A Taiwanese online bookselling Web site yesterday began taking advance orders for the last book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, scheduled to go on sale in July.
The site, books.com.tw (博客來), is taking bookings for eight different editions of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- the seventh instalment of the wildly popular series.
More than 100,000 advance orders -- a record -- have already been registered on Britain's amazon.co.uk Web site.
Amazon.co.uk began taking bookings in late December after the title was announced.
The first 1,000 online buyers in Taiwan will each receive a special gift and a discount for the book, the Web site said.
The reduced price for a British children's edition is NT$799 (US$23), down from the regular price of NT$1,169.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the final book in the Harry Potter series.
Rowling and her publisher, Bloomsbury, announced earlier this month that the long-awaited book would go on sale worldwide on July 21.
But since Taiwan is several hours ahead of Europe and 12 hours ahead of the US, Canada and Latin America, Taiwanese readers will get hold of the final Harry Potter book a few hours earlier than readers in many countries, the online bookstore said.
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