Herewith are more Harry Potter tidbits, which include some interesting
partnerships between stores and institutions. But first a security
breach story:
The first sale of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince took place late last week in Coquitlam, B.C., when a branch of Real Canadian Superstore, a grocery store chain, inadvertently sold as many as 15 copies of the book, a clerk's mistake, the company said.
Canadian publisher Raincoast Books responded with a carrot and a stick. For buyers of the book who temporarily return copies, it is offering plates signed by J.K. Rowling and "some gift items." At the same time, in a new kind of legal theory that might be called muggle muzzle, it obtained a court injunction barring anyone from discussing the book.
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The Milwaukee Public Library's Central Library will hold a late-night party Friday with the usual activities, including a showing of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. At midnight 300 copies of the new Harry Potter will be available for checkout. For those who want to own the book or are late in line, the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops will sell copies.
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The San Jose Museum of Art in San Jose, Calif., will hold a Saturday morning Potter party for which Borders Express will provide books. (Members can arrive as early as 7 a.m.; non-members must wait until 8 a.m.)
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Talk about a last hurrah. Although it closed for good over the past weekend, Branch's Bookshop, Chapel Hill, N.C., will nonetheless stage its long-planned Harry Potter party--at Cerebral Hobbies, a nearby store whose manager told the Durham Herald Sun, "They needed a location because they had a lot of people who had pre-bought the book."
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In the U.K., pricing competition has gotten so unmagical that supermarket chains Tesco and Wal-Mart subsidiary Asda have discounted the book 47.3% to 8.96 pounds. (The suggested list price is 16.99 pounds.) Woolworth and Amazon.com.uk are discounting the title 47.1% at 8.99 pounds.
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Once Harry Potter goes on sale in Australia (at 9:01 a.m. local time Saturday), a Brisbane FM radio station will broadcast a reading of the book in its entirety. Celebrities, locals and Potter fans will take turns reading 10-minute passages of the book from in front of a Borders.
The station received permission to do the reading from the Christopher Little agency, which required that the reading be continuous, for nonprofit use and not recorded.
The first sale of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince took place late last week in Coquitlam, B.C., when a branch of Real Canadian Superstore, a grocery store chain, inadvertently sold as many as 15 copies of the book, a clerk's mistake, the company said.
Canadian publisher Raincoast Books responded with a carrot and a stick. For buyers of the book who temporarily return copies, it is offering plates signed by J.K. Rowling and "some gift items." At the same time, in a new kind of legal theory that might be called muggle muzzle, it obtained a court injunction barring anyone from discussing the book.
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The Milwaukee Public Library's Central Library will hold a late-night party Friday with the usual activities, including a showing of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. At midnight 300 copies of the new Harry Potter will be available for checkout. For those who want to own the book or are late in line, the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops will sell copies.
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The San Jose Museum of Art in San Jose, Calif., will hold a Saturday morning Potter party for which Borders Express will provide books. (Members can arrive as early as 7 a.m.; non-members must wait until 8 a.m.)
---
Talk about a last hurrah. Although it closed for good over the past weekend, Branch's Bookshop, Chapel Hill, N.C., will nonetheless stage its long-planned Harry Potter party--at Cerebral Hobbies, a nearby store whose manager told the Durham Herald Sun, "They needed a location because they had a lot of people who had pre-bought the book."
---
In the U.K., pricing competition has gotten so unmagical that supermarket chains Tesco and Wal-Mart subsidiary Asda have discounted the book 47.3% to 8.96 pounds. (The suggested list price is 16.99 pounds.) Woolworth and Amazon.com.uk are discounting the title 47.1% at 8.99 pounds.
---
Once Harry Potter goes on sale in Australia (at 9:01 a.m. local time Saturday), a Brisbane FM radio station will broadcast a reading of the book in its entirety. Celebrities, locals and Potter fans will take turns reading 10-minute passages of the book from in front of a Borders.
The station received permission to do the reading from the Christopher Little agency, which required that the reading be continuous, for nonprofit use and not recorded.