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The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. RowlingYou can order today & have it deliveredthe day it is released (it will be shipped THE DAY BEFORE RELEASE TO INSURE THIS). There will be 2 versions on release day: The Standard Edition features all five fairy tales from the original The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a new introduction by J.K. Rowling, illustrations reproduced from the original handcrafted book, and commentary on each of the tales by Professor Albus Dumbledore.
Other great Harry Potter Sites:
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Potter faces girls, Voldemort in 'Goblet'LONDON, England (AP) -- In "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," the teenage wizard faces new terrors. A face-to-face encounter with his nemesis, the evil Lord Voldemort, for one. Girls, for another. And, still fresh in the mind of 16-year-old star Daniel Radcliffe -- ballroom dancing. "I really wanted to be good at it," Radcliffe said of the scene in which Harry dances at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Yule Ball. In the end, he said at a press conference Tuesday for the film, director Mike Newell "very kindly didn't show anything below my waist. You never see my feet move." "Dan," said Newell affectionately, "is a kind of ballroom Everyman." Radcliffe's down-to-earth charm is key to the success of the Potter films, which have become a lucrative franchise since "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (known as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in the U.S.) was released in 2001. Radcliffe was 11 when he first wore Harry's trademark spectacles and lightning-shaped scar. Five years on, he's an assured and articulate actor who enthuses about his favorite bands -- The Libertines, Hard-Fi and Louis XIV all get the nod -- and gently coaxes his co-stars at the news conference. Producers describe "Goblet of Fire" -- released in Britain and the United States November 18 -- as the darkest Potter film yet. Harry must face a confrontation with Voldemort, the evil warlock who killed his parents and who returns to human form -- in the shape of Ralph Fiennes -- bent on destroying the young wizard. Charting Harry's fourth year as a trainee wizard at Hogwarts, the film has plenty of magical set pieces to delight fans of J.K. Rowling's saga. There are airborne acrobatics at the Quidditch World Cup, and the Triwizard Tournament -- a perilous contest that sees Harry face off against a fearsome Hungarian Horntail dragon. As well as Fiennes, new cast members include Brendan Gleeson ("Troy," "Cold Mountain") as Potter's new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, the fearsome Mad-Eye Moody; and Miranda Richardson ("The Crying Game," "Sleepy Hollow") as poisonous gossip columnist Rita Skeeter. The movie also introduces new students to Hogwarts' corridors, including Stanislav Ianevski as Bulgarian Quidditch star Viktor Krum, French actress Clemence Poesy as the heart-fluttering visiting student Fleur Delacour and Scottish schoolgirl Katie Leung as Harry's love-interest Cho Chang. British director Newell ("Four Weddings and Funeral," "Donnie Brasco") said he was nervous about condensing Rowling's 640-page book into his first Potter film. "The book's as big as a house brick, and I was very unsure quite how one would attack it," said Newell, who follows American Chris Columbus and Mexican Alfonso Cuaron at the Potter helm. One idea was to have to be split into two films. But Newell said he eventually found the key to the story -- "it was a thriller." "Voldemort and Ralph Fiennes were really in charge of events right from the very beginning, and only little by little did Harry catch up with what was happening to him, until it was too late and there he was facing the devil in a graveyard," Newell said. "As soon as I could see that, I felt that I could stay true to the book and at the same time keep the length down." Newell has turned down the chance to direct the fifth film, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." Filming is due to begin in February under British television director David Yates ("State of Play," "Sex Traffic.") With the films now more than halfway through Rowling's planned seven-book series -- the sixth volume, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," was released earlier this year -- budding romance is a new development for the teenaged Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione. Inevitably, Radcliffe and his co-stars Emma Watson, 15 and Rupert Grint, 17, face questions about their own love lives. They deflect them with good grace. "I'm learning to drive at the moment, so that's taking all my time," Grint told reporters. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. |
J.K. Rowling has revealed three chapter titles from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to be:
Order today and have it in your mailbox before you know it!
NEW YORK (AP) -- As publication nears for "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," to be unveiled to the world July 16, expect some of the usual midnight madness and at least one new twist: less Potter merchandise..
"We've got Harry Potter pens and bookmarks, and a few of those types of things. But that's really it. There definitely will not be as much as the last time," says Beth Bingham, a spokeswoman for the superstore chain Borders Group, Inc.
"I told the staff not to sell any of it," says Gayle Shanks, owner of the Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Ariz. "We failed with it last time. It was really pricey merchandise for pretty bad stuff, to be honest."
Potter paraphernalia, from cakes to capes, was on display everywhere when J.K. Rowling's last novel, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," came out in 2003. Candace Corlett, a partner at the consulting firm WSL Strategic Retail, Inc., had predicted that "Order of the Phoenix" would "trigger an explosion in sales of all things Harry Potter.
She now acknowledges that no such "explosion" happened.
The release of "Half-Blood Prince," the sixth of Rowling's seven-book fantasy series, should confirm that Harry Potter mania is essentially a celebration of reading, a phenomenon created by children, not marketers..
Demand for the book is higher than ever. Scholastic, Inc., Rowling's American publisher, has announced a first printing of 10.8 million, seven times the first run of Bill Clinton's "My Life" and 4 million more than for "Order of the Phoenix." Meanwhile, Random House's Listening Library has commissioned 635,000 copies of the audio version, again read by the beloved Jim Dale.
"We will sell about 50,000 copies per hour in the first 24 hours," says Barnes & Noble CEO Steve Riggio. "Less than 1 percent of all books sell that many in their lifetime."
The release of "Half-Blood Prince" renews a kind of summer tradition, as retailers again deck out their stores and fans of all ages prepare for a late and long evening. The books won't vary from store to store, but the parties will..
With a police permit obtained, fire dancers are expected to perform in Tempe's Changing Hands parking lot. In New Orleans, Octavia Books has joined with other local businesses, including a toy store and a candy shop, for a neighborhood Potter adventure.
Darkness will prevail at the Book House in St. Louis, a Victorian structure with its very own dungeon, and, says owner Michelle Barron, its own ghosts. At Brystone Children's Books, in Fort Worth, Texas, the night will belong to Hogwarts' dreaded Professor Severus Snape and his Slytherin House.
"Our concept is that the Slytherins have taken over," says Dana Harper, a book seller at Brystone's. "We're going to dress up like Slytherin students and part of the store will be turned into Professor Snape's office. He'll be passing out demerit slips and house points."
Rowling will read at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland just after midnight. According to her Web site, newspapers and bookshops in six countries will choose 70 children who aspire to be journalists to attend the reading, go through the book in a special reading room at the castle and question the author during a "children's press conference" on Sunday, July 17.
"We've found that most people just grab their books and go, and it sort of peters out," says book seller Caroline Green. "People aren't listening. They want to read it themselves, and at 1 a.m. everybody is really punchy."
Preorder "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" which comes out July 16.
First, expect enough books out there to fill all of Hogwarts. Scholastic, Inc., the U.S. publisher of J.K. Rowling's fantasy series, has announced a first printing of 10.8 million copies of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," the largest such printing for a hardcover release in this country.
The previous record holder was "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," which came out in 2003 with a first run of 8.5 million.
"We have worked very closely with all of our accounts to anticipate the level of demand for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,"' Scholastic Children's Books president Barbara Marcus said Wednesday in a statement. "Once again, we are hearing from our accounts that the pre-orders are phenomenal."
"Half-Blood Prince" has topped the best seller lists of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com ever since its release was announced in December.
To make sure that nobody could miss the book's arrival, Scholastic also announced Wednesday a range of marketing gimmicks, including a Harry Potter crossword puzzle in The New York Times in July, promotional spots on the Times Square billboard, Google ads and video commercials on domestic flights of Continental Airlines and American Airlines.
Bookstores already are planning their traditional parties to mark the midnight, July 16 publication of "Half-Blood Prince," the sixth of seven planned books. Worldwide sales have topped 250 million for the fantasy series, which has been translated into 62 languages.
/ Published 1999
| New Harry Potter due June 21
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'Harry Potter and Order
of the Phoenix', at 38 chapters, is a third longer than recent Potter book. |
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| NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The fifth book
in the wildly popular Harry Potter children's series is due in stores June
21, its publishers announced Wednesday.
"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" will be published in the United States by Scholastic Corp. (SCHL: Research, Estimates) and in Britain, Canada and Australia by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. All of the first four books in the series about the education of a young sorcerer still are on best-seller lists, even though the first came out in September 1998. The series has sold a total of about 80 million hardback and paperback copies in the United States and 192 million worldwide, according to Scholastic. They have been published in 55 languages. The first-day sales of the books have become major events, with stores opening at midnight to deal with the crush of young fans. The first two books have been made into top-grossing movies by Warner Bros., a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc. (AOL: Research, Estimates), which also has film rights to the other two books that have been published and options on "Order of the Phoenix" and others planned in the series. The first Harry Potter movie, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," took in $968 million in worldwide box office receipts, making second only to "Titantic." The second film, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," came out last fall and still is in theaters. It already has earned $772 million worldwide, putting it in ninth place. CNN/Money also is a unit of AOL Time Warner. "The Order of the Phoenix", at 38 chapters and about 255,000 words, is about one-third longer than the most recent book, the 752-page "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." |
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Warner Bros. Pictures has enlisted Chris Columbus, director of some of the decade’s most successful family films including "Home Alone" and "Mrs. Doubtfire," to helm its first adaptation of the best-selling Harry Potter series of books, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone." The announcement was made today by Lorenzo di Bonaventura, President of Worldwide Production for Warner Bros. Pictures.
Harry Potter is the central character in a series of books for children and adults alike that has swept the world. Written by British author J.K. Rowling, the books follow the exploits of a boy who learns on his eleventh birthday that he is the orphaned son of two powerful wizards and possesses unique magical powers of his own. He is summoned from his life as an unwanted foster child to become a student at Hogwarts, an English boarding school for wizards. There, Harry meets several friends who become his closest allies and help him discover the truth about his parents’ mysterious deaths at the hands of a powerful adversary.
"Harry Potter is the kind of timeless literary achievement that comes around once in a lifetime," di Bonaventura said. "Since the books have generated such a passionate following across the world, it was important to us to find a director that has an affinity for both children and magic. I can’t think of anyone more ideally suited for this job than Chris."
"From the first time I read Harry Potter with my children I fell in love with these wonderful characters and this world," Columbus said. "I’m thrilled and honored to bring J.K. Rowling’s classic story to the screen."
Warner Bros. Pictures, through British producer David Heyman, acquired the rights to the first four books in the series, which is projected to include seven books. Said Heyman: "Chris has been pursuing Harry Potter for nigh on two years. His passion and enthusiasm are overwhelming. I know he will make a great film."
The studio and Mr. Heyman engaged Steve Kloves ("The Fabulous Baker Boys") to adapt the first book for the screen. Filming is expected to begin in England this summer.
Columbus gained prominence in Hollywood with a trio of original scripts, "Gremlins," "Goonies" and "Young Sherlock Holmes." He went on to a tremendously successful directing career, helming such films as "Home Alone," one of the highest-grossing comedies of all time, and its smash hit follow-up, "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York"; "Bicentennial Man," starring Robin Williams; "Stepmom," with Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon, and "Mrs. Doubtfire," also starring Williams. He also wrote, produced and directed "Nine Months," starring Julianne Moore and Hugh Grant.
Updated 02/21/2005
