Shelf Awareness for Thursday, July 14, 2005


William Morrow & Company: Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay

Del Rey Books: Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid

Peachtree Teen: Romantic YA Novels Coming Soon From Peachtree Teen!

Watkins Publishing: She Fights Back: Using Self-Defence Psychology to Reclaim Your Power by Joanna Ziobronowicz

Dial Press: Whoever You Are, Honey by Olivia Gatwood

Pantheon Books: The Volcano Daughters by Gina María Balibrera

Peachtree Publishers: Leo and the Pink Marker by Mariyka Foster

Wednesday Books: Castle of the Cursed by Romina Garber

Quotation of the Day

Bookselling 101

"You have to love retail; you can't just love books. You have to love the customer and feel that in your bones."---Roxanne Coady, owner of R.J. Julia Booksellers, Madison, Conn., as quoted by Shore Line Times in an article about her store's merger with Elm Street Books in New Canaan, Conn., which will become R.J. Julia-Elm Street Books in September.

Now Streaming on Paramount+ with SHOWTIME: A Gentleman in Moscow


News

Preparing for Potter, Part 5

Pottermania continues to grow. Yesterday there were stories of more leaks, another in Canada and two in the U.S.; the big online and bricks-and-mortar companies issued a slew of announcements full of numbers and superlatives; and more unusual Potter events became known.

In Canada, a convenience store in Calgary sold six copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In the U.S., a drugstore in upstate Rosendale, N.Y., sold a copy of the book mistakenly, but the customer is returning it. Two men in Indianapolis claimed they were able to buy copies of the book on Monday at a local gift shop. So far, three out of 10.8 million isn't bad.

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Magic Tree Bookstore in Oak Park, Ill., is teaming up with the Oak Park Area Convention and Visitors Bureau to put on a "Countdown to Midnight" event beginning tomorrow at 2 p.m. Camille et Famille will become Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, and U.S. Bank morphs into Gringotts Wizarding Bank, among other magical retail outlet changes.

In addition, the Oak Park Library will have magic, craft and fortune-telling booths, a costume parade and show the three Harry Potter movies. The Circle Theatre is putting on an authorized, abridged performance of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Wizarding World Press, a fan site, will sponsor Wizarding Chess matches.

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Harry Potter steps up to the plate at the minor league baseball game between the New Haven County Cutters and the New Jersey Jackals tomorrow evening at Yale Field in New Haven, Conn.: the stadium will be outfitted with cauldrons, broomsticks, frogs and more. Staff will wear Potter costumes, and fans are encouraged to do the same.

After the game, the team is sponsoring best costume and Harry Potter trivia contests, broomstick races and a Quidditch match. Potter films will be shown on the scoreboard. At midnight, 500 copies of the book supplied by R.J. Julia Booksellers, Madison, Conn., will go on sale.

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Rainy Day Books, Fairway, Kan., is sponsoring a screening of the weekend's other fantastic event, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, at the Cinemark Palace, beginning at 9 p.m. tomorrow. Afterwards are several drawings, a midnight snack and distribution of the new Harry Potter book. Rainy Day is also hosting a pajama party for the book at the store.

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Beginning two days ago and lasting through Sunday, the Navy Pier in Chicago is taking on a magical theme as performers and magicians appear at various places on the pier. Today the Chicago Children's Museum will be free, storytellers will spin yarns and amateur magicians compete this evening. The Barbara's Bookstore on the pier will host a midnight party tomorrow, and the IMAX theater is premiering Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

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Potter, camp icon. Because this is the first Harry Potter book to be released at the height of summer since it achieved enormous popularity, some camps are organizing readings and events for campers. Today's New York Times mentions a California camp in the redwood forest, where campers will be awoken at 6:30 a.m. Saturday and without knowing the program beforehand, go to a campfire meeting, be served hot chocolate from a cauldron and be read the first chapters of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by counselors dressed as Potter characters.

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The KU Bookstore at the University of Kansas in Lawrence will host a midnight party geared to students. The winner of a pumpkin-carving contest receives a $200 gift certificate to the bookstore.

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Besides a variety of contests, including best decorated Quidditch broom, the Stanford Bookstores at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., will host a morning party that will feature tables down the main aisle of the store a la the Hogwarts dining hall. The Stanford Publishing Course begins on Saturday and will use the store breakfast as its kickoff breakfast.

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The Fairfax County Library system in Virginia has ordered 325 copies of the book, 53 audiobooks and 20 large print editions. As of last week, 1,350 people had signed up to borrow the book.

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On its six national Web sites, Amazon has received more than 1.4 million orders for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, in its U.S. and U.K. editions, making this the company's largest new product release ever. This surpasses the 1.3 million copies of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ordered before its release two years ago.

On the U.S. site, more than 870,000 copies of the book have been ordered, up from 789,000 for Harry Potter V.

Amazon will deliver more than a million copies of the book on Saturday and will "most likely lose money on the sale," according to a New York Times profile of the company last Sunday.

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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is "the largest presale title" in the history of Books-A-Million. The company's 200-plus stores will have parties on Friday evening and Saturday morning. BAM said that its "express lane" program will allow customers with pre-sale vouchers to leave the store with the book "in a matter of minutes" after midnight on Friday.

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Between its online operation and stores, Barnes & Noble said this week that it had taken more than one million orders for the book and will hold midnight parties at more than 660 stores Friday night. Jim Dale, the voice of the Potter audiobooks in the U.S., will be at the party at B&N's Union Square store in New York City.

A company press release enumerates the many hundreds of thousands of items B&N has bought for the parties.

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Some 60% of all children older than six will read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and 25% of them of them will finish it in the first 24 hours after its release, according to a survey of parents done by Borders. Two-thirds will read it within the first week of purchase. More than one in four of the parents surveyed plan to read the book, too.

GLOW: Greystone Books: brother. do. you. love. me. by Manni Coe, illustrated by Reuben Coe


Media and Movies

Media Heat: Two Mysteries Unraveled

Tomorrow Edna Buchanan steps into the lights on the Early Show, which bumped her last week in the wake of the London bombings. Buchanan's most recent work is Shadows (S&S, $24, 0743250559), which features the characters introduced in Cold Case Squad.

Tomorrow Diane Rehm talks with Marc Shell, author of Polio and its Aftermath: The Paralysis of Culture (Harvard University Press, $35, 0674013158).

Tonight on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International and author of The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (Norton, $14.95, 0393324877). Most amusingly, we assume, Rob Corddry will report on "Harry Potter Book Security."

BINC: Apply Now to The Susan Kamil Scholarship for Emerging Writers!



New York Minute

Osnos to Step Down as PublicAffairs Publisher

Peter Osnos, who founded PublicAffairs nine years ago, is stepping down as publisher of the Perseus Group division once a successor is found and will become editor-at-large and pursue his interests in journalism and human rights. Publishers Lunch reported that "as 'the act of selling books becomes more complicated and more expensive' through traditional retail channels, Osnos is animated about spending time to 'create the template' for a 'way to make books more available outside of traditional retail channels,' harnessing new technologies and other techniques."

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Gary June, chief sales and marketing officer for Pearson Higher Education, International and Professional, is becoming CEO of Dorling Kindersley, part of the Pearson empire.

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Anthony Ziccardi, senior v-p and director of sales and marketing at the Random House Publishing Group, has taken on the additional role of publishing director of Del Rey and mass market paperbacks.

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