In an op-ed piece in today's New York Times, Ian McEwan, author of Atonement and most recently Saturday, has a somber, telling commentary on the horrible bombings in London yesterday. His conclusion:

"But once we have counted up our dead, and the numbness turns to anger and grief, we will see that our lives here will be difficult. We have been savagely woken from a pleasant dream. The city will not recover Wednesday's confidence and joy in a very long time. Who will want to travel on the Underground once it has been cleared? How will we sit at our ease in a restaurant, cinema or theater? And we will face again that deal we must constantly make and re-make with the state--how much power must we grant Leviathan, how much freedom will we be asked to trade for our security?"

Sales at general retailers showed the best performance in more than a year, according to reports today in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Buoyed by warm weather, fashions that appealed to customers and improved consumer confidence, most retail companies, whether luxury or discount, apparel or teen-oriented, showed significant gains in sales at stores open at least a year.

"Where there was a weakness, it was generally company-specific," said Ken Perkins of Retail Metrics, which reported that comp-store sales at 67 companies rose 5.4% in June over the same period a year ago.

Analysts stated that the terrible bombings in London yesterday would likely have little lasting impact on general sales.

As part of its 10th anniversary festivities, Amazon is paying tribute to the authors who made it all possible, inducting the 25 bestselling scribes into its new "Hall of Fame," which will include stories about and by the honorees. Not surprisingly, J.K. Rowling tops the list. Just missing, at No. 26, is William Shakespeare.

The e-tailer is also sponsoring a Wish List contest for customers.

Borders plans to hold grand opening parties today and tomorrow for 13 stores in Southern California and 6 in western Pennsylvania that have been converted to Borders Express from Waldenbooks outlets. Besides looking more like a Borders, the Express stores have the full range of Borders products: music, movies, gifts and stationery in addition to books. Borders converted 37 stores last year and will switch as many as 100 this year.

The drumbeat grows for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which goes on sale a week from midnight tonight. Herewith more bits and pieces of Pottermania.

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After giving $5,800 to four charities when Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out (based on a $5 donation per book), Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe, Ariz., is upping the ante to $6 a book for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Customers have a choice of four "new" charities: the Adult and Family Literacy Project, the Children's Advocacy Center, Open Horizons Child and Family Development Center and Maricopa County Juvenile Detention Center Libraries. Donations will be made based on sales through the end of the month.

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Barnes &  Noble predicts that more than a million copies of the book will be ordered from it before next Saturday.

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Watermark Books, Wichita, Kan., is holding a free party Friday evening at the Orpheum Theatre that includes a reading of the first chapter of the book just as it goes on sale.

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At the Albany (N.Y.) Public Library, which is buying 75 copies of the book for its five branches, the first 50 little muggles with permission slips from parents can go to a late night release party. At the Redwood City (Calif.) Library, 200 copies of the book will be available for checkout at midnight.

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In London, Ont., the Wendell Holmes Bookshop and Oxford Bookshop aren't discounting the title but will give a $10 gift certificate to each purchaser. (That's about $8 south of the border.)

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Some environmental groups and authors are taking the occasion of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince's 10.8 million printing to promote more environmentally-friendly printing policies, the New York Times reported yesterday. One priority for the groups is to get Scholastic, the Potter publisher in the U.S., to use more recycled paper in Potter books. The authors lending support include J.K. Rowling herself, Isabelle Allende, Margaret Atwood, Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje and Alice Walker. While some environmental groups urge American muggles to buy Potter from Canada, where publisher Raincoast Books has printed the book on 100% recycled paper, Scholastic says it uses some recycled paper and is avoiding paper from ancient or endangered forests.

On Monday morning, the former Happy Carrot Bookshop in Old Lyme, Conn., reopens as the Turning Page, whose new owner, Julie Kerop, will make only a few changes, including paring down the used book collection to allow more room for "general interest reading" and adding monthly story hours for children, according to Shore Publishing. Former owner Paulette Zander has retired and is moving to Taos, N.M., to be near her grandchildren.

On the eve of International Christian Retail Show, which begins this weekend in Denver, the Denver Post notes the increased competition in the market from mainstream retailers and the closing of 288 Christian bookstores in the last year. Two local Christian bookstores highlighted in the piece have moved to busier, more visible locations in order to compete better. One bookseller put the Christian bookseller's dilemma this way: "We want to minister to people, but at the same time we have to pay the bills."

This morning Diane Rehm interviews Robert Merry, the president and publisher of Congressional Quarterly whose new book is Sands of Empire: Missionary Zeal, American Foreign Policy, and the Hazards of Global Ambition (S&S, $26), which argues that U.S. foreign policy has taken a dangerous, interventionist tack since the end of the Cold War.

An author known for her innovative marketing has just taken another major digital step.

M.J. Rose has begun a two-week "blog-a-thon" for her new thriller, The Halo Effect (Mira, $6.99), that features a VidLit, a kind of book trailer. For every Web site or blog that links to the VidLit (we hope this counts, M.J.!), Rose is donating $5 to Reading Is Fundamental; her publisher, agent, family and friends are backing this effort financially. Rose hopes to amass 500 links, which would raise at least $2,500 for RIF.

Calling the venture the Good Book/Good Cause Blog-a-Thon, Rose wants to continue the series with other authors and their books. For more on the experience, check out Rose's blog, Buzz, Balls & Hype.

By the way, The Halo Effect is the first of the Butterfield Institute series, which features sex therapist Morgan Snow.