Thousands of would-be sorcerers and ordinary, non-magical Muggles lined up outside bookstores from Sydney to Seattle yesterday, eager to get their hands on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final volume in the boy wizard's saga.
In a now-familiar ritual that is part sales frenzy and part Halloween party, bookstores across Britain were flinging open their doors at a minute past midnight. Shops in Singapore and Australia were putting the book on sale at the same time; the US was to follow from midnight EDT.
Harry's creator, J.K. Rowling, was giving a midnight reading to 500 competition-winning children in the grand Victorian surroundings of London's Natural History Museum.
PHOTO: AP
Book stores across Australia were scheduled to host wizards, fire-breathers, jugglers, owls and snakes to celebrate the countdown to the novel's release, with several even organizing Hogwarts Express-style train trips.
Stores in Taiwan and India were laying on "magic breakfasts" for early customers.
In Bangladesh, where Friday is a holiday, customs offices were staying open specially to ensure fans got their delivery of the book on time, while in Thailand, the British ambassador was planning an early start to hand over the first copy of the book.
Workers at the Kinokuniya bookstore in Singapore were to dress up to hand out free drinks and specially printed bookmarks to Harry Potter fans, while staff at Dymocks' Hong Kong stores were planning to tour the city dressed as wizards.
Asia Books set up an outdoor movie screen in front of Bangkok's posh Emporium shopping complex where they will show the Harry Potter movies through the night.
For many of the keenest fans, the place to be was Waterstone's bookstore on Piccadilly in central London, a traditional hub of Pottermania.
An assortment of wizards, witches and at least one house elf, from as far afield as Finland and the US, staked out their places on the sidewalk -- in some cases days -- before the midnight opening.
Some of those in line passed the time by jotting predictions for the final novel in notebooks, while others encouraged passing drivers to "Honk for Harry."
"This is the biggest Harry Potter party in Europe, so it's worth the wait," said Laura Halinen, 23, from Kuusankoski, Finland.
Deathly Hallows is the last book in a series that began a decade ago with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the story of an orphaned boy who learns on his 11th birthday that he is a wizard. Since then, Rowling's books have sold 325 million copies in 64 languages, and the launch of each new volume has become a Hollywood-scale extravaganza.
Deathly Hallows has a print run of 12 million in the US alone, and Internet retailer Amazon says it has taken more than 2 million orders for the book.
Britain's Royal Mail says it will deliver 600,000 copies today -- one for every 43 households in the country.
Security has been tight, with books shipped in sealed pallets and legal contracts binding stores not to sell the book before the midnight release time.
Nonetheless, spoilers have sprouted on the Internet, including photographed images of what appeared to be all 700-plus pages of the book's US edition.
Publishers, however, refused to say whether the leaked pages were genuine.
Bloomsbury, the book's British imprint, said only that they were "unauthenticated."
As many as 1,200 copies were shipped early in the US by an online retailer, and the New York Times and the Baltimore Sun published reviews of the book earlier this week.
Rowlin, however, said she was "staggered" by the embargo-busting reviews.
"I am incredibly grateful to all those newspapers, booksellers and others who have chosen not to attempt to spoil Harry's last adventure for fans," she said.
New York Times book editor Rick Lyman defended the newspaper's decision to run its review before publication.
"Our feeling is that once a book is offered up for sale at any public, retail outlet, and we purchase a copy legally and openly, we are free to review it," a spokeswoman said.
In the Times review, writer Michiko Kakutani gives away some plot details, including roughly how many characters die and what "deathly hallows" means, but does not leak the big secrets.
Potter publishers will take comfort from the fact that the majority of fans do not know what happens in book seven, and do not want to until they get their hands on a copy on what has been dubbed in the media as "P-Day."
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of