Don Quixote is the world’s best book say the world’s top authors.
Don Quixote, the tale of a Spanish knight driven mad by reading too many chivalric romances, was yesterday voted the best book of all time in a survey of around 100 of the world’s best authors.
“If there is one novel you should read before you die, it is Don Quixote,” the Nigerian author Ben Okri said at the Norwegian Nobel Institute as he announced the results of history’s most expansive authors’ poll. “Don Quixote has the most wonderful and elaborated story, yet it is simple.”
Around 100 well-known authors from 54 countries voted for the “most meaningful book of all time” in a poll organised by editors at the Norwegian Book Clubs in Oslo.
Voters included Doris Lessing, Salman Rushdie, Nadine Gordimer, Wole Soyinka, Seamus Heaney, Carlos Fuentes and Norman Mailer. Isabel Allende boycotted the exercise on the grounds that she objected to “book surveys”.
The Swedish children’s author Astrid Lindgren managed to vote just before her death in January, and her book Pippi Longstocking made the list.
Lessing said the authors aimed to spark a thirst for reading in a young generation that preferred TV and Playstations. “They should be called educated barbarians,” she said.
Miguel de Cervantes’ tale of misguided heroism gained 50% more votes than any other book, eclipsing works by Shakespeare, Homer and Tolstoy.
Ten authors got more than one book on to the list, which was not ranked. After Cervantes, Fyodor Dostoevsky emerged as the most worthwhile read with four books listed: Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Possessed and The Brothers Karamazov.
The only Shakespeare plays the authors agreed on were Hamlet, King Lear and Othello.
The Bard was matched by Franz Kafka, who was virtually unknown during his lifetime. His three angst-ridden tales of grotesque alienation on the list were The Trial, The Castle and the Complete Stories.
Three works by Leo Tolstoy made it: War and Peace, Anna Karenina and The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories.
The American William Faulkner and the Briton Virginia Woolf both scored twice, along with the Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who declined to vote.
Living writers were few and far between . Notable examples were Doris Lessing - whose Golden Notebook featured - and Salman Rushdie, Chinua Achebe and Toni Morrison.
Alf van der Hagen, an editor with the Norwegian Book Clubs, said: “The unique element to this list is that we didn’t just ask authors from Europe or the US, we took a worldwide survey for the first time.”
He said more than two-thirds of the 100 titles were written by Europeans, almost half were written last century and 11 were by women.
Don Quixote
Often called the first modern novel, Don Quixote originally conceived as a comic satire against the chivalric romances. However, Cervantes did not destroy the chivalric ideal of the romances he rejected - he transfigured it. The work have been seen as a veiled attack on the Catholic Church or on the contemporary Spanish politics, or symbolizing the duality of the Spanish character.
Neither wholly tragedy nor wholly comedy Don Quixote gives a panoramic view of the 17th-century Spanish society. Central characters are the elderly, idealistic knight, who sets out on his old horse Rosinante to seek adventure, and the materialistic squire Sancho Panza, who accompanies his master from failure to another. Their relationship, although they argue most fiercely, is ultimately founded upon mutual respect. In the debates they gradually take on some of each other’s attributes.
During his travels, Don Quixote’s overexcited imagination blinds him to reality: he thinks windmills to be giants, flocks of sheep to be armies, and galley-slaves to be oppressed gentlemen. Sancho is named governor of the isle of Barataria, a mock title, and Don Quixote is bested in a duel with the Knight of the White Moon, in reality a student of his acquaintance in disguise. Don Quixote is passionately devoted to his own imaginative creation, the beautiful Dulcinea. “Oh Dulcinea de Tobosa, day of my night, glory of my suffering, true North and compass of every path I take, guiding star of my fate…” The hero returns to La Mancha, and only at his deathbed Don Quixote confesses the folly of his past adventures.
Plot Overview
Don Quixote is a middle-aged gentleman from the region of La Mancha in central Spain. Obsessed with the chivalrous ideals touted in books he has read, he decides to take up his lance and sword to defend the helpless and destroy the wicked. After a first failed adventure, he sets out on a second one with a somewhat befuddled laborer named Sancho Panza, whom he has persuaded to accompany him as his faithful squire. In return for Sancho’s services, Don Quixote promises to make Sancho the wealthy governor of an isle. On his horse, Rocinante, a barn nag well past his prime, Don Quixote rides the roads of Spain in search of glory and grand adventure. He gives up food, shelter, and comfort, all in the name of a peasant woman, Dulcinea del Toboso, whom he envisions as a princess.
On his second expedition, Don Quixote becomes more of a bandit than a savior, stealing from and hurting baffled and justifiably angry citizens while acting out against what he perceives as threats to his knighthood or to the world. Don Quixote abandons a boy, leaving him in the hands of an evil farmer simply because the farmer swears an oath that he will not harm the boy. He steals a barber’s basin that he believes to be the mythic Mambrino’s helmet, and he becomes convinced of the healing powers of the Balsam of Fierbras, an elixir that makes him so ill that, by comparison, he later feels healed. Sancho stands by Don Quixote, often bearing the brunt of the punishments that arise from Don Quixote’s behavior.
The story of Don Quixote’s deeds includes the stories of those he meets on his journey. Don Quixote witnesses the funeral of a student who dies as a result of his love for a disdainful lady turned shepherdess. He frees a wicked and devious galley slave, Gines de Pasamonte, and unwittingly reunites two bereaved couples, Cardenio and Lucinda, and Ferdinand and Dorothea. Torn apart by Ferdinand’s treachery, the four lovers finally come together at an inn where Don Quixote sleeps, dreaming that he is battling a giant.
Along the way, the simple Sancho plays the straight man to Don Quixote, trying his best to correct his master’s outlandish fantasies. Two of Don Quixote’s friends, the priest and the barber, come to drag him home. Believing that he is under the force of an enchantment, he accompanies them, thus ending his second expedition and the First Part of the novel.
The Second Part of the novel begins with a passionate invective against a phony sequel of Don Quixote that was published in the interim between Cervantes’s two parts. Everywhere Don Quixote goes, his reputation—gleaned by others from both the real and the false versions of the story—precedes him.
As the two embark on their journey, Sancho lies to Don Quixote, telling him that an evil enchanter has transformed Dulcinea into a peasant girl. Undoing this enchantment, in which even Sancho comes to believe, becomes Don Quixote’s chief goal.
Don Quixote meets a Duke and Duchess who conspire to play tricks on him. They make a servant dress up as Merlin, for example, and tell Don Quixote that Dulcinea’s enchantment—which they know to be a hoax—can be undone only if Sancho whips himself 3,300 times on his naked backside. Under the watch of the Duke and Duchess, Don Quixote and Sancho undertake several adventures. They set out on a flying wooden horse, hoping to slay a giant who has turned a princess and her lover into metal figurines and bearded the princess’s female servants.
During his stay with the Duke, Sancho becomes governor of a fictitious isle. He rules for ten days until he is wounded in an onslaught the Duke and Duchess sponsor for their entertainment. Sancho reasons that it is better to be a happy laborer than a miserable governor.
A young maid at the Duchess’s home falls in love with Don Quixote, but he remains a staunch worshipper of Dulcinea. Their never-consummated affair amuses the court to no end. Finally, Don Quixote sets out again on his journey, but his demise comes quickly. Shortly after his arrival in Barcelona, the Knight of the White Moon—actually an old friend in disguise—vanquishes him.
Cervantes relates the story of Don Quixote as a history, which he claims he has translated from a manuscript written by a Moor named Cide Hamete Benengeli. Cervantes becomes a party to his own fiction, even allowing Sancho and Don Quixote to modify their own histories and comment negatively upon the false history published in their names.
In the end, the beaten and battered Don Quixote forswears all the chivalric truths he followed so fervently and dies from a fever. With his death, knights-errant become extinct. Benengeli returns at the end of the novel to tell us that illustrating the demise of chivalry was his main purpose in writing the history of Don Quixote.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Plot
Beginning
Lord Voldemort, an evil and powerful dark wizard, has just been defeated. When he tried to kill a one-year old child, Harry Potter, the killing curse rebounded upon him, destroying his body. Harry is left an orphan with a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, Voldemort having killed his parents, Lily and James Potter. Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall and Gamekeeper Hagrid leave him on the doorstep of his ultra-conventional, insensitive, negligent Muggle (non-magical) relatives, the Dursley family, who take him in. Harry’s relatives decide to conceal his magical heritage from him and make him live in a cupboard (closet) under the stairs for ten years.
Shortly before Harry’s eleventh birthday, he receives a letter addressed specifically to him. His outraged uncle, however, reads and burns it before Harry has a chance to look at the contents. The sender does not give up, and the Dursleys receive successively larger numbers of the same correspondence. Soon, his uncle becomes so paranoid that the Dursleys, with Harry in tow, hide in a hut on a small island to escape. That night (which happens to be before Harry’s birthday), he is visited by an enormous man named Hagrid who bursts through the locked door of the hut. With Hagrid holding the Dursleys at bay, Harry finally reads his letter, in which he learns he has been invited to study magic at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The next day Harry and Hagrid leave the hut and head to Diagon Alley in London (the secret magical location hidden behind the famous wizarding pub The Leaky Cauldron). Harry enters the wizarding world for the first time, learns to his surprise that he is famous, and meets the new Hogwarts Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Quirrell. He takes the train to Hogwarts from Platform Nine and three-quarters, befriending Ron Weasley, and meeting Neville Longbottom and Hermione Granger, a Muggle-born witch.
Admission to Hogwarts
Upon arrival, the Sorting Hat places Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville in Gryffindor House. Draco Malfoy, an arrogant and elitist student whom Harry had met at Diagon Alley, gets placed in Slytherin. At the end of his first week at Hogwarts, Harry and Ron discover that the wizarding bank Gringotts was robbed, and a vault that Harry and Hagrid visited had been the subject of the burglary. Later, Harry discovers he has a talent for riding broomsticks, and after a broom-mounted game of keep away with Malfoy, is recruited to join Gryffindor’s Quidditch team as a Seeker. He is the youngest Quidditch player at the school in a century, much to Malfoy’s displeasure.
Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville are out in Hogwarts’ halls late at night waiting for Harry’s duel challenger Malfoy to arrive. When the caretaker Filch startles them, they flee and accidentally stumble across the door to a corridor, finding themselves near a monstrous three-headed dog, christened Fluffy by Hagrid, that guards a trapdoor. On Halloween, Quirrell informs everyone that a troll has entered the castle and is in the dungeon; as the rest of the students hurry to their dorms, Ron and Harry remember hearing that Hermione is in the girls’ bathroom crying because Ron insulted her, and realize that she does not know about the troll. The two of them go to the girls bathroom and see that the troll has broken into it. They fight the troll and save Hermione and the three become best friends.
Suspicions
At Harry’s first Quidditch match, Harry’s broom becomes possessed, nearly knocking him off. Hermione sees Professor Severus Snape, the sinister Potions master, staring at Harry and mouthing words, making her believe that Snape has caused the broom to misbehave with a dark curse. Hoping to save Harry, Hermione sets Snape’s robes on fire, distracting him and others and allowing Harry to survive.
At Christmas, Harry receives an Invisibility Cloak, once belonging to his father, which renders its wearer invisible. Harry uses it to explore the Restricted Section in the library to research information on Nicolas Flamel, a name Hagrid lets slip when confronted about his knowledge of Fluffy. On being discovered in the library by caretaker Argus Filch, Harry escapes to a disused classroom in which he finds the Mirror of Erised which shows Harry’s family. After three nights of returning to the mirror, once accompanied by Ron, Harry is confronted by Dumbledore though he is not angry at Harry. Dumbledore explains that mirror shows the deepest desires of our Hearts; Harry can see his family. Dumbledore then tells Harry the mirror is to be moved and if he sees it again he will be prepared. Harry then asks Dumbledore what he saw when he looked in the mirror and he answers a pair of wollen socks, he says every Christmas holidays he is given books and for once he would like some nice wollen socks. However, Harry suspected that this was the only question that Dumbledore did not answer honestly in their friendship. Eventually, Harry learns (through Hermonie who found out from a library book) that “Nicolas Flamel is the only known maker of the Philosopher’s Stone, which produces the Elixir of Life which will make the drinker immortal.”
Harry sees Snape trying to get information from Quirrell about getting past Fluffy; Quirrell says he does not know what he’s talking about. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are sure that Snape is trying to steal the Philosopher’s Stone in order to restore Lord Voldemort to power, but Hagrid denies it. While at Hagrid’s hut, the trio discover a dragon egg Hagrid was nursing in a fire. Later the egg hatches a Norwegian Ridgeback dragon, and Hagrid decides to call him “Norbert”. The friends are nervous for Hagrid, since dragon breeding had long been outlawed in the wizarding world, and Hagrid had something of a reckless nature, who has long since nursed a strong desire for a dragon. Finally, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are able to convince Hagrid to let Norbert go live with other dragons of his kind in Romania, and arranged for the dragon, (now quite large in size), to be picked up by Ron’s older dragon trainer brother, Charlie.
Harry, Hermione, Neville, and Draco are caught out late at night (Ron is meanwhile in the hospital wing, being treated for a bite from Norbert), and are forced to serve detention with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest. Harry sees a hooded figure drink the blood of an injured unicorn, which makes Harry’s forehead scar start burning. Firenze, a centaur, tells Harry that it is a monstrous thing to slay a unicorn, let alone drink its blood. He also tells Harry that unicorn blood sustains life but gives the drinker a cursed life and that the hooded figure is in fact Voldemort.
The Philosopher’s Stone
Harry, Hermione and Ron find out that Hagrid, while he was drunk in a pub, has told a hooded stranger how to get past Fluffy, and they believe the theft of the Stone is imminent. Rushing to finally confide in Professor Dumbledore their news, they meet Professor McGonagall, who is shocked to find out how much they knew about the Stone, but reassures them all the same that it is safe in the castle. She also tells them that Dumbledore has been sent away on an important mission by the Ministry of Magic. Positive that Dumbledore’s summons was a red herring to take Professor Dumbledore away from Hogwarts, the trio make plans to thwart Snape’s theft of the stone. They set out to reach the stone first, navigating the security system set up by the school’s staff, which is a series of complex magical challenges. The three make it through together until finally, Harry must enter the inner chamber alone. There he finds that meek Professor Quirrell, not Snape, is attempting to steal the Stone who then uses magic to tie Harry up. Realising that Snape was trying to protect him from harm all along, Harry confronts Quirrell and survives a second encounter with Lord Voldemort, who has possessed Quirrell and appears as a ghastly face on the back of Quirrell’s head. Quirrell gets blisters when he touches Harry’s skin, and Harry suffers because of his close proximity to Lord Voldemort. Dumbledore arrives just in time to rescue Harry. Voldemort then pitilessly abandons Quirrell, who dies in the aftermath of his possession.
Aftermath
Dumbledore reveals to Harry that Harry’s mother died to protect Harry as an infant. Her pure, loving sacrifice provides Harry with an ancient magical protection from Voldemort’s lethal spells and also prevents Voldemort from touching Harry without suffering terribly. Dumbledore also says that the Philosopher’s Stone has been destroyed to prevent future attempts by Voldemort to steal it.
Whilst in the Hospital wing Harry asks Dumbledore why Voldemort attempted to kill him when he was a young child. Dumbledore tells Harry when he is old enough he will tell him why.
Finally, at the end-of-year feast, the House Points totals are given: Gryffindor is in last place. However, Dumbledore gives a few “last-minute additions”, granting points to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville, so that Gryffindor wins the House Cup.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Book
Judging by this first volume, the Harry Potter books are a fine addition to English children’s fantasy literature. Harry Potter, orphaned when his parents are killed by the evil wizard Voldemort, is taken in by his aunt and uncle, who are Muggles — ordinary, non-magical people. Harry is rather out of place there, but things improve greatly for him when he goes to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry — except that one of the staff is in league with Voldemort.
Part of the attraction of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone comes from the familiar but at the same time exotic setting of an English public school, complete with houses and schoolboy adventures, in which Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione struggle to save the world and win the house cup. Part of it comes from the pleasantly frivolous (verging on spoof) take on the trappings of pop magic, with pointy hats and “Nimbus 2000″ series broomsticks. And Rowling adds some delightful novelties of her own, such as Quidditch, a seven-a-side ball game played on broomsticks, with three different kinds of balls. This is all pulled together by some excellent story-telling.
I can’t understand, however, why quite so much fuss has been made about the Potter books. To highlight the limitations of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, it is instructive to compare it with another children’s fantasy novel in which a neophyte wizard attends a school for wizards — Ursula Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. This works just as well as a story, but it displays invention of a qualitatively different order. Where Rowling reworks superficial popular ideas about magic in an ad hoc fashion, Le Guin constructs a fully-fledged, but consistent and coherent, world of her own: dragons in Earthsea, for example, are both an integral part of the imagined world and anchored to mythological precursors; for Rowling they are just a plot device appropriated from common cliche. Le Guin cuts far deeper, too, in dealing with such subjects as coming of age and acceptance of mortality, and her protagonist is rounded in places where Harry Potter is no more than one-dimensional.
So Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone will be a great Christmas present for kids who haven’t read it yet — and it is a book that adults (at least those without stunted imaginations) can read as well. But A Wizard of Earthsea is all of that and more, and children’s fantasy is a reasonably well-populated genre, so don’t let the hype surrounding the Harry Potter books hide the other goodies out there.
(A book review by Danny Yee)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Movie
Possibly Hollywood’s first bespectacled hero since Harold Lloyd, Harry Potter makes a satisfactory, albeit unspectacular, celluloid debut in Chris Columbus’ $125 million movie about the young boy destined to be a great wizard.
Treating JK Rowling’s debut novel with a reverence that wasn’t even accorded to The Bible, Hollywood serves up a two-and-a-half hour fantasy that gets the introductions out of the way, paving the way for more plot-driven tales in what’s sure to become the biggest franchise of all time. (On the big screen, incidentally, the story’s similarities to “Star Wars” are even more pronounced.)
If you’ve read the novel - and if you haven’t, why not? - impeccable casting means you’ll feel like you’ve met all of these characters already. The three young leads - Radcliffe, Grint, and especially Watson - deliver likable, natural performances, while the film’s biggest joy is watching the spot-on performances of their peers: Maggie Smith plays Professor McGonagall like Miss Jean Brodie with a pointy hat, while Robbie Coltrane steals the show as loose-lipped Hagrid. Alan Rickman, meanwhile, sneers for England as Professor Snape.
Indeed, the whole film plays like an advertisement for historic old England - if this doesn’t get Americans buying our castles and cathedrals, or at least coming to look at them again, nothing will. Hell, even King’s Cross station looks pleasant.
The film’s not flawless, though. It’s half an hour too long and much of the book’s humour is jettisoned. Still, it’s refreshing to witness a big-budget movie where the impressive special effects complement the story, rather than merely compensate for the lack of one.
“Harry Potter” may not leave you spellbound, then, but it’ll definitely leave you wanting to discover the “Chamber of Secrets”
(A Movie Reviewed by Adrian Hennigan)
External: World Harry Potter
J.K. Rowling has been spotted at cafes in Scotland working on a detective novel, a British newspaper reported Saturday.
The Sunday Times newspaper quoted Ian Rankin, a fellow author and neighbor of Rowling’s, as saying the creator of the “Harry Potter” books is turning to crime fiction.
“My wife spotted her writing her Edinburgh criminal detective novel,” the newspaper, which was available late Saturday, quoted Rankin as telling a reporter at an Edinburgh literary festival.
“It is great that she has not abandoned writing or Edinburgh cafes,” said Rankin, who is known for his own police novels set in the historic Scottish city.
Rowling famously wrote initial drafts of the Potter story in the Scottish city’s cafes. Back then, she was a struggling single mother who wrote in cafes to save on the heating bill at home.
Now she’s Britain’s richest woman — worth $1 billion, according to Forbes magazine — and her seven Potter books have sold more than 335 million copies worldwide.
In an interview with The Associated Press last month, Rowling said she believed she was unlikely to repeat the success of the Potter series, but confirmed she had plans to work on new books.
“I’ll do exactly what I did with Harry — I’ll write what I really want to write,” Rowling said.
The office of Rowling’s literary agent, Christopher Little, was not immediately available to comment late Saturday.
After Harry Potter
Rowling has stated that she plans to continue writing after the publication of the final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. She declared in a December 2005 interview that she will most likely not use a new pen name as the press would quickly discover her true identity.
In 2006, Rowling revealed that she had completed a few short stories and another children’s book (a “political fairy story”) about a monster, aimed at a younger audience than Harry Potter readers.
She is not planning to write an eighth Harry Potter book, but has said she will be writing an “encyclopaedia” of the wizarding world consisting of various unpublished material and notes. Any profits from such a book would be given to charity. When asked on 6 July 2007 whether she would ever write an eighth Harry Potter novel Rowling confirmed that she only ever planned to write seven books in the series but also that she could not rule it out entirely. “Um, I think that Harry’s story comes to quite a clear end in Book Seven but I’ve always said that I wouldn’t say ‘never’. I can’t say I’ll never write another book about that world just because I think what do I know, in ten years time I might want to return to it but I think it’s unlikely”. In a recent interview, she said she “wants to fall in love with another idea…”, also stating that “Harry Potter was the experience of a lifetime”.
In an interview published on 26 July 2007, Rowling said that she wants to dedicate “lots” of her time to her family, but is currently “sort of writing two things”, one for children and the other for adults. She did not give any details about the two projects but did state that she was excited because the two book situation reminds her of writing the Philosopher’s Stone, explaining how she was then writing two books until Harry took over.
It has been reported that Rowling is currently working on a crime novel set in Edinburgh, Scotland. Fellow Scottish author Ian Rankin is quoted as saying that his wife has seen Rowling writing the novel in Edinburgh cafes.
The seventh and final book in the boy-wizard series was released at one minute past midnight, British time, on Saturday, and in the age of instant reaction and online blogs, newspapers wanted an opinion in time for editions the same morning.
The British version is 608 pages long, meaning critics were forced to race through the pages to meet their deadlines, as newspapers received no advance review copies.
Several relied on versions leaked on the Internet or hard copies appearing mysteriously pre-publication, and even those who made it into Saturday’s papers knew they had lost the race.
When the New York Times and the Baltimore Sun ran reviews on Thursday, author J.K. Rowling was furious. Readers of the latter could argue that it heavily hinted at the answer to the most burning question of all — does Harry die at the end?
Mainstream media broadly avoided spoilers on Saturday, although the Daily Telegraph’s online review featured a separate link to a plot synopsis containing many big secrets.
But most critics agreed that the hype surrounding the blockbuster book was justified.
Britain’s bestselling daily Sun tabloid employed speed-reading champion Anne Jones to write its review. She took just 47 minutes and one second to read the U.S. version, but still had time to conclude:
“Without being too critical, the plot does seem to be a bit complicated, but I would not change a word. ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ is a real page-turner.”
ENDS WITH A BANG
Kate Muir, reviewer for the Times of London, also admitted to speed-reading the book, but was impressed nonetheless.
“This chest-crusher of a book ends the Harry Potter series with a bang,” she said. “The plot hatched over 17 years of writing clicks into place, loose ends interlocking, all as complex as a magical lock at Hogwarts Castle.”
Muir, like others, peppered her review with references to older literary traditions, including Arthurian and Greek myth, and remarked that evil Voldemort’s methods were reminiscent of the Nazi Holocaust.
Her main complaint was that some passages were a “bit of a snooze unless you are a Potter-junkie.”
Mary Carole McCauley of the Baltimore Sun, one of two reviewers to draw Rowling’s ire two days before publication, argued that the plot was probably too complicated, despite praising many other aspects of the book.
“That’s 10 distinctly different magical objects, all with their own significance,” she wrote. “Trying to keep them all straight is not unlike searching for the golden snitch in a hotly contested game of Quidditch.”
The New York Times was glowing in its praise.
“Ms. Rowling has fitted together the jigsaw-puzzle pieces of this long undertaking with Dickensian ingenuity and ardor,” it said in its pre-publication review.
Harry Potter - the fastest-selling book ever
The seventh and final volume in the Harry Potter series has become the fastest selling book in history, publishers said on Monday, with more than 11 million copies sold during the first 24 hours in three markets alone.
U.S. sales of the eagerly awaited “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” hit 8.3 million, comfortably beating the previous Potter installment, which posted sales of 6.9 million copies in the first day, U.S. publisher Scholastic announced.
In Britain, Bloomsbury sold a record 2.7 million copies of the final Potter book in the first 24 hours, up from 2.0 million for “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”.
The same company also announced nearly 400,000 copies of the English language edition of J.K. Rowling’s story were bought in Germany over the same period.
Thousands of Potter fans queued outside book stores in major cities around the world over the weekend to get hold of the book, which answers the questions on every reader’s lips — ‘Who dies at the end?’ and in particular, ‘Does Harry survive?’
In India, police said on Monday they seized hundreds of pirated copies of the cover of “Deathly Hallows” after raiding a printing press, storage depot and private home in Bangalore.
Internet versions of the book also surfaced last week and two U.S. newspapers ran reviews before publication, but it was not enough to dampen enthusiasm for the last chapter of the boy wizard’s increasingly bloody fight against the forces of evil.
Lisa Holton, president of Scholastic Trade and Book Fairs, likened the weekend excitement in the United States to the hysteria that greeted the Beatles’ first visit to the country.
“This weekend kids and adults alike are sitting on buses, in the park, on airplanes and in restaurants reading ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’,” she said in a statement.
Barnes & Noble Inc., the world’s largest book retailer, sold 1.8 million copies of “Deathly Hallows” in the first 48 hours, while Borders Group Inc. sold around 1.2 million worldwide in a single day, both records for the outlets.
“This isn’t the end of Harry Potter by any means,” said Steve Riggio, CEO of Barnes & Noble. “Barnes & Noble expects to sell millions of Harry Potter books over the next few years.”
RAVE REVIEWS
Reviews of “Deathly Hallows” have been almost universally glowing, noting the darker tone of book seven in which several characters die. Critical reaction to the previous six Potter tales, which sold 325 million copies worldwide, has been mixed.
Rowling, 41, is likely to see her fortune swell further over the coming years. She is estimated to be worth 545 million pounds ($1.12 billion) already, making her the first dollar-billionaire author.
In addition to the books, the first five Hollywood adaptations of her Harry Potter stories have amassed around $4 billion at the global box office. The final film in the franchise is slated for release in 2010.
“After 608 crammed pages, it’s still hard to believe it really is the end of the road for Harry,” said Henry Sutton, books editor for the Daily Mirror tabloid in Britain.
He believes that the epilogue at the end of book seven means there is “no possible return” for the Harry Potter saga, although not everyone agrees.
Hours after the release of “Deathly Hallows”, Ladbrokes bookmakers cut their odds on an eighth Potter tale to 10/1 from 16/1, following a flurry of bets.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
The seventh and final book in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series has become online retailer Amazon’s most pre-ordered product, with almost 1.6 million copies bought globally ahead of the book’s release on July 21.
Amazon said on Monday that demand for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” passed the previous record of 1.5 million copies ordered online before the release of the previous book in the series, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”
The retailer predicted that the number of orders for the seventh book would rise by “many more hundreds of thousands of copies.”
The figures underline the huge international demand among readers for the final adventures of the boy wizard, which has been heightened by speculation over which characters Rowling will kill off at the end.
She has said that at least two characters will die in “Deathly Hallows,” but has been careful not to name them.
The six Harry Potter books already published have sold around 325 million copies worldwide, and Rowling is known as the first ever dollar-billionaire author.
The books have also spawned a successful film franchise that has earned around $3.5 billion in global ticket sales from the first four movies.
The fifth, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” is released later this month and the final picture is due for release in 2010.
Harry Potter is published by Bloomsbury in Britain and distributed in the United States by Scholastic Corp.
Harry James Potter is a fictional character and the main protagonist of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter fantasy series of books. In 2002, Harry Potter was voted No. 85 among the “100 Best Fictional Characters” by Book magazine and also voted the 35th “Worst Briton” in Channel 4’s “100 Worst Britons We Love to Hate” program.
The novels concern events at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where Harry’s best friends are Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. His most intriguing physical characteristic is his lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead, the result of the Dark wizard Lord Voldemort attempt to murder Harry as a baby with The Killing Curse. Voldemort also killed Harry’s parents and destroyed their home in the village of Godric’s Hollow on October 31st. Harry is famous throughout the wizarding world for being the only known person to have survived the Killing Curse and, in doing so, bringing about Lord Voldemort’s downfall.
In the novels, Harry, the only child of James and Lily Potter, is often told that he resembles his father, with similar perpetually untidy jet-black hair. However, he is more like his mother in personality and character and inherited her green eyes. Harry is described as being small and skinny for his age in the first few novels, but by the fifth he is described as tall. He also has a thin face and a rather quiet voice, except when he is angry. His appearance is characterised by round glasses.
Harry shares his birthday, July 31, with author J. K. Rowling. The books generally avoid giving exact dates for events, but it has been gathered that Harry was born in the same year as Draco Malfoy who’s date of birth was given on a family tree, written by JK Rowling for a charitable auction.
In the Harry Potter film adaptations, Harry has been portrayed by British actor Daniel Radcliffe.
In the books
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, eleven-year-old Harry Potter learns that he is a wizard when Rubeus Hagrid, the half-giant Keeper of the Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and aide to Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, hand-delivers his invitation to attend the school. Hagrid tells Harry about his magical background and his fame in the wizarding community. He also learns that his parents, James and Lily, have left him a small fortune. Harry’s first introduction to the wizarding world is Diagon Alley, a hidden wizarding district in London. There he buys a magic wand at Ollivander’s. On the Hogwarts Express, the train that takes students from London’s King’s Cross station to the school, he meets Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, who later become his closest friends. All three are “sorted” into Hogwarts’ Gryffindor, one of four school Houses. Harry joins the Gryffindor Quidditch team, becoming the youngest Seeker in over a century. Harry also becomes rivals with Draco Malfoy. Meanwhile, Lord Voldemort (long presumed dead) has secretly returned. Using the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Professor Quirrell as a host body, he searches Hogwarts for the Philosopher’s Stone that he believes will restore his body and make him immortal. Voldemort is thwarted by Harry, with help from Ron and Hermione.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
More challenges face Harry when he is revealed to be a parselmouth, having the ability to talk with snakes. Now there is a growing suspicion that he may be the Heir of Slytherin. The Heir is believed responsible for a series of attacks on Muggle-born pupils throughout the school. Harry’s toughest challenge, however, is posed by Tom Riddle, the “memory” of a younger Lord Voldemort hidden within his old diary that has mysteriously fallen into Ginny Weasley’s possession. Controlling Ginny through the diary, Riddle uses her to release a deadly basilisk from the Chamber of Secrets. Harry proves his mettle in the book’s climax by rescuing Ginny from the Chamber and killing the Basilisk with Godric Gryffindor’s sword. Harry also tricks Lucius Malfoy into freeing his house elf, Dobby, who has helped Harry.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry becomes the supposed target of Sirius Black, a murderous wizard who escaped from Azkaban, Britain’s wizarding prison. Hunting Black are terrifying, hooded creatures called Dementors, the guards of Azkaban. Despite the danger, Harry returns to school, but lacking his guardians’ written permission, he is barred from joining student outings to Hogsmeade, the nearby wizarding village. Fred and George Weasley give him their Marauder’s Map, a magical document showing secret passageways in and out of Hogwarts, as well as every person’s location within the castle. Harry uses a tunnel to slip into Hogsmeade wearing his Invisibility Cloak. At Christmas, Harry receives a Firebolt racing broom from an anonymous benefactor after his Nimbus 2000 is destroyed by the Whomping Willow during a Quidditch match. Harry learns Black is believed to have divulged his parents secret whereabouts to Lord Voldemort and murdered their friend, Peter Pettigrew and twelve Muggle bystanders. Harry vows to find and kill Black only to discover that he never betrayed his parents—it was Peter Pettigrew, who faked his own death and framed Black for the crimes. Harry is ecstatic that his godfather will be exonerated and can become his legal guardian. However, Pettigrew—and the truth—escape, forcing Black back into hiding.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Hogwarts hosts the Triwizard Tournament, a recently revived inter-school competition. The Beauxbaton Academy and the Durmstrang Institute also participate. After one champion from each school is selected, Harry is mysteriously chosen as a fourth competitor, even though he is underage and never entered his name into the Goblet of Fire. The champions face three dangerous challenges on their way to the Triwizard Cup. During the final event, Cedric and Harry help each other and agree to grab the Cup simultaneously, unaware it is actually a Portkey. They are transported to a graveyard where Lord Voldemort awaits. On Voldemort’s order, his servant Peter Pettigrew (Wormtail) murders Cedric with the Killing curse. Harry is bound to a tombstone and forced to witness a ritual (which uses his blood) that restores Lord Voldemort’s body. When Voldemort engages Harry in a duel, their wands’ magical streams interlock, creating an effect called Priori Incantatem that momentarily shields Harry, allowing him time to grab the Portkey and escape back to Hogwarts. Voldemort’s servant, Barty Crouch Jr is unmasked; he has been posing as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher “Mad-Eye” Moody by using polyjuice potion. Crouch’s soul is sucked out by Dementors before he repeats his confession to officials, causing the Ministry of Magic to dispute Harry and Dumbledore’s claims that Voldemort has returned.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry is attacked by Dementors while staying with the Dursleys for the summer. He performs a Patronus Charm to defend himself and his Muggle cousin, Dudley. Harry is charged with performing underage magic and must appear at a hearing at the Ministry of Magic and may be expelled from Hogwarts. Dumbledore has him taken to Number 12, Grimmauld Place, a dilapidated house in London owned by his godfather Sirius Black, that now serves as headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix. Harry is cleared thanks to testimony from Dumbledore and Harry’s neighbor, Arabella Figg, a Squib who has secretly gurarded Harry since he was a baby. In retaliation against Dumbledore, Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge appoints Dolores Umbridge as the new Hogwarts Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher so she can spy on the school. She is also appointed High Inquisitor, empowered to arbitrarily change and impose school rules. Urged by Hermione, Harry secretly trains students in real defensive magic. The group calls themselves, “Dumbledore’s Army” (D.A.). When Voldemort implants a false vision in Harry’s mind that Sirius is being tortured at the Ministry office in London, Harry and D.A. members Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, and Luna Lovegood, rush to his rescue. Lured into the Department of Mysteries, the students are ambushed by Voldemort’s Death Eaters. Order of the Phoenix reinforcements arrive in time, although Sirius is killed by his cousin Bellatrix Lestrange. Voldemort appears and attempts to fatally curse Harry, but Dumbledore arrives, and the two fiercely duel. Voldemort grabs Bellatrix and disapparates, but not before being seen by the Minister and Ministry employees, vindicating both Harry and Dumbledore.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the wizarding population now calls Harry “The Chosen One”. Harry learns he has inherited Sirius Black’s entire estate, including the house at Grimmauld Place that is currently being used as the Order of the Phoenix headquarters. Back at Hogwarts, Harry is stunned when Professor Snape is announced as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. His vacant position has been filled by former Potions Master, Horace Slughorn. Slughorn lends Harry an old potions textbook once belonging to a student identified only as “The Half-Blood Prince.” The book’s copious handwritten notes help Harry excel in Potions class. Dumbledore begins giving Harry private lessons which are actually trips into various individuals’ memories concerning Voldemort. In these memories Harry and Dumbledore find evidence that Voldemort has made Horcruxes, splitting his soul into multiple parts. Harry and Dumbledore retrieve one Horcrux, a locket, hidden inside a secret cave, although Dumbledore is seriously weakened in the effort. They return to find the school invaded by Death Eaters. Dumbledore is killed by Snape as Harry, helplessly petrified under his Invisibility Cloak, looks on. Released from the spell, Harry pursues Snape, who identifies himself as the Half-Blood Prince, and escapes with Draco Malfoy. Harry recovers the locket from Dumbledore’s body, but a note inside reveals it is a fake; the real Horcrux has been stolen by someone whose initials are R.A.B..
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows it is unknown what will happen, however Harry already stated he would not return to Hogwarts, even if it reopens.
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels by English author J. K. Rowling about an adolescent boy named Harry Potter. The story is mostly set at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a school for young wizards, and focuses on Harry Potter’s fight against the evil wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry’s parents as part of his plan to take over the wizarding world.
Since the release of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the United States) in 1997, the books have gained immense popularity, critical acclaim and commercial success worldwide, spawning films, video games and assorted merchandise. The six books published to date have collectively sold more than 325 million copies and have been translated into more than 63 languages. The seventh and last book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is scheduled to be released on 21 July 2007. Publishers announced a record-breaking 12 million copies for the first print run in the U.S. alone.
The success of the novels has made Rowling the highest earning novelist in literary history. English language versions of the books are published by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom, Scholastic Press in the United States, Allen & Unwin in Australia and Raincoast Books in Canada.
The first four books have been made into highly successful motion pictures by Warner Bros. The fifth, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, began filming in February 2006, and is scheduled for release on 11 July 2007.
Origins and publishing history
In 1990, J. K. Rowling was on a crowded train from Manchester to London when the idea for Harry simply “popped” into her head. Rowling gives an account of the experience on her website saying:“ I had been writing almost continuously since the age of six but I had never been so excited about an idea before. I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, and all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn’t know he was a wizard became more and more real to me. ”
In 1995, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was completed and the manuscript was sent off to prospective agents. The second agent she tried, Christopher Little, offered to represent her and sent the manuscript to Bloomsbury. After eight other publishers had rejected Philosopher’s Stone, Bloomsbury offered Rowling a ?3,000 advance for its publication.
Despite Rowling’s statement that she did not have any particular age group in mind when she began to write the Harry Potter books, the publishers initially targeted them at children age nine to eleven. On the eve of publishing, Joanne Rowling was asked by her publishers to adopt a more gender-neutral pen name, in order to appeal to the male members of this age group, fearing that they would not be interested in reading a novel they knew to be written by a woman. She elected to use J. K. Rowling (Joanne Kathleen Rowling), using her grandmother’s name as her second name, because she has no middle name.
The first Harry Potter book was published in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury in July 1997 and in the United States by Scholastic in September of 1998, but not before Rowling had received $105,000 for the American rights – an unprecedented amount for a children’s book by an unknown author. Fearing that American readers would either not understand the word “philosopher” or not associate it with a magical theme (as a Philosopher’s Stone is alchemy-related), Scholastic insisted that the book be given the title, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for the American market.
Word-of-mouth buzz, especially amongst young males, has been even more important than positive media reviews and Rowling’s publishers’ marketing strategies in the tremendous success of the series. This is notable because for years, interest in literature among this group had lagged behind other pursuits like video games and the Internet. Rowling’s publishers were able to capitalise on this buzz by the rapid, successive releases of the first four books that allowed neither Rowling’s audience’s excitement nor interest to wane while she took a break from writing between the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and also quickly solidified a loyal readership. The series has also gathered adult fans, leading to two editions of each Harry Potter book being released (in Canada and the United Kingdom, not the United States), identical in text but with one edition’s cover artwork aimed at children and the other aimed at adults.
