something that would be offensive if it weren’t so laughably moronic.

This time, it was about J.K. Rowling’s recent claim that she felt Dumbledore was gay – a claim that sent a chorus of shrugs through her legions of young readers.

Here’s what O’Reilly had to say about the whole kerfuffle, according to Think Progress:

Bill O’Reilly joined in the fray, asking if Dumbledore’s outing was part of the “gay agenda” of “indoctrination” of “children.” O’Reilly claimed that by dropping “the gay bomb,” Rowling is a “provocateur” who is “going to let all hell break loose.”

O’Reilly made clear he didn’t think Dumbledore’s sexual preference was a case of just one queer apple in an otherwise unspoiled basket. “Those wizards,” he said, “I’m very, very suspicious about what they’re doing in their spare time.”

For the morbidly curious, here’s what O’Reilly gets up to in his spare time. (Not for the faint of heart.)

The publishing industry is once again the unhappy poster child for the difference between U.S. and Canadian retail prices, but this time the complaint is coming not from consumers or booksellers but from federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. The Globe and Mail reports that the minister used a copy of Hary Potter and the Deathly Hallows as a prop at a news conference on Tuesday. Flaherty says he paid 20% more at an Ottawa store than the price listed at a Washington D.C. store he visited last weekend.

The Potter prop flap capped a campaign by Mr. Flaherty to insert himself into the national debate about whether retailers are doing enough to cut prices now that the loonie is trading above par with the U.S. dollar.

Although he has sworn off any threat of government action, such as price controls, Mr. Flaherty met with retailers yesterday in hopes of persuading them to voluntarily cut prices.

Standing against a backdrop that proclaimed he was “Standing Up for Consumers,” he said prices are coming down, but not fast enough, and warned that Canadians will cross-border shop if domestic prices don’t reflect the stronger purchasing power of the loonie.

“There should not be large discrepancies between similar products just because they are sold on different sides of the border,” he said.

Retailers said they think they succeeded in convincing Mr. Flaherty that prices may not drop to the exact same level as U.S. prices because of higher costs faced in Canada.

The Globe story also pointed out that if Flaherty had shopped around he could have bought the book at Ottawa bookstore Collected Works, which is currently selling books at the U.S. sticker price. Costco and Amazon.ca’s prices (heavily discounted from the list) were even cheaper than the price in the Washington store.

The Montreal Gazette has also run a story on the issue which quoted Penguin Canada’s Yvonne Hunter about efforts by publishers to reduce prices, as well as Edmonton bookseller Steve Budnarchuk, representing the booksellers’ perspective. “Like Penguin, Budnarchuk said he and other retailers ‘are taking losses to show customers we’re not insensitive to them.’”

For more on the issue from Q&Q Omni, click here.

A for-kids-only reading by J.K. Rowling at Toronto’s Winter Garden Theatre went off without a hitch, according to Quillblog’s two exclusive sources, both of whom are nine years old. Rowling reportedly read her favourite passage from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows before answering pre-arranged questions – none of them having to do with Dumbledore – from the 950-strong audience.

In an interview with Quilblog after the media-free event, our sources agreed to dish some of the details.

Q: What was it like when Rowling walked up on stage?

A: There was clapping for at least 30 seconds.

Q: What’s she like?

A: She’s pretty and nice.

Q: What did she talk about?

A: She said she had a fight with her ex-boyfriend and she wanted to throw a ball at him so then she came up with Quidditch.

Q: Did she sign a book for you?

A: Yes.

Q: How was that?

A: Weird.

Q: What are you going to do with the book?

A: Put it on my bookshelf.

Q: You’re not going to sell it?

A: No … maybe.

Besides articulating the origins of Quidditch, Rowling also revealed that she hasn’t ruled out writing a Potter encyclopedia. In parting, she signed free copies of Hallows for each of her fans in attendance – a generous, writer’s cramp-provoking gesture that might explain why this was the only Canadian stop on Rowling’s fan-friendly tour.

Now that some time has passed since the publishing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, it looks as if J.K. Rowling is ready to start discussing its contents more openly, without fear of spoilers. The MTV website has posted the highlights of a press conference she held earlier this week in which she discussed the fairly blatant Christian imagery of Deathly Hallows. (There are no spoilers in the passage below, but be warned that there are many in the full article.)

Harry Potter is followed by house-elves and goblins — not disciples — but for the sharp-eyed reader, the biblical parallels are striking. Author J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books have always, in fact, dealt explicitly with religious themes and questions, but until Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, they had never quoted any specific religion.

That was the plan from the start, Rowling told reporters during a press conference at the beginning of her Open Book Tour on Monday. It wasn’t because she was afraid of inserting religion into a children’s story. Rather, she was afraid that introducing religion (specifically Christianity) would give too much away to fans who might then see the parallels.

You know you’re big when not having accomplished something is considered news. Not that J.K. Rowling needs any reminder of her fame.

Rowling is the focus of a story in The Guardian about the most popular children’s author of all time – who turns out to be Roald Dahl. But before we’re told who else beat Rowling in the survey, which was conducted in the U.K., we’re informed of Rowling’s poor showing:

JK Rowling, whose first Harry Potter book sparked a publishing sensation when it hit the bookshelves 10 years ago, is only the fourth most popular author.

Second and third place were taken by CS Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia series, and Peter Pan creator JM Barrie.

Interestingly, the survey purports to represent “young adults,” but only readers between the ages of 16 and 34 were polled. The discrepancy can perhaps be explained by the fact that the survey was commissioned by ITV3, a British television channel that is hosting a Roald Dahl weekend later this month. Thanks to the survey, the network can now advertise that Dahl is not only the most popular children’s writer in the U.K., but also that he is more popular than Harry Potter.

Alastair Campbell’s memoir The Blair Years, about his work as communications chief for former British prime minister Tony Blair, has topped a list he would probably rather it hadn’t. The hotel chain Travelodge reports that it is the book most frequently left behind in rooms by its hotel guests this year, according to a story in The Guardian. Tina Brown’s The Diana Chronicles came in at number six and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at number 10.

Over 6,500 books are left behind in Travelodge hotels throughout the year and are either returned to customers or donated to [the] local charity shop.

It is unclear whether the books are read before being abandoned or are simply discarded out of boredom. However, most of the books on the list are hardbacks and many are heavy tomes - in weight if not in tone - which may offer some clues as to why holidaymakers choose to discard them rather than carry them on their travels. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes in at nearly 800 pages while [Jilly Cooper’s] Wicked is pushing on 900. The reasons for the frequent abandonment in Travelodge hotels of Paul McKenna’s I Can Make You Thin can, however, only be a matter of speculation.

Quillblog wonders if Campbell, who resigned in 2003 after the storm of controversy over a “sexed-up” document about the weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein was thought to possess, believes in the adage “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

According to The Guardian, a new poll has revealed that Britons want to be writers more than they want to be anything else.

A YouGov poll has found that almost 10% of Britons aspire to being an author, followed by sports personality, pilot, astronaut and event organiser on the list of most coveted jobs.

The Guardian speculates that this surge in literary interest is due mostly to J.K. Rowling, who is generally perceived to have made gobs and gobs of money by simply scribbling away in cafes over cups of tea. Judging by the fairytale content of the rest of the preferred professions list – which essentially amounts to playing sports, flying, and throwing parties – it seems that Britons are actually just saying that they don’t want to work for a living at all. Which is understandable enough.

However, according to our calculations, if all the wannabes follow their dreams, Britain will soon have 6 million authors storming the doors of the nation’s publishing houses. Good luck to ‘em, we say.

Meanwhile, The Guardian has also posted the results of yet another poll, this one from the U.S., which found that a quarter of Americans read no books whatsoever last year. And of those who did, the average tally was four books, with the Bible and romance novels named as the top picks. So we’re guessing that “writer” would not beat out pop idol, motivational speaker, and heiress as the preferred professions in the U.S., but hey – different country, different dreams.

Christopher Hitchens on Harry Potter in The New York Times:

For all this apparently staunch secularism, it is ontology that ultimately slackens the tension that ought to have kept these tales vivid and alive. Theologians have never been able to answer the challenge that contrasts God’s claims to simultaneous omnipotence and benevolence: whence then cometh evil? The question is the same if inverted in a Manichean form: how can Voldemort and his wicked forces have such power and yet be unable to destroy a mild-mannered and rather disorganized schoolboy? In a short story this discrepancy might be handled and also swiftly resolved in favor of one outcome or another, but over the course of seven full-length books the mystery, at least for this reader, loses its ability to compel, and in this culminating episode the enterprise actually becomes tedious. Is there really no Death Eater or dementor who is able to grasp the simple advantage of surprise?

Stephen King on same in Entertainment Weekly:

One last thing: The bighead academics seem to think that Harry’s magic will not be strong enough to make a generation of non-readers (especially the male half) into bookworms … but they wouldn’t be the first to underestimate Harry’s magic; just look at what happened to Lord Voldemort. And, of course, the bigheads would never have credited Harry’s influence in the first place, if the evidence hadn’t come in the form of bestseller lists. A literary hero as big as the Beatles? ”Never happen!” the bigheads would have cried. ”The traditional novel is as dead as Jacob Marley! Ask anyone who knows! Ask us, in other words!”

Um, let’s call it a draw….

There should be a word for a book review that exists only as a venue for the reviewer’s own particular hobbyhorse – religion in Hitchens’ case, “bigheads” in King’s.

The me-view?

This week’s shot comes courtesy of a friend of Q&Q, and depicts her daughter concentrating furiously on finishing the new Potter.

Have you recently attended a book reading, library event, or author appearance? Have some interesting book-related pictures you want to share? If you’ve got photos of the Canadian book scene, we’d love to see them. Send them to us or sign up through Flickr and submit your images.

In today’s obligatory Harry Potter update, CNET News (via Reuters) is reporting that a 16-year-old in France has been arrested for posting three chapters of a French version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on the Internet more than two months before the official translation will be released. The French-language book will come out on Oct. 26; in the meantime, while French bookstores are free to sell the English version, this kid will be fighting the law.

The lesson: keep your hack translations to yourself; Harry Potter will have only one official French word for “hallows.” Bungling the translation of that term is definitely an arrest-worthy offense.

According to a website called China View, Malaysian readers are scooping up pirated editions of the final Harry Potter installment in droves.

Cashing in on the popularity of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, pirates have mass-produced paperback editions which are retailed at 48 ringgit (14 U.S. dollars) each, the New Straits Times reported.

They are available at selected news vendors and bookstores, some of whom are selling the books at 60 ringgit (18 U.S. dollars) but with a 20 percent discount.

Checks at several news vendors and bookstores showed that the pirated book copied the original version wholesale, from its front and back covers and publisher’s logo to even the barcode.

Apparently, the pirated editions are selling like hotcakes, especially among the country’s student population. No word yet if the book’s Malaysian publisher will be cracking down on this, but we’re sure that Bloomsbury and Rowling herself are feeling very disappointed with the Malays right about now.

Friday photo returns! This week’s shot comes courtesy of the London Public Library, which hosted a concert on Aug. 1 featuring not only Harry and the Potters, but Draco and the Malfoys. The bands will be in Toronto this weekend for the big Potter geek-out, Prophecy 2007. Until then, Hey! Ho! Em-bar-go!!

Have you recently attended a book reading, library event, or author appearance? Have some interesting book-related pictures you want to share? If you’ve got photos of the Canadian book scene, we’d love to see them. Send them to us or sign up through Flickr and submit your images.

Those who plowed through Deathly Hallows in a matter of days and are now suffering Potter withdrawal might be interested to know that there seems to be some kind of Potter academic/fan conference in town this weekend. Prophecy 2007: From Hero to Legend runs from Thursday through Sunday. Seminars include “Lost in Translation?: Harry Potter, from Page to Screen,” “The Science of Harry Potter,” and “The Alchemical End-Game: The Rubedo in Deathly Hallows” (we’ll assume that last one means something to you folks). Strangely, though, nothing about the overlapping power dynamics that come into play between blockbuster authors, retailers, and media.

Potterphiles, you can breathe a sigh of relief, because The Onion has your back with an important spoiler warning. Apparently, that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book gives away the ending of everything and everyone to do with Potter!

“The whole experience is completely ruined for me,” said 25-year-old fan Ethan Clay, adding that the book builds up suspense, and then, without warning, gives away vital, plot-altering information. “The least [Rowling] could have done was put a spoiler alert or something on the front cover.”

Nothing is safe anymore. Avert your eyes!

The argument has been made, with respect to last week’s iPhone Tickle-Me-Elmo Harry Potter midnight madness, that breaking the embargo on the book’s contents just ruins it for readers. According to Tim Rutten in the Los Angeles Times, however, review embargoes are usually just about money.

Here it’s necessary to distinguish between the newspaper critics and the cyber crooks, who may have posted sections of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on the Web. That’s theft, and if we don’t protect the intellectual property of even fabulously wealthy creative people like Rowling, they’ll have less and less incentive to produce the things that entertain and delight us. Her publishers are right to go after these looters with laptops with every lawyer they hire.

Embargoes on reviews and discussions are another matter. All the outrage surrounding this particular book notwithstanding, contemporary publishers impose these blackouts not in the interest of readers but to protect the carefully planned publicity campaigns they create for books on which they have advanced large sums of money.

This is the economic imperative that leads publishers to withhold the contents of even nonfiction manuscripts that contain news that the public has a vital interest in knowing.

It’s also why newspapers, including this one, routinely break those embargoes without any pang of conscience. Our first and most compelling obligation is to our readers’ right to know and not to the commercial interests of publishers.

Rutten goes on to note that the before-the-witching-hour reviews that did appear were very respectful in terms of not giving away the book’s shocker ending, in which Harry discovers that he was a ghost the whole time, the ape-planet was really Earth, soylent green is made out of people, Ron was Keyser Söze, and Hermione was a guy.

Well, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is mere hours away. All our past grumbling about embargos notwithstanding, Quillblog wishes good luck and happy Pottermania to all publishers and booksellers – and readers – involved.

To add photos of your Potter event to Q&Q’s Flickr pool, simply e-mail them here and they’ll be automatically uploaded. Use your e-mail subject line to give the photo a title, and any text in the body of the message will be attached as a description.

We’re also interested in any feedback as to how the weekend’s sales and events go. You can comment on this post or e-mail messages here.

The Good Ship Harry Potter Information Lockdown continues to spring holes and take on water; now U.S. customers and media outlets have obtained actual physical copies of the book, and a couple — such as The New York Times and the Baltimore Sun – have already posted reviews. It’s worth noting here that neither review contained anything in the way of spoiler content. Nonetheless, as Reuters reports, J.K. Rowling is furious and her British publisher, Bloomsbury, is “very sad.” Aw. And here’s the latest from Canada’s own Raincoast Books:

IMPORTANT NEWS FROM RAINCOAST BOOKS

(Vancouver , July 19, 2007) It has now been confirmed by Scholastic Inc, the U.S. publisher of Harry Potter that there have been early sales in the United States of a small number of copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

In light of this highly regrettable situation, Raincoast Books, the Canadian publisher, would like to take this opportunity to assure Canadian fans that books in Canada remain strictly embargoed. We at Raincoast, along with our partners in 93 other countries, re-affirm our commitment to robustly support the embargo time of one minute past midnight local time on July 21, in order to preserve the magic for the children and adult readers of Harry Potter.

We would like to thank our customers and suppliers again for their full support given in so many different ways. We would also like to thank the media for their own observance of, and strict policing of, the embargo to preserve the secrecy of the plot for the readers of Harry Potter.

JK Rowling said today, ‘I am staggered that some American newspapers have decided to publish purported spoilers in the form of reviews in complete disregard of the wishes of literally millions of readers, particularly children, who wanted to reach Harry’s final destination by themselves, in their own time. I am incredibly grateful to all those newspapers, booksellers and others who have chosen not to attempt to spoil Harry’s last adventure for fans.”

Jamie Broadhurst
VP Marketing, Raincoast Books

Maybe it’s just Quillblog, but the line thanking us media types for our own “strict policing of the embargo” gives us the willies. We happen not to be interested in posting spoilers, but we don’t remember being deputized.

In the unlikely event that you missed it, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows appears to have been leaked online. (Note: neither of the stories linked to in the previous sentence actually contain spoilers.) All 759 pages of the book have been photographed and posted to various illegal or quasi-legal file-sharing sites. Potter publishers, including Raincoast here in Canada, are stressing that this could be a forgery, which, frankly, seems highly unlikely. As Motoko Rich writes in The New York Times:

Doris Herrmann, an English teacher in Clear Lake, Tex., who is also a project coordinator for the Leaky Cauldron (leakynews.com), another big fan site, said: “I hate to say it, but it really does look authentic.” She said that while it was possible to work wonders with Photoshop or other programs, it would be difficult to write a whole manuscript, typeset it like the originals and then photograph the whole thing.

Yes, yes it would. Common sense, surely, though Rich got an English teacher to say it, just in case anyone needed convincing.

Publishers are also appealing to media and hackers to think of the marketing, er, the children. Again, from the Times:

Lisa Holton, president of Scholastic’s trade and book fairs division, said the company was asking various Web site hosts to take the photos down. “We’re not confirming if anything is real,” she said. “But in the spirit of getting to midnight magic without a lot of hoo-ha, can you just take some of this stuff down.”

And here’s today’s press release from Raincoast marketing vice-president Jamie Broadhurst:

Dear Member of the Media,

We are only a few days away from the July 21, 2007 publication date for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and I wanted to write you to thank you for your continued help in respecting the wishes of both the author and her legion of fans in preserving the secrets contained within the final book in the series until one minute after midnight on that day.

As the excitement builds there is a great deal of speculation as to the outcome of the series, and several unauthenticated ‘versions’ of the last book have been posted to internet sites. It remains to be seen until July 21 what really happens to Harry and his friends and there is no confirmation as to whether the posted versions are real or elaborate fakes. The legal framework in Canada recognizes and protects the confidentiality of the book and its content until the release date chosen by the Author and the publishers as holders of the copyright, notwithstanding attempts at spoilers or other breaches of the embargo.

In the meantime, Raincoast Books calls upon the media to respect the embargo on publishing content whether validated or not, until that time.

For now, let’s forego the question of how, say, a one-sentence sum-up of whether Harry lives or dies could be considered a copyright infringement. Instead, let’s note that if publishers did exercise their legal rights “as holders of the copyright,” that would seem to be a tacit admission that the online material is genuine. (After all, they’ve apparently been allowing this Harry Potter fan fiction site to flourish uninjunctioned.)

In any case, Quillblog can’t help thinking that years of treating Potter plot details like nuclear-launch codes are now coming home to roost.

With the release of the final Harry Potter novel mere days away, the media frenzy is in full force. In The Globe and Mail on the weekend, publishing reporter James Adams looks at Canadian Potter publisher Raincoast Books and its life before, during, and after Harry. (The CBC Arts website had a similar piece a couple months back.) And The Boston Globe looks at some problems American booksellers are facing as they try to plan Potter parties. It seems film studio Warner Bros., “which controls the movies, merchandise, and all nonbook aspects of the Harry Potter brand,” and U.S. publisher Scholastic are telling booksellers what kind of events they’re allowed to have.

Most of the points are uncontroversial — parties must be decent and safe, nonpolitical, held no earlier or later than 24 hours from the release hour. Other conditions have taken some booksellers by surprise: “No fees are charged for admission or any activities at the event . . . no third parties are associated with the event in any way . . . the event is small-scale, local, non commercial, not-for-profit.”

(Thanks to Ed Champion for the lattermost link.)

The latest and last Harry Potter book (did you know there was a new one coming out?) will not be available at western-Canadian outlets of Mac’s Convenience, according to a story in The Globe and Mail. Raincoast is barring the chain – and possibly others – from receiving copies of the book in advance of publication, citing security concerns. (Raincoast sought and won a restraining order after the previous Potter volume, Harry Potter and the Annoying Embargo, was sold in advance of the pub date by a few convenience and grocery stores, including at least one Mac’s location.)

That’s right: the sales outlook on this book is so good that Raincoast can afford to not sell it. Won’t all those Potter fans be surprised when they finally get the book, only to discover it’s a 40-page novella that kills off every major character, padded out with 800 pages of Rowling’s journals, letters from fans, some of her favourite recipes, and an unpublished collection of her poetry.

(Note: Jamie Broadhurst, Raincoast’s vice president of marketing, told Q&Q he would “not discuss specific details about customers, logistics, or security,” but did confirm that, at least theoretically, stores not able to stock the book before the pub date of July 21 could do so after.)

Pottermania is revving up, and Maclean’s books columnist Brian Bethune has a thoughtful cover story about the imminent finale of the series. The burning question, of course, is whether Rowling will allow her hero to survive; to that end, Bethune polls various observers and gets mixed results. On the death side:

Last summer, a journalist argued in the Guardian newspaper that Harry’s demise would be one more valuable lesson from the books: “Children have to learn to deal with death sooner or later, it’s the reason they have hamsters for pets.” A Times writer struck a similar mordant note — let Harry be killed, because that “would be less confusing than for him to grow up to be an accountant.”

But University of New Hampshire lit prof James Krasner takes the opposing view:

“No, Harry won’t die,” Krasner confidently asserts. “And he shouldn’t die. It wouldn’t be as good a story if he did. It would be like Bach going atonal in the last few bars of a cantata: you wouldn’t say ‘How interesting. That must be what makes it art.’ Harry’s death would be so out of step with the rest of the books — a violation, for one thing, of the basic school story. There’s never been one of those where the main character dies.”

There’s also a practical angle to consider. As Bethune notes, by killing Harry, Rowling would remove any temptation to go back to a character that she may well be ready to leave behind. Of course, Arthur Conan Doyle tried the same thing with Sherlock Holmes, and ended up resurrecting his detective anyway.

Oh, and in case you missed it, a few weeks back Slate had a proposed Harry Potter finale, Sopranos-style.

The Guardian reports that Rome’s legendary Protestant Cemetery, which houses the graves of Keats and Shelley, is crumbling. Thanks to a lack of funding and maintenance, tree branches fell to the ground last Friday and cracked open a grave, barely missing Shelley’s tomb. Overgrown weeds and effects of pollution have also compromised some of the other stately gravestones of the non-Catholics buried in the shadow of the Aventine Hill.

The cemetery’s official website says that the family most affected has been informed of the damage, and that the 200-year-old site of many authors’ pilgrimages will be closed until further notice for repairs.

Although the secluded, beauteous area was added last year to a list of the World Monetary Fund’s 100 most endangered historical sites, monetary help has yet to arrive. In the meantime, the cemetery has no relief for the 1 million euros’ worth of debt it somehow racked up between 1999 and 2005. A sign on its gate reads, “Visitors are kindly requested to offer a contribution of at least two euros. We badly need it.”

In other news, J.K. Rowling has given the go-ahead to Warner Brothers Entertainment to open an entire Harry Potter theme park at the Universal Orlando Resort, since the book-based movies have earned the studio $3.5 billion U.S. so far.

The U.K. bookstore chain Waterstone’s has just released the results of a poll they put together for their 25th anniversary, in which they asked readers to vote for their favorite novels of the past 25 years. To practically nobody’s surprise, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was the top pick.

Also not surprising is the fact that Canadian Yann Martel made the cut with his enormously popular Life of Pi. What is a bit surprising, though, is that Margaret Atwood’s highly un-recent 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale made it onto the list, too – and that it ranked as high as #11. Who says readers have short term memories?

The full list, as it appears in London’s Daily Telegraph, can be seen here, along with a short article analyzing the list and discussing how it reflects British tastes.

Harry Potter may be approaching his grand finale but he may still have something to learn from an older master of magic. According to The Guardian:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has, for the past 16 weeks, looked to be the invincible champion of the bestseller lists, despite being more than three months away from publication. But the wizardy whippersnapper hadn’t reckoned on the return of an even more popular author: JRR Tolkien has come back from beyond the grave to seize the throne of Amazon’s book charts. The Children of Húrin, based on uncompleted manuscripts by Tolkien, has been worked into a book by the author’s youngest son, Christopher: a labour of love that has taken him 30 years.

J.K. Rowling and Tolkien both have enormous appeal as authors, but judging from Salon.com’s review, this last book of Tolkien’s is much darker and more tragic than The Lord of the Rings, not to mention a denser read:

Initially, “The Children of Húrin” has that ye-olde-homework feeling of Tolkien at his most laborious. Here is the third sentence of Chapter I: “His daughter Glóredhel wedded Haldir son of Halmir, lord of the men of Brethil; and at the same feast his son Galdor the Tall wedded Hareth, the daughter of Halmir.” (Furthermore, none of the people in that sentence ever reappear.) I still had to refer to Christopher Tolkien’s thorough and helpful maps, indexes and appendixes every few pages to keep the geographical and genealogical nomenclature straight — and I went back to “The Silmarillion” a couple of times to figure out the historical context — but I minded that less and less as the hours grew longer and Túrin’s fell struggle against innermost and outermost evil grew ever more dire.

It may have knocked Harry Potter out of the top spot on Amazon, but it would be interesting to know if the same readers are buying both books. Quillblog speculates that some Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings fans may graduate into an interest in the new Tolkien volume, but maybe only the best students of wizardry who don’t mind studying like Hermione.

The BBC reports that Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice topped a survey of more than 2,000 British book lovers as the book they just couldn’t live without, besting The Bible, which was sixth from the top.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings came in second, with Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë in third place. The Harry Potter series and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird were in fourth and fifth respectively.

What does the list say about contemporary society, or at least 2,000 British book lovers? That Christian faith is on the decline? That we prefer to dwell on the past or in fantasy worlds rather than face the messy business of our own world and time? Or just that, as a culture, we are obsessed with silly lists?

In a post on The Guardian’s book blogs, Kathryn Hughes discusses the publication of compact versions of classic novels. Hughes supports the idea of cutting out the “ambling byways, baffling dead-ends and sudden jumps of pace and tone” found in works such as Mill on the Floss, David Copperfield, and Vanity Fair. She argues that if those books made it onto publishers’ desks today, an editor would slash them to pieces before taking them to press.

At least Hughes still wants them to be published, if only in a “crisper version of a rambling old classic.” Quillblog is not so eager to start tearing out pages. Perhaps, more than being just great stories, these books stand as examples of a style of writing that also reveal something of the time in which they were written. (Hughes allows that students should be studying the full version but says “ordinary” readers shouldn’t have to suffer.)

If people are just looking for a good story and don’t want to read such long books (perhaps they are still finishing up the 700-plus pages of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince), Quillblog suggests watching the movies or picking up CliffsNotes.

The BBC reports that author J.K. Rowling marked the completion of her last Harry Potter novel by scribbling on a decorative statue in a room at the posh Edinburgh Balmoral Hotel, where she had been staying and writing.

In black marker on an antique-style statue, she wrote: “JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows in this room on 11 Jan 2007.”

The hotel confirmed the Edinburgh-based author signed a bust in the hotel.

However the spokeswoman for the 188-room city centre Balmoral, where rates range from £290 to £1,575 a night, refused to say which room the author had stayed in.

Quillblog does not recommend this kind of vandalism for any first-time authors who might decide to stay at The Balmoral to write their final pages.

Let the media frenzy and the court injunctions begin: the publication date for the seventh and final Harry Potter novel has been announced. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will hit bookstore shelves worldwide – as well as department stores, toy stores, magic shops, and probably some gas stations, clothing boutiques, and tackle shops – on July 21.

In a related story, Raincoast’s lawyers have cancelled their July vacation plans.

In fact, it’s interesting to compare the various publishers’ press releases announcing the good news. U.S. publisher Scholastic makes no mention of any embargo. Over in the U.K., Bloomsbury tells us that “Sale of the book in all time zones is embargoed until….” (emphasis added). And here in Canada, Raincoast is a little less specific, saying only that “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is embargoed until….” Remember, folks, no unlawful reading.

Mediabistro’s Galley Cat brings attention to an ongoing legal battle over the intellectual property rights to Victor Hugo’s classic Les Misérables.

Pierre Hugo, the author’s great-great-grandson, is fighting to remove two sequels written by Francois Ceresa from bookstore shelves. Currently, literary works are considered public domain 70 years after the author’s death, but Hugo says the new works violate the “spirit” of his ancestor’s work. Ceresa’s lawyers say banning the novels will infringe on freedom of expression. After six years of legal wrangling, France’s highest appeals court will make a decision today.

Quillblog is sure that either way this decision goes down, J.K Rowling, who has been hinting that she will kill off Harry Potter to protect the character from literary borrowing, will be thinking ‘I told you so.’

GalleyCat points out that even though last week was the 25th annual Banned Books Week in the U.S. (put on by the American Library Association to celebrate the right of free people to read freely), the actual banning of books is more or less a fact of life. To illustrate this, they provide a list of the most recent book-banning crusaders to hit the news.

One particularly notable complainer is a concerned mother in Georgia who first got noticed back in April. She thinks Harry Potter lures children to the dark side (witchcraft, sorcery, and the usual dark arts), and has now enlisted brochures for witchcraft camp to prove her point.

Also on the banning block: a collection of nursery rhymes that features the line, “teacher, teacher don’t be dumb, give me back my bubble gum.”

(And no, we’re not kidding.)

Related links:
Check out GalleyCat’s list here

You can never get enough wacky Harry Potter items, so here’s one from Associated Press via the Toronto Star. It seems J.K. Rowling had the manuscript for the next and final Potter novel with her on a recent trip to New York, and had to battle airport security officials to be allowed to carry the manuscript on the plane. “They let me take it on, thankfully, bound up in elastic bands,” she says.

Quillblog readers are invited to supply your own joke here. You may wish to explore the potential lethality of the manuscript (its presumed bulk, mind-glazing properties, etc.), or perhaps riffing on the bomb/dud angle would be more fruitful.

Related links:
Click here for the AP story

The Philadelphia Inquirer has a story about the fact that adults are reading more and more YA and children’s fiction. It doesn’t say anything earth-shattering – a lot of people like books that have strong stories, likeable characters, and tidy endings, apparently – but it does raise, by implication