Without directly giving away the ending, the New York Times's Michiko Kakutani reviews Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows after reading a copy of the book that was "purchased at a New York City retail outlet" yesterday. The book ends, she writes, "with good old-fashioned closure: a big screen, heart-racing, bone-chilling confrontation and an epilogue that clearly lays out people's fates. Getting to the finish line is not seamless--the last portion of the final book has some lumpy passages of exposition and a couple of clunky detours--but the overall conclusion of the series and its determination of the main characters' storylines possess a convincing inevitability that make some of the pre-publication speculation seem curiously blinkered in retrospect." She adds that "for the most part, [this is] a somber book that marks Harry's final initiation into the complexities and sadnesses of adulthood."

More (or less) here.

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Scholastic is taking legal action against two companies that distributed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to customers before Saturday's on-sale date (which likely has no connection with the Times breach above). According to MarketWatch, Scholastic said "the number of books shipped early is about one-hundredth of 1% of the total U.S. copies slated to go on sale at 12:01 a.m. on July 21, and is the result of a breach of the on-sale agreement by distributor Levy Home Entertainment, and shipments made by DeepDiscount.com, a customer of that distributor."

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Barnes & Noble's Midnight Magic Costume Party at the Union Square store will feature an appearance by Jim Dale, acclaimed British actor and Harry Potter audiobook legend. Beginning at 10:30 p.m., he will discuss his role as narrator and read excerpts from previous books. Dale will then lead the countdown to midnight.

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Incidentally, Dale is one of the lucky few who has already read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. According to the Chicago Tribune, he finished recording the book six weeks ago, but he isn't talking about the end: "That would be like your parents saying, 'We have a special present for you under the Christmas tree that we know you're going to love, and it's a bicycle.' You want to savor the end like a fine wine. You swish it around in your mouth before swallowing it."

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The Tribune also reported on some of Manhattan's other HP7 weekend plans, including a Borders event Friday night, where "the front of the Time Warner Center will be bathed in orange light, and the lobby in front of the Borders bookstore at the center will be draped in curtains and decorated with ice sculptures. . . . [S]hortly before midnight, a horse and carriage will pull up outside the building on Columbus Circle. The carriage will bear the object of all this marketing magic--a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

The New York Public Library has ordered "more than 800 copies for its children's departments and about 400 copies for the adult sections. But the children's department alone has more than 1,000 prepublication check-out requests that it has to honor before it can put the books on the shelves."

Bank Street Bookstore on the Upper West Side will take a quieter approach, opening at 11:30 p.m. and offering copies at a 20% discount. "We're probably doing the lowest-key Harry Potter event that we've done," said manager Beth Puffer.

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Harry Potter and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas.

Bestseller Books, Saipan's only bookstore, "will be holding a countdown this Saturday at its bookshop and will open its doors to Potter fans at exactly 9 a.m.," according to the Saipan Tribune, which added that "San Nicolas said she is hoping the books would reach CNMI shores a day before the worldwide release. The bookshop is expecting avid fans of the book to line up early Saturday morning."

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"The final Harry Potter book arrived in Vietnam Wednesday," according to Thanh Nien News. "Director-General of the Ho Chi Minh Book Distribution Company (FAHASA) Pham Minh Thuan, said that the company had received thousands of orders from Vietnamese Harry Potter fans since reservations were opened in June."

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The Associated Press (via Business Week) reported on a controversy in Israel over the launch time of HP7: "The synchronized worldwide launch of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows falls at 2:01 a.m. local time this Saturday--on the Jewish Sabbath, when Israeli law requires most businesses to close."

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Royal Mail vans will deliver one copy of HP7 for every 43 homes across Northern Ireland, according to the BBC.

 

A clear majority of children (85%) and teens (78%) plan to clear their schedule this weekend to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows "as soon as possible," while some 71% of adults aim to do the same, according to an ongoing poll of nearly 10,000 readers conducted by The Book Report Network. Respondents have included 4,807 children on Kidsreads.com, 3,912 teens on Teenreads.com and 1,206 adults on Bookreporter.com.

Among other findings: 12% of children said they would read HP7 in less than a day, 17% anticipated it would take two days, and 12% imagined one week. Some 14% of teens said they would read the book in less than a day, 13% a day and 18% in two days. Adults were a bit less optimistic, with 16% saying two days, 14% three days and 18% one week.

An impressive 60% of children indicated they are re-reading the entire series in anticipation of the new book, compared to 44% of teens and 29% of adults.

The big question, of course, is "Who will die?" Although children and teens include Harry in their top three, he ranks in the number five slot among adults. According to the Book Report, some adults have indicated they were too sad to think of his demise. Among children, 34% predicted the death of Voldemort, 16% Severus Snape and 14% Harry Potter; while 32% of teens responding condemned Voldemort, 17% Harry Potter and 12% Severus Snape. Adults opted for 30% Voldemort, 17% Severus Snape and 9% Draco Malfoy.

Nearly a third (32%) of the children said they will attend a "midnight madness" event or Harry Potter party, with another 36% considering the possibility. Among teens, 25% will attend and 35% are considering, while 17% of adult respondents said they will attend, with 19% considering.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was the favorite book in the series among children (27%) and teens (25%), while adults favored Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (20%).

The poll stays open until Friday, July 20, at 11:59 p.m. at Bookreporter.com, Teenreads.com and Kidsreads.com.

Barnes & Noble is opening a new store August 1 in Alamance Crossing at 3125 Waltham Boulevard, Burlington, N.C., between Durham and Greensboro.

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Ingram Publisher Services has added Eclipse Press, a division of Blood-Horse Publications, to its stable of client publishers. Eclipse Press, Lexington, Ky., publishes a range of books on horse health, training and riding to equine art, retrospectives of famous thoroughbred horses and biographies of people in racing history. The press has a backlist of more than 125 titles.

 

Today on NPR's World Café: Ashley Kahn, author of Kind of Blue (DaCapo, $16, 9780306815584/0306815583).

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Today on KCRW's Bookworm: Jonathan Lethem, author of You Don't Love Me Yet (Doubleday, $24.95, 9780385512183/038551218X). As the show describes it: "The pleasures of the lightweight and the free-spirited: Jonathan Lethem on the undiscovered bands; the well-attended, high-concept art events; and the fluky twenty- and thirty-somethings of Silverlake, L.A."

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Howard Gardner, author of Five Minds for the Future (Harvard Business School Press, $24.95, 9781591399124/1591399122).

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Tonight on the Colbert Report, a nice pairing: along with Michael Moore, whose new movie is Sicko, Frank Sulloway, author of the backlist title Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives (Vintage, $16.95, 9780679758761/0679758763).

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's website.

Saturday, July 21

11:30 a.m. Harlem Book Fair. Former Republican Congressman J.C. Watts, Jr., discusses the state of African American literacy. (Re-airs Sunday at 10 p.m.)

12 p.m. Harlem Book Fair. A conversation between historian and author Howard Zinn and author Walter Mosely on a history of America. (Re-airs Sunday at 10:30 p.m.)

1:30 p.m. Harlem Book Fair. A panel discussion, moderated by Elizabeth Nunez, on memoirs and remembrances; panelists include Charles Rangel, Dominic Carter, Gregory Williams, Yvonne Thornton and June Cross.

3 p.m. Harlem Book Fair. A panel discussion, moderated by Marie Umeh, on writing from an international perspective; panelists include Dale Butler; Yvette Christianse, Felicia Luna Lemus, Leslie Musoko and Judy Powell.

4:30 p.m. Harlem Book Fair. A panel discussion, moderated by Anthony Samad, on the politics of African American identity; panelists include C.D. Wright, Gloria Browne-Marshall, Paul Robeson, and Carol Lee.

6 p.m. Harlem Book Fair. A panel discussion, moderated by Tony Rose, on the evolution of grassroots political thought; panelists include Herb Boyd, Peniel Joseph, Yvonne Byone and Jill Nelson. (Re-airs Sunday at 11:45 p.m.)

8 p.m. Encore Booknotes. In a segment first aired in 1990, Peggy Noonan, author of What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era (Random House, $14.95, 9780812969894/0812969898), talked about her work as a speechwriter and special assistant to President Reagan from 1984 to 1986 as well as chief speechwriter for George H.W. Bush during his 1988 presidential campaign.

9 p.m. After Words. Washington Post associate editor Robert Kaiser interviews Larry Berman, author of Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An--Time Magazine Reporter & Vietnamese Communist Agent (Collins, $25.95, 9780060888381/0060888385). Berman recounts the life of journalist and North Vietnamese spy Pham Xuan, who traveled in the U.S. during the 1950s, using his study of journalism as a cover while collecting information. An later returned to Vietnam to report for Time magazine during the war but continued to send intelligence reports to the Viet Cong. (Re-airs Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.)

10 p.m. Clint Johnson, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the South (And Why It Will Rise Again) (Regnery, $19.95, 9781596985001/1596985003), argues that the South is better and more appealing than the North.

Sunday, July 22.

9 a.m. Associated Press reporters recall their coverage of major world events, as depicted in Breaking News: How the Associated Press Has Covered War, Peace, and Everything Else (Princeton Architectural Press, $35, 9781568986890/1568986890). (Re-airs Sunday at 4:30 p.m.)

10:30 a.m. In an event held at Cody's Books, Berkeley, Calif., Robert Bauman and Dina Rasor, authors of Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War (Palgrave Macmillan, $24.95, 9781403981929/1403981922), talk about the use of private contractors in Iraq and argue that the impact of privatization on the military has been negative.

12 p.m. Tom Bethell, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science (Regnery, $19.95, 9780895260314/089526031X), takes an alternative view on global warming, stem cell research, endangered species and AIDS in Africa. (Re-airs Sunday at 7 p.m.)

7:30 p.m. Christopher Horner, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism (Regnery, $19.95, 9781596985018/1596985011), argues that global warming is a scare tactic designed to increase governmental power and control.

Archer takes a clever premise--a group of stepdaughters who plot revenge on their evil stepmothers--and develops a funny, often poignant first novel. In alternating first-person chapters, the author introduces the 15-year-olds who, either due to the machinations of or repulsion by their new stepmothers, all wind up at the same Massachusetts boarding school. After Alice Bingley-Beckerman's famous novelist mother dies, her famous novelist-turned-playwright father is snagged by R. Klausenhook, Tony-winning diva with no room for a teen in her one-bedroom, Upper West Side apartment. Reena Paruchuri's one-time participation in a Beverly Hills yoga class forges the connection between her 53-year-old India-born heart surgeon father and the home-wrecking blonde, blue-eyed 25-year-old yoga instructor. Scholarship student Molly Miller (whose favorite book is the Oxford English Dictionary) sees the nearby boarding school as her ticket out of a household now run by a former prom queen. The false first-impressions the three teens form of one another fall away as they discover what they share in common and form the Poison Apples club. What sets the book apart from many in the boarding school genre is the underlying compassion these three retain, despite their new and uncertain circumstances. The adults here remain two-dimensional (why don't the fathers stand up for their girls?), but perhaps that's in the eyes of the beholders, too. As each teen sets out on her path to pay back her hateful stepmother, she reveals a maturity greater than the adults around her. Readers will hope for more from this likable trio--and this talented storyteller.--Jennifer M. Brown

 

It is the eve of our last trip to Hogwarts.

Can you think back to that very first time?
The discovery that we are all merely Muggles?
That first taste of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans,
Strawberry, curry, coffee and sardine?
Harry's maiden ride on the Nimbus Two Thousand,
And his victorious capture of the Snitch in Quidditch?
Wasn't it all a wonderful surprise?

For Harry it's been seven years,
For us, nearly nine.
The children themselves championed Harry Potter
And the Philosopher's-turned-Sorcerer's Stone in the fall of 1998.
Impatient readers ordered the sequels from Amazon UK.
Their infectious enthusiasm precipitated
A global [English-language] release date for the Goblet of Fire.
Generations read the books aloud together,
Stood in midnight lines together,
Filled movie theaters to capacity,
And witnessed Richard Harris's departure
Before it was beloved Dumbledore's time to go.
And, as Harry broke all records for sales and first printings,
The children prompted the birth of their own New York Times bestseller list.

The children grew up with Harry,
In a trailblazing series that literally matured with its hero.
Laura may have grown up in the woods of Wisconsin,
And on the shores of Silver Lake,
But, in the Order of the Phoenix, we suffered through Harry's adolescence,
Excruciating for its perfect resonance with our own.
When the insidious, unidentifiable threat of terrorism invaded our shores,
Voldemort was a knowable villain.
Evil had a face, and Harry had faced him down--
With a scar on his forehead to prove it.
What more heartening message
Could one give a child?

So, as we stand on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters,
Awaiting the last train to Hogwarts,
We taste the same bittersweetness
That those seniors must taste.
Excited, but a little sad, to graduate from a place
We've embraced as part of our own community.
And though we will bid farewell to Harry, Hermione and Ron
On the final page (one or two of them perhaps sooner),
They await our return at every rereading.

Millions of children grew up with Harry,
And whether they go back to their video games,
Or go on to be lawyers or teachers,
Writers or booksellers,
Their lives have been touched by magic.

They won't forget Harry.
And neither will we.--Jennifer M. Brown