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Everyone's Crazy for Harry (Potters)

Friday, July 20, 2007

Tonight's Christmas, New Year's and Fourth of July all wrapped up together in a shiny bow for the book industry, because the long-awaited final volume in the Harry Potters series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" is released at the witching hour. (Guess, we should throw in Halloween too.) Haven't reserved your copy yet? No problem, here's you handy-dandy last-minute roundup of the local parties and inventory.

  • Watchung Booksellers, 54 Fairfield St. in Montclair, kicks things off with "The Party that Shall Not Be Named" at 10 pm. Face painting, crafts, a costume contest and magic show are the featured events for customers picking up pre-ordered books. (If you're getting it through Amazon, go their party.)
    All Watchung's pre-order inventory has been sold out, but more copies are expected at 10 pm, and you can come by the store for first-come, first-served copies then. So that everybody's not crowding around the cash register at midnight, people will pay for their books earlier and receipt a chip, which will be redeemed for the book at midnight. 973.744.7177
  • Montclair Book Center, 221 Glenridge Ave., in Montclair isn't throwing a party or staying open til midnight, but they are waking up early tomorrow and selling the book at 8 am. They're taking reservations now, but expect plenty of unreserved copies to be on hand in the morning. 973.783.3630.
  • Barnes & Noble in Clifton Commons starts celebrating at 8 pm with a costume contest (the four winners get the first four copies at midnight), jellybean counting contests, wand-making and other activities. People who have pre-ordered can pick up gold wristbands, which give them access to the books released right at midnight. People who want the book but haven't pre-ordered can get blue wristbands, which will entitle them to books after the gold wristband crowd is done. Confused? So are we. Call 973.779.5500.


  • Posted by Debbie Galant on July 20, 2007 2:23 PM
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    Shouldn't it be the "Harry Potter" (singular) series?

    Also, everyone is traditionally "wild about" Harry. Not "crazy for."

    And Hallows as in "All Hallows Eve," I'm guessing. But Rowling uses language so creatively and beautiflly, so I could be wrong.

    Posted by cathar | July 20, 2007 2:55 PM
     

    "beautifully," unlike self sometimes.

    Posted by cathar | July 20, 2007 2:59 PM
     

    The sad thing about what is sure to be the best selling book of the year is this: The bookstores stand to lose a lot of money on it.

    I read a piece in Time that the large discounts given by sellers such as Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc are so ridiculously huge (in many cases only a dollar or two above wholesale) that brick and mortar stores are going to knowingly operate at a loss just to compete for per unit bragging rights.

    This means the operating costs of brick & mortar locations are going to outstrip the profit per unit by something like $5.00, or a loss of $5.00 per book that the store sells at the discounted price.

    Let's assume that 10 million copies of the initial 12 million print run are sold through various brick & mortar stores at the "competitive" price. That means stores stand to lose in the combined neighborhood of $50,000,000.00 for sake of bragging rights.

    If this isn't the definition of irony, I don't know what is.

    Hopefully our wonderful local book shops are smarter than this and offering reasonable discounts that will allow them to remain competitive without losing their shirts.

    Posted by Generically named Mike | July 20, 2007 3:13 PM
     

    Gotta crow a bit: downloaded a pirated version 3 days ago. Read through 700+ fuzzy photos of the pages of the book, loving every minute of it. I think it might be the best of the 7. Enjoy, everybody!

    Posted by TwinDad | July 20, 2007 3:46 PM
     

    p.s. - for those of you wondering, yes I plan on buying the book retail. 2 copies already reserved at local bookstore.

    Posted by TwinDad | July 20, 2007 3:49 PM
     

    On my way to Borders yesterday to pick up two reserved copies at $20.44, stopped at Shop-Rite for something. The market was vending copies at 18.99 with a card. Went no farther at that price. But first I have to finish the new Ian Rankin.

    Posted by cathar | July 22, 2007 12:41 PM
     

    It arrived at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday (Amazon pre-order). I finished it 6:00 p.m Sunday. Very satisfying, well concluded.

    Posted by Euterpe | July 23, 2007 12:26 PM
     

    Are there harry potter bookclubs?

    Posted by curt nelson | July 23, 2007 12:30 PM
     

    Are there harry potter bookclubs?

    Posted by curt nelson | July 23, 2007 12:31 PM
     

    Are there harry potter bookclubs?

    Posted by curt nelson | July 23, 2007 12:31 PM
     

    Ingrateful child...

    Took my 12-year old son to B&N on Friday. (BTW: There are still some nerdy Dungeon-and-Dragons-types still out there in the world! And they all were converged at the Barnes & Nobles in Clifton on Friday....)

    Got there at 9pm and we didn't actually purchase the book until 2AM! So the next morning I woke up and expected my son to be sitting up in bed reading the book we waited 5 hours to purchase. But NO! He decided he wanted to finish reading "something else" instead. So the book sits in our living room still in the green plastic B&N bag.

    I coulda had 5 extra hours of sleep but instead I hung out in B&N with a bunch of teen and adult Dungeon and Dragon masters!

    Anyway, ingrateful child...

    Posted by Watsessing neighbor | July 23, 2007 3:18 PM
     
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