This is what J. K. Rowling said on her website after electronic copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows appeared on the internet and also after copies of the hardcover were sold over the internet by an online retailer. The author also expressed disappointment when a review of the book (even yet unreleased) appeared in the esteemed New York Times.

She urged fans to ignore the unauthenticated information that started to spread a few weeks ago. She also gave thanks to the newspapers and bookstores who protect the secrecy of the book until the very minute it is to be released.

If you don’t want to run into spoilers, be very careful where you go on the internet. Sites like Ebay have pages of the book for sale, you can also find spoilers in YouTube and similar sites.

Do not worry, true fans, in a very short time you will know everything!

This seems to be a good year for young adult fantasy fiction crossing over to the big screen.  Aside from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, here are other books that you can expect to see in theaters soon.

I remember reading Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising.   Maybe I was too young or I let my imagination run away with me or Susan Cooper writes a good story, because I know it scared me and I had to put it down a few times before I could finish it.  It is the story of a boy who finds out on his eleventh birthday that he is an Old One, someone destined to protect the world from evil.  The book is part of a series of five volumes.  The movie is scheduled to come out towards the end of the year.

Being released as a Christmas movie is Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass (known in the UK as The Northern Lights).  The story is set in a world that is like ours, but isn’t, where humans have animal companions representing their own souls.  Lyra, a young girl, becomes the bearer of a compass that can tell you the answer to any question.  The story has missing children, daring rescues, and armored polar bears.  It should make for a good movie.

Coming sooner to a theater near you is Neil Gaiman’s Stardust.   It is the story of earnest Tristan who promises to fetch his lady love a star they saw fall beyond the enchanted wall of their village.

Here’s a new website from the nice people of Read or Die.  They describe it as “…an online Filipino literary portal and community…hosts blogs, author and group sites, reading guides, reading lists, reading challenges, podcasts, news of events on literacy and literature, online book clubs and digitized publications.”

The site looks nice and neat and is packed with information.  Anyone with anything to say about the local reading culture can and should use it.  You can visit it just to read what’s new in the Philippine literary setting.  You can create your own blog to, let’s say, promote your new book.  You can join the forums and discuss books, events, writers, etc.

Gingerbread Girl, Stephen King’s new 21,000-word “long story” is appearing in this month’s issue of Esquire magazine.  The novella is the story of Em who runs from her husband to a secluded place in Florida where she makes the mistake of running into a neighbor inside a Stephen King story.

Another novel that previously made its first appearance in Esquire was Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  The magazine’s website includes an excerpt of the novella.

On the Road, Jack Kerouac’s novel about Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty (characters based on the author and his friend) and their trip across America, was published fifty years ago in 1957. It was actually written six years earlier in 1951 on a scroll. Amazing, isn’t it? Kerouac wrote the original novel in three weeks on ten scrolls each twelve feet long and taped together. The Kerouac scroll was auctioned off a few years ago for $2.2M.

To celebrate the novel’s 50th year in print, friends and fans of the author took turns reading the book cover-to-cover at Narupa University in Boulder, Colorado. The reading took 12 hours.

A picture of the scroll taken from the University of Iowa website.

Volume 2 of The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories was delivered to our store a few days ago and with the rain in the background, I thought today was a perfect time to do some reading.

It was an afternoon well-spent. We have to congratulate Kenneth (the editor and creator of the magazine) for getting over the second issue hurdle (which can sometimes be more difficult than getting over the first one) and giving us another digest of entertaining short stories by Filipino writers.

You’ll find that some things have changed from the first, but all the good things mentioned in our first post about the digest were kept intact: author profiles, comments from the authors on the writing process, a writing contest, etc. (One thing I did miss from the first one though was the front-to-back cover art spread since this volume has the art entirely on the front cover. Not a big deal, I just thought the cover art looked very nice as a full spread.) My favorite story this time was a mystery in a Philippine fairy tale/mythological setting called “Beneath the Acacia,” by Celestine G. Trinidad. I liked it because I thought it was funny and I enjoy mysteries.

It has to be said that we also love the magazine’s “sincerity.” The magazine truly does exist to showcase local talent, to give us an affordable and entertaining read, and ultimately to contribute to the effort to get Filipinos to read. As someone who has delved into the risky, romantic, and rewarding business of bookselling, this is something I understand and appreciate.

We have a feeling that the digest is going to be around for a while now that it actually has sponsors! Don’t worry, the ad pages will not take away from your reading enjoyment. The digest is available at Booktopia for P100. It’s very handy so you can put it in your purse or fold it into your pocket and whip it out anytime you need an enjoyable read.

Scholastic, publisher of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is posting 7 Deathly Hallows questions on their site as part of their publicity campaign.  They have just recently posted the second question and are expected to post a new one every two weeks until a few weeks before the release on July 21.

Here are the questions so far:

1. Who will live, who will die?

Harry Potter
Lord Voldemort
Snape
Ginny
Ron
Hermione
Neville
Hagrid
Draco Malfoy
Someone Else/Other

2. Is Snape good or evil?

Good and still a spy for the Order of the Phoenix
Good but in too deep with Voldemort
Evil and has always been a spy for Voldemort
Evil but only because Voldemort is back

We will be posting the questions as they come.  In the meantime, check out these bookmarks; there should be one for every question.  (The files are in PDF format and are about 1Mb each.)
Question 1 bookmark
Question 2 bookmark

Hooray! Got this in our mailbox this week and we’re all excited over it. We imagine ourselves sitting quietly and doing our job, trying to be the best bookstore website we could be, and somehow someone notices. It feels great. Thanks to DigitalFilipino.com and their sponsors for promoting the use and development of e-commerce in the Philippines.

Dear Sir/Madam,

The DigitalFilipino.com Web Awards just concluded its final judging and your site, Booktopia, was selected as winner in the Books category.

In this regard, please join us in our awards ceremony…

The agenda and details of the award can be found at http://digitalfilipinowebawards.blogspot.com

The DigitalFilipino.com Web Awards in collaboration with the APEC Digital Opportunity (ADOC) Award program aims to advocate the use of Internet and e-Commerce for business development, through the identification, promotion, and highlighting of best e-Commerce practices from various websites in the Philippines.

Websites in thirty-one (31) categories were reviewed and judged for their ability to create a noticeable presence on the Internet — their ability to be seen and heard among all the noise and clutter of the Net. Commercial websites were also reviewed for their ability to conduct e-commerce, in simple yet professional manner.

All entries were nominated by the public from December 2006 to February 2007 and were judged by members of the DigitalFilipino.com Club. Details about the club can be found at http://www.e-commercephilippines.com

All winners will receive a trophy, Google AdWords voucher, special prizes, and a slot in a three-day advanced e-commerce training at the ADOC Center in Quezon City this May 2007.

From the 31 winners, there will be three ADOC Award winners too where the first placer will be able to represent the Philippines in the ADOC Week on July 24 to 27 in Taiwan.

The ADOC project aims to facilitate the bridging of the digital divide within the APEC community through training and trading. It is an independent, not-for-profit program funded by Chinese Taipei. The project was initiated in 2004, and to date, seven APEC economies are actively participating in the project. These are Chile, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

Through this project, we hope to increase the awareness and promotion of outstanding websites and to get a better understanding of the benefits of the Internet, as well as the various ways in which e-Commerce can play a vital part in business development.

Thank you.

Respectfully yours,
Janette Toral
DigitalFilipino.com

Millions of fans mourned the death of author Kurt Vonnegut who died last Wednesday at age 84 from complications from a fall he suffered weeks ago. Vonnegut is well-known for his satirical and absurdist works. He liked to combine literature with science fiction as he did with Slaughterhouse-Five, his most famous work and a very important piece of American literature.

Read or re-read Vonnegut. Available now at Booktopia:

Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, Welcome to the Monkey House, Mother Night, Galapagos, Slapstick: Or Lonesome No More!, Bluebeard, Player Piano, Jailbir, Deadeye Dick, Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons.

Incidentally, back when e-mail was fairly new to most, a message that started with “Wear sunscreen” was credited to Vonnegut as a commencement address he gave to the graduating class of MIT. Though funny and well-written, it was not Vonnegut. What did go around the internet later on as the story of a soldier who goes AWOL to woo his childhood friend from the man she was to marry is a story from Welcome to the Monkey House. It’s the kind of story that will make you want to read more from Vonnegut. Search the internet for Kurt Vonnegut’s wonderful story, A Long Walk to Forever.

(1) Good news for Potter fans. First, released late last month was the front and back cover art by Mary GrandPré for the American edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. View the full cover art here. Beautiful, isn’t it?

(2) Here’s another piece of good news. The price of the seventh book has gone down. We’re not saying anything yet this time until we’re absolutely sure, but we are sure that you will be happy with the new pricing scheme. We are, still, of course, accepting reservations.

(3) And the final bit of good news. Just like the last time, if you live or work in our neighborhood — we mean Eastwood City, Libis, Bagumbayan, Loyola, Acropolis, White Plains, Valle Verde, Greenmeadows, St. Ignatius, Blue Ridge, Kapitolyo, etc. – you can have your book delivered to you for free by Owl Post on July 21, hopefully while you’re having breakfast, but definitely before you sit down to lunch. You’ll have to reserve the book to avail of this offer.