Category: Books

Anticipated Beatles Bio Comes Out Tuesday
NEW YORK – Ten hours, 28 minutes. That was the sum of the music recorded and released by the Beatles before breaking up, a volume of work that changed lives, careers and the course of music history. Eight years, 2,792 pages. That was the effort author Bob Spitz put into telling their story, although editors whittled his manuscript down to 856 pages (minus the end notes).
“The Beatles: The Biography,” available Nov. 1, is a compulsively readable history that brings the same exhaustive level of scholarship to the Fab Four that Robert Caro brought to Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson.
“The Beatles’ story is all of our stories,” says Spitz, 55, a manager for Bruce Springsteen and others before turning to writing. “It is about how the youth culture emerged, the drug culture emerged, how politics rose to the fore as a universal debate. It’s about rebellion, it’s about the growth of the British entertainment system, the growth of the rock ‘n’ roll entertainment system.
“The Beatles changed music forever. They took rock ‘n’ roll from a medium that was about cars and girls and gave it context, interesting chord changes and true musicianship.”
Get the idea he’s passionate about the subject?
Spitz lived it, writing six days a week for six years, spending six months in Liverpool and retracing the Beatles’ steps. He could practically smell the stale cigarette smoke from the old clubs, and even ordered the band’s favorite scotch and Coke drinks just to taste what they had tasted.
It almost makes up for the school yard beating that a teenage Spitz suffered for suggesting that the Beatles were no-talent bums who wouldn’t last; he was an avid Bob Dylan fan at the time.
He feels differently now. But his love and respect for the Beatles doesn’t blind him as a writer; he draws a complete portrait of brilliant musicians who were human after all. Several initial reviews have been positive, and his publisher’s first printing of nearly 200,000 copies is considered a positive sign of the biography’s potential.
The New York Times’ Janet Maslin called it a “consolidating and newly illuminating work. For the right reader, that combination is irresistible.”
“As with all great history writing, Spitz both captures a moment in time and humanizes his subjects,” wrote Publishers Weekly. “While some will blanch at the unsettling dark sides of the Beatles, most will come to appreciate the band even more for knowing the incredible personal odysseys they endured.”
Spitz’s biography is one of four Beatles-related books in the stores this fall, including one each by both of John Lennon’s wives.
“I get a new Beatles book submitted almost every month, and sales are varied,” said Kim Corradini, a buyer for Barnes & Noble Booksellers. “Books that offer something new √≥ new revelations, new photos, an insider’s view √≥ do much better than those that are just rehashings.”
The project was daunting for more reasons than just the effort it entailed. There have been more Beatles books published than there are actual Beatles songs, and most fans have heard the same stories many times over.
Spitz, who has written biographies of Dylan and Bob Marley, was assigned by The New York Times Magazine to write a story about Paul McCartney in 1996. At the time, McCartney was working on the Beatles’ anthology project and told Spitz “they might as well call it the mythology, as only about 50 percent of it was true.”
Lennon, McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr agreed on their version of the Beatles’ story, a mix of truth and legend, and it formed the basis of what Spitz considers the band’s only other serious biography, written by Hunter Davies four decades ago. Some of the stories were told so often that the lines between truth and fiction had even blurred for the surviving Beatles.
Spitz set out to make the record straight.
“I interviewed 650 people on this,” he says. “I approached this book as if nobody had ever written a biography on the Beatles.”
McCartney cooperated, and so did Harrison before his death in 2001. Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono did not, and neither did Starr or Neil Aspinall, who used to drive the Beatles to gigs in Liverpool and now runs their business empire.
Almost more important than his recollections was McCartney quietly putting the word out to dozens of former associates, many of whom had never spoken publicly about their roles, that it was OK to speak to Spitz. Spitz also tracked down new sources. In western Canada he found Dot Rohne, who nearly married McCartney and miscarried his baby before being dumped as the Beatles were on the cusp of making it big.
Spitz so doggedly traces the band’s family history, and depicts postwar Liverpool, that Lennon doesn’t meet McCartney until page 95 of his book.
“My book is not a book of dirty stories,” Spitz says. “There are no shocking revelations. I wasn’t looking for any and I didn’t find any.”
Still, there are sublime details and myth-busters that good fans will enjoy, like producer George Martin leaving the recording of “Love Me Do” to an underling while he had a lunch date with his secretary.
One much-repeated story is that future manager Brian Epstein first heard of the Beatles when a customer at his record store requested their recording of “My Bonnie” from Hamburg, Germany. In truth, he was already well aware of them √≥ their posters hung in his store and Epstein, who was gay, secretly liked their rough-boys-in-leather image.
Spitz opens with a detailed scene from Dec. 27, 1960, a Liverpool performance where the Beatles’ improvement after a lengthy residence in Germany so startled and thrilled their hometown audience that it presaged the impact they would have on the world three years later. Spitz even reports the brand of popular hairspray whose scent lingered in the air.
He was struck by the extraordinary tight bond the four men created, personally and musically. Even during their unpleasant breakup, they still loved each other, he says. Spitz believes the split was less because of the influence of Ono than the fact that Lennon and Harrison couldn’t stand to be in the room with McCartney anymore.
The flip side is how completely, even ruthlessly, the four men would freeze out anyone they no longer had use for, as drummer Pete Best most famously found out.
The project was an intense time in Spitz’s life. He and his wife have split and he says his daughter thinks dad has a mop tops obsession.
“It turned my life inside out,” he says. “Yet I must say it was the most incredible and pleasurable experience I ever had.”
Spitz is involved in one more Beatles-related project: writing a version of his biography for young readers.
“It’s sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll,” he says, “without the sex and drugs.”

‘Calvin and Hobbes’ Creator Keeps Privacy
CHAGRIN FALLS, Ohio – Maybe someday, officials will put up a statue marking this quaint village as the birthplace of “Calvin and Hobbes.”
Just don’t expect cartoonist Bill Watterson to attend the unveiling ceremony. It’s been nearly 10 years since he abruptly quit drawing one of the most popular comic strips of all time. Since then, he’s been as absent as the precocious Calvin and his pet tiger, err, stuffed animal, Hobbes.
Some call Watterson reclusive. Others say he just likes his privacy.
“He’s an introspective person,” says his mother, Kathryn, standing at the front door her home, its yard covered by a tidy tangle of black-eyed Susans and other wildflowers. It’s where Watterson grew up. Calvin lived there too, so to speak. Watterson used the well-kept, beige Cape Cod-style house as the model for Calvin’s home.
You might even expect Calvin to come bounding out the door with Hobbes in tow, the screen door banging behind them. After all, the guy on the front porch kind of resembles Calvin’s dad. Readers will remember him as the exasperated patent attorney who enjoyed gummy oatmeal and jogging in 20-degree weather.
Sure enough, Watterson’s father, Jim, has a sheen of sweat on his neck, not from a run but from the 73-year-old’s three-mile morning walk.
Watterson has acknowledged satirizing his father, who is now a semiretired patent attorney, in the strip. Jim Watterson says whenever Calvin’s dad told him that something he didn’t want to do “builds character,” they were words he had spoken to his cartoonist son.
After “Calvin and Hobbes” ended, Jim Watterson and his son would paint landscapes together, setting up easels along the Chagrin River or other vistas. He laughed that sometimes they’d spend more time choosing a site than painting. But they haven’t painted together for years.
So what’s Watterson been up to since ending “Calvin and Hobbes?” It’s tough to say.
His parents will say only that he’s happy, but they won’t say where he lives, and the cartoonist could not be reached for an interview.
His former editor, Lee Salem, also remains mum, saying only that as a painter Watterson started with watercolors and has evolved to oils.
“He’s in a financial position where he doesn’t need to meet the deadlines anymore,” Salem says.
Watterson’s parents respect √≥ but have no explanation for √≥ their son’s extremely private nature. It doesn’t run in the family. Kathryn is a former village councilwoman and Jim is seeking his fourth council term this fall. Their other son, Tom, is a high school teacher in Austin, Texas.
Bill Watterson, 47, hasn’t made a public appearance since he delivered the commencement speech in 1990 at his alma mater, Kenyon College. But he recently welcomed some written questions from fans to promote the Oct. 4 release of the three-volume “The Complete Calvin and Hobbes,” which contains every one of the 3,160 strips printed during its 10-year run.
Among his revelations:
√Ø He reads newspaper comics, but doesn’t consider this their golden age.
√Ø He’s never attended any church.
√Ø He’s currently interested in art from the 1600s.
Salem, who edited thousands of “Calvin and Hobbes” strips at Universal Press Syndicate, says that Watterson is private and media shy, not a recluse. Salem didn’t want to see the strip end, but understood Watterson’s decision.
“He came to a point where he thought he had no more to give to the characters,” Salem says.
“Calvin and Hobbes” appeared in more than 2,400 newspapers during its run, one of the few strips to reach an audience that large.
Its success was rooted in the freshness of Calvin ó an imaginative 6-year-old who has the immaturity of a child and the psychological complexity of a 40-year-old. As for Hobbes, the device of Calvin viewing him as alive and everybody else seeing him as a stuffed animal was simply brilliant, Salem says.
Their all-encompassing bond of friendship √≥ being able to share joy and have fun together, yet get angry and frustrated with one another √≥ was another reason for the strip’s success.
Universal would welcome Watterson back along with “Calvin and Hobbes” or any other characters he dreams up. “He knows the door’s open and he knows where we are,” Salem says.
There are few signs of Watterson or “Calvin and Hobbes” in Chagrin Falls, a town of 4,000 that has evolved from a manufacturing hub centered on its namesake falls to an upscale area of stately homes and giant maple trees.
A Godzilla-sized Calvin is depicted wreaking havoc on Chagrin Falls on the back cover of “The Essential Calvin and Hobbes,” released in 1988. He’s carrying off the Popcorn Shop, where sweet smells have flowed from its spot on the falls for about 100 years.
Fireside Book Shop, located just out of earshot of the water’s roar, carries 15 different “Calvin and Hobbes” books √≥ customers used to be able to find autographed copies. Store employee Lynn Mathews says Watterson’s mother used to deliver the signed copies to raise money for charity or just to help the book shop. That ended when the cartoonist discovered that some ended up on eBay, she said.
The demand remains, though.
“I get a couple e-mails a month from people looking for signed books,” said Jean Butler, Fireside’s officer manager.
Watterson and his wife, Melissa, moved earlier this year from their home in the village ó a century house on a hill between downtown and the high school, where the mascot is a tiger.
As a child, Watterson knew he would be an astronaut or a cartoonist. “I kept my options open until seventh grade, but when I stopped understanding math and science, my choice was made,” he wrote in the introduction to “The Complete Calvin and Hobbes.”
He loved “Peanuts” as a child and started drawing comics. He majored in political science at Kenyon. Thinking he could blend the two subjects, he became a political cartoonist but was fired from his first job at the Cincinnati Post after a few months. So he took a job designing car and grocery ads, but continued cartooning, even though several strip ideas were rejected.
But Universal liked “Calvin and Hobbes” and launched its run Nov. 18, 1985, in 35 newspapers. Calvin caught Hobbes in a tiger trap with a tuna sandwich in the first strip. He spent the next 10 years driving his parents crazy, annoying his crush, Susie Derkins, and playing make-believe as his alter egos Spaceman Spiff and Stupendous Man.
Many of the best moments, though, were time spent alone with his pal, Hobbes.
“The end of summer is always hard on me, trying to cram in all the goofing off I’ve been meaning to do,” Calvin tells Hobbes in an Aug. 24, 1987 strip, the two sitting beneath a tree.
Watterson ended the strip on Dec. 31, 1995, with a statement: “I believe I’ve done what I can do within the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels. I am eager to work at a more thoughtful pace, with fewer artistic compromises.”
The last strip shows Calvin and Hobbes sledding off after a new fallen snow. “It’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy … let’s go exploring!” Calvin says in the final two panels.
Fans cried out in letters for Watterson to change his mind. Some, like Watterson’s parents, say the funny pages haven’t been the same since.
“It was like getting a letter from home,” Jim Watterson says of reading his son’s work each morning.
People continue to ask the Wattersons if their son will ever send Calvin and his buddy Hobbes on new adventures.
“He might draw something else, but he won’t do that again,” Kathryn Watterson says.

A transmogrified ‘Calvin and Hobbes’
In the final Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, Calvin and his buddy Hobbes are tobogganing after a fresh snowfall. Calvin’s parting line: “It’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy … Let’s go exploring!”
And now for the good news: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel, $150) went on sale this week. It’s three volumes, weighs 23 pounds and has every single cartoon in the series.
Watterson, 47, writes in the introduction that since ending the comic strip, he is putting his energy “into painting and a similarly remedial study of music.”
Long ago, Watterson established that he valued his privacy. He still doesn’t give interviews. And unless it’s contraband, his characters can’t be found on coffee mugs or T-shirts. Several years into his comic strip, after a syndication struggle, he won the right to refuse to license Calvin and Hobbes.
“I didn’t think greeting cards, T-shirts or plush dolls fit with the spirit or the message of my comic strip,” he writes.
The comic strip, which is considered one of the all-time greats, ran from Nov. 18, 1985, to Dec. 31, 1995, in about 2,500 newspapers worldwide.
The stars were the maniacal 6-year-old Calvin and his buddy Hobbes, a stuffed tiger that came to life when adults vanished and Calvin was present. In supporting roles: Mom and Dad, babysitter Rosalyn (the only semi-adult Calvin feared), teacher Miss Wormwood (named after the devil’s apprentice in C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters), a bully named Moe and a little girl named Susie.
A typical snippet: The 8:30 a.m. Calvin greets the 6:30 a.m. Calvin, wanting to know whether his earlier self did the homework.
Calvin gave open rein to his imagination ó hallucinations might be a better word ó as Spaceman Spiff, for instance. Above all, he was devoted to playing, procrastination, Saturday mornings and Hobbes, his more thoughtful counterpart.

Winegardner Writing New ‘Godfather’ Book
NEW YORK – Welcome back, Corleones.
Mark Winegardner, who wrote the 2004 best seller, “The Godfather Returns,” which was authorized by the late Mario Puzo’s estate, is now working on a novel that works in the assassination of President Kennedy.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Group USA, expects to publish “The Godfather’s Revenge” next year.
“It’s staggering to contemplate the legacy of `The Godfather’ films and novels,” Putnam executive editor Dan Conaway said Tuesday in a statement.
“It’s fitting, then, that `The Godfather’s Revenge’ overlays the resonant mythology of the Corleone family onto the most vexing real-life mystery of our age, with a story line that explores the role organized crime may have had in the assassination of a charismatic young President.”
Winegardner, whose other books include “Crooked River Burning” and “The Veracruz Blues,” joined the Corleone’ franchise by winning a nationwide contest co-sponsored by Random House, Inc., and Puzo’s estate for a new “Godfather” writer.

Potter Novels Available for Downloads
NEW YORK – Break out your iPods: Harry Potter is going digital. J.K. Rowling, once publishing’s greatest holdout against the computer age, has made all six Potter novels available for audio downloads.
In a message posted Wednesday on her Web site, Rowling said she was concerned about online piracy, included bootleg editions for which the original text was altered.
“Many Harry Potter fans have been keen for digital access for a while, but the deciding factor for me in authorizing this new version is that it will help combat the growing incidents of piracy in this area,” Rowling wrote.
“There have been a number of incidents where fans have stumbled upon unauthorized files believing them to be genuine and, quite apart from the fact that they are illegal, the Harry Potter content of these can bear very little resemblance to anything I’ve ever written!”
The digital audiobooks are being released by the Random House Audio Trade Group, her current audio publisher. They can be purchased through Apple’s iTunes store, for prices ranging from $32.95 for a single book to $249 for the whole series, which, according to Random House, includes a “full color digital booklet” and “previously unreleased readings” by Rowling.
Neil Blair, a lawyer with Rowling’s literary agency, said Wednesday that there are no current plans for Potter e-books.
Rowling’s fantasy series, most recently “Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince,” has sold more than 200 copies worldwide in print editions and more than 5 million as audiobooks, narrated by Grammy winner Jim Dale. But up to now the author had only permitted paper and traditional audio releases, making her work a favorite for online pirates, although illegal sales are believed to be relatively tiny.
Helped by the iPod boom, digital audiobooks are already one of publishing’s hottest sectors, with sales nearly quadrupling between 2001 and 2003, to more than $18 million, according to the Audio Publishers Association.
“It’s very exciting that an audiobook both critically acclaimed and commercially successful is finally available to the very broad audience of people who enjoy downloading,” says association president Mary Beth Roche.
Also Wednesday, Rowling said on her Web site that she was concerned by a wave of Potter merchandise with fake autographs for sale on eBay.
“As far as I could tell on the day I dropped in, only one of the signatures on offer appeared genuine,” she wrote.
“There seem to be a lot of people out there trying to con Harry Potter fans. The same is true in respect to the huge number of unauthorized Harry Potter e-books and audio digital files that users of eBay have offered for sale to Harry Potter fans,” wrote Rowling, who accused eBay of refusing to take responsibility for what it allows to be sold.
eBay spokesman Hani Durzi said Wednesday that Rowling is part of a copyright protection program offered by the online auction giant that allows members to report problems. Durzi estimates that eBay has 55 million listings at any given time and says that “it’s the responsibility of the copyright owner to report any listings that violate their rights.”
“When they do, we take those listings down immediately,” he said.

Highlights of Fall Books Releases
Fiction
“An Atomic Romance” (Random House), Bobbie Ann Mason’s novel is set in a uranium enrichment plant.
“Christ the Lord” (Alfred A. Knopf), Anne Rice leaves vampires behind for this story of the young Jesus.
“The Diviners” (Little, Brown), “Ice Storm” author Rick Moody sets his new book during the 2000 presidential election.
“Get a Life” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a South African ecologist ill with cancer is the main character in Nadine Gordimer’s new novel.
“Goodnight Nobody” (Atria), Jennifer Weiner’s story of a young mother in a Connecticut town.
“The Lighthouse” (Alfred A. Knopf), the latest mystery from P.D. James.
“Lipstick” (Hyperion), “Sex and the City” writer Candace Bushnell offer more urban tales.
“The March” (Random House), E.L. Doctorow’s fictionalized version of General Sherman’s advance through the South during the Civil War.
“Memories of My Melancholy Whores” (Alfred A. Knopf), Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short novel, translated from the Spanish text, tells of an old man’s night with a virgin.
“Ordinary Heroes” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), courtroom master Scott Turow looks into the past of a World War II veteran.
“The Painted Drum” (HarperCollins), Louise Erdrich’s novel follows the history of a painted drum.
“Predator” (Putnam), Patricia Cornwell’s latest Kay Scarpetta mystery.
“S Is for Silence” (Putnam), Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone is back on the job.
“Saving Fish From Drowning” (Putnam), Amy Tan’s story of American tourists in Burma.
“Shalimar the Clown” (Random House), a parable about terrorism and religious warfare from “Satanic Verses” author Salman Rushdie.
“Slow Man” (Viking), J.M. Coetzee’s novel features a photographer who loses his leg in a bicycle accident.
“Son of a Witch” (Regan), Gregory Maguire’s sequel to “Wicked,” the basis for the Broadway musical.
“Vita” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), Melania G. Mazzucco’s story of Italian immigrants in New York.
“Wickett’s Remedy” (Doubleday), Myla Goldberg’s new novel is set during the 1918 influenza epidemic.
“The Widow of the South” (Warner), Robert Hicks’ debut is a Civil War novel.
Nonfiction
“Bait and Switch” (Henry Holt), Barbara Ehrenreich takes on the white collar job market.
“The Beatles” (Little, Brown), an 800-plus page biography by Bob Spitz, based on hundreds of interviews.
“The City of Falling Angels (Penguin Press), John Berendt, who immortalized Savannah, Ga., in “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” attempts the same for Venice, Italy.
“Dean and Me” (Doubleday), Jerry Lewis remembers his old partner, Dean Martin.
“Here’s Johnny” (Rutledge Hill Press), sidekick Ed McMahon remembers talk-show king Johnny Carson.
“Julie and Julia” (Little, Brown), Julie Powell’s adventures with the recipes of Julia Child.
“The Lost Painting” (Random House), Jonathan Harr, author of “A Civil Action,” seeks out a lost Caravaggio painting.
“Memories of John Lennon” (Harper Entertainment), reflections from Yoko Ono upon the 25th anniversary of her husband’s murder.
“Mirror to America” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), the memoir by historian and civil rights advocate John Hope Franklin.
“My Detachment” (Random House), Tracy Kidder, a Vietnam War memoir from the author of “Soul of a New Machine.”
“Team of Rivals” (Simon & Schuster), Doris Kearns Goodwin’s biography of Abraham Lincoln.
“The Tender Bar” (Hyperion), J.R. Moehringer’s memoir about coming age in a saloon.
“The Truth (With Jokes)” (Dutton), Al Franken serves it up, again, from the left.
“Mark Twain” (Free Press), a 800-page biography by Ron Powers.
“The Year of Magical Thinking” (Alfred A. Knopf), Joan Didion reflects on the death of her husband, author John Gregory Dunne.

Teri Hatcher to offer lessons in book
NEW YORK (AP) ó Desperate Housewives star Teri Hatcher will serve up life lessons in Burnt Toast, a book of advice and inspiration Hyperion plans to publish in the spring of 2006.
“I have had many women approach me, sharing their own stories, and ask me how it feels to have a second chance at 40,” Hatcher said in a statement released Tuesday by Hyperion. “With this book, I truly hope to reach everyone that I don’t bump into on the street and share my story.”
Hatcher, 40, won a Golden Globe in January and recently received an Emmy nomination for her role as single mom Susan Mayer in Desperate Housewives, a dark satire about suburbia that became a hit in its debut season on ABC.
Hatcher’s film credits include Soapdish,Tomorrow Never Dies and Spy Kids.

‘Half-Blood Prince’ is a full-on smash
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince blasts to the top of USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list Thursday, the fifth consecutive No. 1 debut for author J.K. Rowling. First-weekend sales of the book, the sixth in the series, were 23% higher than sales of 2003’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, according to the list. A deluxe edition enters the list at No. 3.
U.S. Publisher Scholastic says 6.9 million copies sold in the first 24 hours and 13.5 million are in print.
The buzz over Half-Blood Prince pushed the series’ first five books back into the list’s top 50 and lifted sales of Harry Potter Schoolbooks and a box set of the first five books into the top 150. But there are indications Potter-mania is reaching saturation. Sales of the Potter back catalog tracked by the list were 41% lower than two years ago, when Phoenix went on sale.

Potter sales tallied, author dreads day it’s over
LONDON (Reuters) – Bookstores around the world tallied sales of the sixth Harry Potter installment on Sunday, but after the eagerly awaited global launch over the weekend, the magic was wearing off for some.
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” is expected to be the fastest-selling book in history, with British retailer Waterstone’s forecasting that 10 million copies would have been snapped up worldwide during the first 24 hours of trade.
The early feedback was bullish. British book chain WH Smith reported first-hour sales of 13 books per second across the 391 shops it opened in the early hours of Saturday, compared with eight per second for the fifth Harry Potter adventure.
In the United States, the largest bookseller, Barnes & Noble Inc., said it sold 1.3 million copies in the first 48 hours. In the first hour, the bookstore chain said it sold 379,000 copies or 105 copies per second.
Borders Group, headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said it sold more than 850,000 copies in the first 24 hours. Meanwhile, online bookseller Amazon.com reported that customers had ordered more than 1.5 million copies.
The launch, at one minute past midnight British time on Saturday, ended months of hype and elaborate steps to protect the contents of the penultimate chapter in the seven-story saga.
Children poured into book shops across the globe, dressed as witches, wizards and other favorite Harry Potter characters.
Underlining the anticipation surrounding the book, instant reviews appeared on the Internet within hours of the release, most of them favorable.
Young readers picked up on the darkness of the plot.
“With its dramatic, violent conclusion, this book is by far the darkest and unsettling HP yet,” wrote 12-year-old Indigo Ellis in the Sunday Telegraph. “Maybe it will leave a few more seven-year-olds in tears. But it also makes it the best so far.”
A sizeable minority of older readers, however, was less than impressed by the 607-page work.
“It’s wordy, flabby and not very well edited — perhaps a bit less inventive than previous ones,” wrote Suzi Feay, literary editor of Britain’s The Independent on Sunday. “We could have done with some better gags.”
AUTHOR “DREADING” DAY IT’S OVER
Author J.K. Rowling, 39, said she had already finished the final chapter of the last book in the series.
Fourteen-year-old Owen Jones, who won a competition to hold a rare interview with the writer, asked Rowling if she was looking forward to completing the Harry Potter series.
“I’m dreading it in some ways, because I do love writing the books and it’s going to be a profound shock to me, even though I’ve known it’s coming for the past 15 years,” she said in a televised interview.
Eyeing the huge marketing opportunity, publishers issued two hardback versions of the book on Saturday, one for adults and another for children.
Supermarkets, Internet stores and book shops engaged in a fierce round of discounting, with one British outlet offering the book to young buyers for 4.99 pounds ($8.80), less than one third of the recommended retail price.
Rowling has been credited with winning over a new generation of young readers. British newspapers predict that her fortune, already estimated at $1 billion, was set to grow by 20 to 25 million pounds as a result of the first-day sales alone.
The plot of the latest episode was shrouded in secrecy. When a handful of copies were sold before the deadline in Canada, purchasers were ordered not to disclose its contents, and, according to media reports, even to read it.
Rowling defended the security surrounding the launch.
“I find it upsetting and disquieting that some elements are so keen on spoilers because it seems such a mean-spirited thing to do,” she said. “This isn’t about money or anything other than the pleasure of reading.”
Some sought to put the Harry Potter phenomenon into perspective.
“Oh for a timely spell of reality,” Roland White wrote in the Sunday Times.
“Let’s keep things in perspective. Until Friday, the Harry Potter series had sold about 270 million copies worldwide. Which is considerably less than the one billion shifted by the late, rather unfashionable, Barbara Cartland.”

Gag order issued over ‘Potter’ leak
COQUITLAM, British Columbia (AP) — A handful of people in Canada got a sneak peak of the latest Harry Potter book, but a British Columbia Supreme Court judge ordered them to keep it a secret.
The book was sold to 14 people who snagged a copy of J.K. Rowlings’ much anticipated “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” when it landed on shelves last Thursday at a local grocery store.
The book, officially set for release this coming Saturday, has been shrouded in secrecy and its debut has been highly orchestrated to enable everyone — readers, reviewers, even publishers — to crack it open all at once. It’s the sixth in Rowling’s seven-book fantasy series on the young wizard.
But the store slipped up and sold 14 copies before realizing its mistake.
“It was an inadvertent error on behalf of one of our staff,” said Geoff Wilson, a spokesman for the Real Canadian Superstore. He said the books were quickly removed.
Justice Kristi Gill last Saturday ordered customers not to talk about the book, copy it, sell it or even read it before it is officially released at 12:01 a.m. July 16.
The order also compels them to return the novel to the publisher, Raincoast Book Distribution Ltd., until the official release. At that time it will be returned to them.
As an added incentive, Raincoast will include Rowling’s autograph and a gift pack.