The Big Bad Book Blog

During numerous rides down the noisy, crowded subway in my days as a student in New York, I found myself reacquainted with an old trick from my childhood. The trick was reading a book without anyone knowing you were reading the book, and it was simple enough: you took the cover of a more reputable book and slipped it over your own guilty indulgence (in my case, illicit paperback romances stashed in a dark corner of the local library).

What I found most droll about this trick on the subway was spotting the type of book most frequently hidden from the casual eye (though not my prying one): young adult fiction. continue reading

Released yesterday, ex-Fed chairman Alan Greenspan’s The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World (Penguin Press, $35.00) is making headlines for its scathing indictment of the Bush administration’s fiscal irresponsibility. But almost as juicy–at least for the few of us with a taste for very minor book industry scandals–is when, precisely, those headlines were printed. Penguin supplied advance copies with the stipulation that stories be withheld until the book’s official release on Monday, September 17. The Wall Street Journal sidestepped that little rule, though, by purchasing a copy at an eager New York-area retailer and posting an account of Greenspan’s much-anticipated comments on its Web site Friday night. Once the embargo was broken, other news outlets were free to go to press with their own stories, albeit with the knowledge they’d been scooped. continue reading

Attention Potter fans: Harry DIES! Just kidding. We don’t know. We would if we’d pre-ordered from DeepDiscount.com, though. Scholastic Inc., Potter’s US publisher, announced “immediate legal action” against both aforementioned e-tailer and distributor Levy Home Entertainment for shipping books ahead of the 12:01 AM Saturday release. Wednesday’s statement from Scholastic alleges forbidden copies made it to customers as early as Tuesday the 17th.

Rowling herself pleaded with readers to keep plot developments hush-hush, and Scholastic asks that early recipients hide the illicit packages. Uh-huh. Reports indicate that most early copies are safely stowed in padlocked sock drawers across the nation, but at least one spoilsport uploaded photos of the whole thing to Gaia Online.

Diehard Pottermaniacs are advised to stay indoors, avoiding all forms of media, earplugs firmly in place, until tentatively heading to their local big-box bookstores for the magic moment tomorrow night.

The Nielsen Company has released a report on the pervasive, indomitable Harry Potter brand in media, PW Daily reports. Most curious in the report is the money made from Potter transubstantiation: U.S. consumers spent $11.8 million on Harry Potter-licensed trademark cookies, candy and gum products since June 2002. Some other highlights:

• The first four Harry Potter films have grossed more than $3.5 billion worldwide
• The four Harry Potter movie soundtracks combined have sold more than 1.1 million copies in the U.S. There have been 180,000 total downloads of songs from those soundtracks.
• According to a recent Nielsen Cinema survey of moviegoers, 28% of persons 12+ in the U.S. have read one or more of the previous Harry Potter books, and 15% have read all the Harry Potter books to date.

According to Nielsen’s press release, of the top selling books in the U.S. since 2001, three were Potter books. Four Potter films are included in the 20 highest grossing films of all time.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows hits shelves in less than two weeks (if that’s too vague, there’s a to-the-second countdown here), but bets on who’s going to die, marry, or get knocked up have been going on for months.

William Hill Media, a group that collects bets on anything from Wimbledon to Oscar winners, has been taking bets on who kills Harry (that is, if Harry’s one of the purported two who die in Hallows) and on whether Ron and Hermione get hitched. And, less interestingly, there’s a bet on Harry catching the snitch in a Quidditch world cup–which, to someone unfamiliar with the lexicon, might sound like a bet on supernatural STD transmission.

Lord Voldemort leads with 2/1 odds of killing Harry; Fred Weasley’s in last place with 100/1 odds.

Other Potter gambling stories here and here.