So, it’s busy time at the Braille press. Punching, proofing and reprinting several hundred copies of the Harry Potter edition is not an easy thing to do. Once all this is complete, about 500 copies of 13-volume stack gets ready to be shipped out. The stack is more than a foot high. I am sure it’s been a long day for employees at the Braille Press.

The books donated by Rowling herself, are available for auction online. An identical set was sold in Scotland for $40,000. In order to put the entire process together, volunteers helped the staff fold, collate as well as staple books by hand. Machines were not used since the braille would get messed up.

I think this is probably the first time I am actually hearing about the Braille version of Harry potter. The braille versions will have the same price tag as that of the non braille versions. They will be priced at little under 30 dollars which, the company thinks is nominal. Books like Harry Potter will hopefully increase the Braille customers.

Image Credit:dclab

Who killed Harry Potter? Is it Rowling or one of his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger? No one knows the about the real murderer, but the hacker named ‘Gabriel,’ claims to have taken a digital copy of author J.K. Rowling’s seventh book, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,’ by flouting into a computer at Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. The computer hacker posting claims that what he said were key plot details regarding the mysterious ending of the fictional British boy wizard Harry Potter’s saga but the publisher warned that details could be false.

The hacker, Gabriel has posted information at Web site InSecure.org that would answer that question. Gabriel said,

We make this spoiler to make reading of the upcoming book useless and boring.

However, a Bloomsbury spokesperson declined to say anything on the hacker’s claims. And Kyle Good, a spokesperson for U.S. distributor Scholastic Corp., didn’t confirm that the posting was correct but he warned readers not to believe anything on the Web that claims to have inside information on the book’s plot. She said,

There is a whole lot of junk flying around. Consider this one more theory.

David Perry, a rep for computer security company Trend Micro, said that Gabriel’s claim could be a hoax. He said,

We’ve had hypes like this on the last couple of Harry Potter books. There is a very high level of spurious information in the hacker world.

Even the stolen copy of the sixth Harry Potter novel ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ surfaced in Britain about month before its official release in July 2005, and two people were charged who were reportedly trying to sell a copy to the London tabloid The Sun. Four ‘Harry Potter’ movies made by Warner Bros. film studio, a division of Time Warner Inc., have brought in $3.5 billion in global ticket sales, and a fifth film is due in theaters in early July.

The ‘Harry Potter’ books have been global best-sellers with 320 million versions sold worldwide, and anticipation for ‘Deathly Hallows’ is high. In April, U.S. retailer Barnes & Noble said advance orders for the book had already topped 500,000 copies, setting a chain record. Scholastic plans to release a record 12 million copies of ‘Deathly Hallows’ to meet demand.

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‘without any question the most important honor I have ever received, and the one I treasure the most.’

The book was published some 12 years ago. Milton, Blake and Tom Paine have an influence over Philip writing style. Northern light is a story which revolves around a girl and a boy, basically describing their struggle. The book also won Pullman awards like Guardian children’s fiction prize. Pullman, however, considered the book, ‘Tom’s Midnight Garden’ by Philippa Pearce, who was the runner up deserved the award more.

The Carnegie medal, which is decided by voting won Pullman 40% votes for his book. Tom’s book won16% votes while David Almond’s Skellig came third with 8%. People were given a choice of ten books that were selected by children’s book experts. The book experts have been appointed by the librarians’ association CILIP.
The day also marked the 50th anniversary of the Kate Greenaway illustrators medal, the award was won by Mini Grey for ‘The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon’.

Source: Guardian

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Jordan who was brought up in South Carolina in an interview admitted that the places always ruled his fantastical books backgrounds too. Jordan graduated from The Citadel, South Carolina’s state military college and also worked as a nuclear engineer at the old Charleston Naval Shipyard. The author gained a name with his trilogy of historical novels set in Charleston but under the pen name Reagan O’Neal. Turning towards fantasy, the first volume of his ‘Wheel of Time’ called The Eye of the World came out in 1990, now under the pen name Robert Jordan, which continued its legacy later. The series have been a hit and has eleven books already out. As per reports, Jordan was working on the 12th volume of the same series. Most of the books from the series also made it to the NY times best sellers list.

Not much can be expressed in words sometimes but it is the true that the fabulous author will be dreadfully missed by the fantasy literature and his fans.

Source: USAtoday

After getting worldwide attention and winning multiple awards for her Harry Potter series the English writer, J.K.Rowling has once again made herself busy in penning down two new books. The millionaire writer is not set to take a break after her final novel of the Harry Potter series that was released just a few days back.

Currently she is working on one book for adults and one for children. She discloses that this time too she has started writing the same way as she had begun writing Harry, as that time also she had worked on two simultaneous projects.

It’s because of her Harry Potter books that she owns a great fortune. She is the 136th richest person in the world and also happens to be the 13th richest woman in Britain. Her last book of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has become the fastest selling book of all time.

Source: Femalefirst

The cover features Bollywood divas Bipasha Basu, Priyanka Chopra, Preity Zinta, Indian supermodels MoniKangana Dutta and Laxmi Menon, and also Gemma Ward, the Australian supermodel.

The new edition of Vogue aims to draw attention towards the Indian fashion industry, designers, photographers and models. All the six ladies are wearing metallic shades and a smoky make up has been put up to add an oomph factor.

However, I find Bipasha, Priyanka and others looking gorgeous, but, Gemma and Preity are looking kinda weird. Bipasha rocks!

Source: Fabsugar

Via

Source: IHT

Image credit: Scribbulus

A statement from Rea judges read,

With three distinguished collections of short stories, Stuart Dybek has created his own country. The coast of Chicago is his landscape, one he has inhabited, pondered, remembered and made hauntingly real.

Rea award which was established in 1986 by Michael M. Rea, a publisher and collector of short stories have been previously won by authors like Ann Beattie, Richard Ford and Alice Munro. Critics have stated that Dybek is a master of the short story.

Source: USAtoday

Image credit: Stlawu

Here comes another opportunity to tap the minefiled of potentials in the world of literature.

Two leading booksellers have added another brick in the wall of the industry’s unending search for budding talent by announcing literary competitions among aspiring writers.
The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award has been anounced by the Amazon.com, Penguin Group (USA) and Hewlett-Packard Co. The award includes a contract with Penguin and a small advance, $25,000.

Meanwhile, Borders Group Inc., Court TV and Gather.com announced The Next Great Crime Novel competition, with the winner receiving $5,000 and a publishing deal through Borders, the superstore chain.

With an indefinite number of books being written every year and even greater number of books never been published, both these contests would be a stepping stone in the process of discovering a new and talented novelist. It would be serving as a platform for those writers who have been searching for an opportunity to start off with.

However, there are also certain lacunas in such contests. The popularity of the contests and the public attention derived is very unpredictable. There are certain examples where such contests could not generate much interest among the masses

Moreover, the success of the winning entries is not always guaranteed.

Better response is expected of The Amazon award. Authors with ‘an unpublished English-language novel manuscript’ can submit their work till November 5 for this contest and there is no entry fee.

Amazon’s leading customer reviewers will analyze the manuscripts and industry professionals are the judges for the contest.
The winner, to be announced April 7, 2008, who will also receive an additional gift 50-inch plasma TV and a PhotoSmart Digital camera from HP.

The Next Great Crime Novel competition too has no entry fee and the last date for submitting manuscripts is Nov. 11.Experts would judge the entries and the winner would be announced Feb. 4, 2008

Via: Yahoo

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