J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter novels, announced on December 21 that the title of her next and last Harry Potter novel is — Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. There is no word yet on a publication date but we will keep you updated. The image above is just a placeholder image as the official cover has also still not been released.

For now, subscribe to our Harry Potter newsletter to make sure you are always updated with the latest Harry Potter news.

One of the joys of bookselling is being able to meet the authors that you support. We get to do this when we attend trade fairs abroad and then just recently when we attended the launch of Dean Francis Alfar’s Philippine Speculative Fiction, Volume 2.

The launch took place at a popular cafe last Sunday. Dean Alfar introduced the book by telling us what speculative fiction is and his experience of coming up with another edition of what proved to be a successful first venture last year. For this volume, the editor received more than one hundred short story submissions which he had to trim down to nineteen.

Most of the contributing authors were present and were introduced to us. It was a good mix of men and women, new and old writers. Some of the writers were only in their teens! Thank you to the authors who signed our copy of the book.
Here are some pictures from the launch:

Dean Alfar, author and editor.

Madeline Rae Ong, author, is a college student.

Russell Stanley Q. Geronimo, also a college student, reading an excerpt from his story.

Nikki Alfar, author.

Joseph F. Nacino, author.

Alexander Marcos Osias, author.

Vincent Michael Simblulan, author.

A picture of the authors present at the launch.

This year, we have two parts to our Holiday Sale:

Part 1: Hardcovers at Paperback Prices

ALL HARDCOVERS are on sale at 50% off

Part 2: Children’s Books Sale

ALL books in the Children’s Section are on sale at 50% off

And as if that wasn’t good enough, we’re adding a third part to our sale: Everything else is at least 20% off.

Now, when you actually drop by the store the signs that say 20% or 30% or 40% might confuse you. If you do get confused, ask any member of the bookstore staff what discount applies to the book you want. If it’s a hardcover or a children’s book you will most probably get a 50% discount.

As usual, credit card purchases may not qualify for the full discount. Also, a few books may, at the discretion of the bookstore staff, not qualify for discounts. For example, discounts will not apply to consigned items.

Booktopia is proud to soon be carrying two new publications from some very talented Filipino authors.

Philippine Speculative Fiction, Volume 2
by Dean Francis Alfar (Editor)

First, there’s Philippine Speculative Fiction Volume 2, a collection of short fiction of the imagination (including fantasy, science fiction, horror, magic realism and surrealism) written by Filipinos at home and abroad. Nineteen authors are represented, both new and established, from all over the Philippines and as far away as France and The Netherlands. The only anthology of its kind in the country, the previous volume was a Finalist for the National Book Award for Best Anthology.

Editor Dean Francis Alfar is an advocate of the literature of the fantastic. His plays have been performed in venues across the Philippines, while his fiction has been published in national (Philippines Free Press, Story Philippines, Manual, Digest of Philippine Genre Stories) and international markets (Strange Horizons, Rabid Transit: Menagerie and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror). His writing awards include nine Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, including the Grand Prize for Novel in 2005 for Salamanca (Ateneo Press, 2006). He was the recipient of the National Book Award for the graphic novels Siglo: Freedom and Siglo: Passion. His first collection of short fiction, The Kite of Stars and other stories, is scheduled by Anvil Publishing for release in 2007.

Read full write-up

The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories, Volume 1
by Kenneth Yu (Editor)

View full cover art

The second one is a collection of genre stories in digest form. This is a small magazine format, just like Reader’s Digest. Other well-known magazines in this format would be the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. As you can see, the digest format is very popular with genre fiction. Genre stories are those that fit into specific genres like science fiction, fantasy, mystery, crime, horror, detective, etc. The premiere issue has a mix of fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction.

An excerpt from The Middle Prince, by Dean Francis Alfar:
The middle prince soon found himself unable to bear the weight of the fishes’ declarations, and clutched at his bleeding ears vainly in an effort to stifle the power of the multiple assertions. The last thing he remembered hearing before he lost his ability to comprehend the vision of thousands of coruscating mouths and slipped into darkness, was a voice that said: “There is nothing more precious than a love foretold, and nothing as equally damning.”

An excerpt from Wail Of The Sun, by Vince Simbulan:
He dreamed of riding to battle on sheets of flame, of reducing whole armies to ash, of razing castles to the ground. He was Rubric again, and fire obeyed his every whim. Then the dream descended into nightmare, scenes of his final battle, of his greatest triumph over the Witch-Queen Amarath destroyed by her final curse, and Rubric could only wail in horror when his flames betrayed him as a stray fireball reduced his wife and his world to ashes.

An excerpt from Thriller, by Andrew Drilon:
“I was at the mall when it broke out,” he says, “I managed to get this rifle and a pack of bullets before I got out, but guns only get you so far. There were five of us a couple hours ago; now, it’s just me.”

An excerpt from Insomnia, by Joseph Nacino:
5 April 2006… So I managed to talk to Justine’s friend, Eden, in Diliman and this is getting stranger by the minute. It seems that the language Justine isolated from the taped conversations are really old, older even than Latin. Eden told me she’ll get back to me on the translations. She seemed really excited…

An excerpt from Inhuman, by Alexander Marcos Osias:
“What name will you answer to? Tell us, in the name of Jesus. What name will you answer to?”

A long wail escaped from Marcel’s throat before it turned to a soft snicker.

“We have many names.” The words seemed spoken by neither male nor female, and was full of strange echoes and distortions, as though a million voices had uttered them in unison through a narrow crack in a thin, splintering door. “Do you want them all?”

Remember the book videos we featured a few months ago? Last month, a new set of videos won for the Teen Edition of the Book Video Awards. Here are the winning videos and the books they were based on. Please note that the videos are in MPEG4 format and may take a while to load.

These are some of the best young adult fiction for the year 2006. All three have garnered numerous awards and praises. All are currently available at Booktopia Libis.

The Book Thief
by Markus Zusak

Description:
It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.

This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.

Read an excerpt
View the video or download for your iPod
About writing The Book Thief

A Great and Terrible Beauty
by Libba Bray

Description:
It’s 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma’s reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she’s been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence’s most powerful girls—and their foray into the spiritual world—lead to?

Read an excerpt
View the video or download for your iPod

How I Live Now
by Meg Rosoff

Description:
“Every war has turning points and every person too.”

Fifteen-year-old Daisy is sent from Manhattan to England to visit her aunt and cousins she’s never met: three boys near her age, and their little sister. Her aunt goes away on business soon after Daisy arrives. The next day bombs go off as London is attacked and occupied by an unnamed enemy.

As power fails, and systems fail, the farm becomes more isolated. Despite the war, it’s a kind of Eden, with no adults in charge and no rules, a place where Daisy’s uncanny bond with her cousins grows into something rare and extraordinary. But the war is everywhere, and Daisy and her cousins must lead each other into a world that is unknown in the scariest, most elemental way.

A riveting and astonishing story.

Read an excerpt
View the video or download for your iPod

Read or Die is hosting a photography competition and exhibit called “Portrait of the Filipino as Reader.” Through visual media, the goal is to showcase the different faces of the Filipino as a reader in a world which challenges our definitions and perceptions of literacy and what it really means to read.

You are allowed to enter at most three photographs. Contest entries will be displayed in the RodCon site and finalists will be chosen through online voting. The top twenty photographs will be displayed in a special exhibit during RodCon 2007.

For the full set of rules, please visit the official contest site.

Also, on the sidebar is a preview of the RodCon pass which just arrived in our inbox. Nice.