"Chamber of Secrets" Wins Award

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has won the award for Best Live Action Family Film from the Phoenix Film Critics Society. In addition, Emma Watson was honoured in the Best Performance by a Youth – Female category. (Thank you to Caroline for the link.)

Pages

A lot of you have been throwing around this "768" pages thing. That's roughly what GoF was, though a Bloomsbury email is quoting that length for OotP, which is bizarre. The official information released is that it's 255,000 words as opposed to 191,000 words in GoF. At 250 words per page (an average estimate), that'sContinued...

Book 5 Pre-Ordering Information

Amazon.co.uk is currently taking pre-orders for Order of the Phoenix at 50% off!

Amazon.com in the US is also accepting pre-orders (although no price has been announced yet).

....under lock and key

iharrypotter.net tipped us off to a BBC article about the LOCATION of said manuscript.

What We Know

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• The manuscript is under lock & key at an undisclosed location
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• The only two people (besides J.K) who have read the book are editor Emma Matthewson (who edited from CoS onwward and the Comic Relief books) and Bloomsbury chief executiveContinued...

World News Coverage

Erupting indeed....this post will be where we track news coverage of the announcement. You can follow along with us real-time. Here's the various articles being written:

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• Washington Post
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• E! Online News
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• CNN Money
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• Associated Press (via NY Daily News)
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• Reuters (via SABC News)
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• ITN Channel 5 News
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• The Australian
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• Financial Times
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• Dow JonesContinued...

BBC Newsround: What happens to the book now?

Go here for this very handy article from Newsround detailing the production process for OotP which is now under way! Yay! [Yes, we will be erupting like this at random moments for some time.]

Official Press Release Info

Here it is, folks: The book to be released on June 21, 2003, in U.S., Britain, Canada and Australia,, the book is 38 chapters long, and over one-third longer than Goblet of Fire - with quick math that's close to 1,000 pages. That's all of Lord of the Rings. Anyway, here you go:

J.K. ROWLING'S HARRY POTTERContinued...

Watch Scholastic Stock Soar

I must admit, I'm a bit disappointed that I haven't found ANY information on Scholastics site under Corporate info or Kids area about the release date. However, it should be fun to watch Scholastic stock soar when US markets open this morning. Already Bloomsbury stock is quickly rising. We've placed theContinued...

Heidi's Birthday

A HA, it's my time for REVENGE! HAH! Go here to wish her the best - and to thank her for having her birthday, hence getting us a book release date...yay!

Release Date for OoTP Announced by Bloomsbury

Click here for the announcement by Bloomsbury of the June 21, 2003 release date.
Yes, it's Bloomsbury's site, so it *is* official.


Sections from the book on the Bloomsbury site include:

“The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, squareContinued...

Ain't-it-Cool News Correction

The previously mentioned article from AICN has changed a wee bit. Quotage:

Timothy Spall has been cast as Peter Pettigrew for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I made the mistake earlier of saying it was Professor Lupin he was playing ...

Although it's still a rumour at this point, it makes more sense, fromContinued...

Timothy WHO as Lupin?

To add to the ever-growning rumor list of PoA casting, Moriarty from AICN announces that a "very reliable source" has told him the part of Prof. Remus "Moony" Lupin has been cast as Timothy Spall from movies such as Vanilla Sky and the now-playing Nicholas Nickelby. Frankly with about 5-6 actors rumoredContinued...

"Another knight is considering it"

In answering a fan letter about the possibility of his playing Dumbledore, Sir Ian McKellen had this to say (dated Jan 11, 2003):

Dear concerned mailer,

I have not been offered Dumbledore but another knight is considering it.

Best wishes

From the actor who plays Gandalf for God’s sake,

Ian McKellen

Michigan Teen/Fanfic Author Published

Thanks Lia, for pointing us to this article in the Observer-Eccentric about a young Michigan teen who has just had her first book published, and got her start in the HP fanfic world. Aimée Carter - congratulations, and please contact us if you can - we'd love to interview your talented self. :)

Edit:Continued...

Tom Felton article

SoFanatic has uploaded a scan of an article about Tom Felton, but we're not sure which publication it's from. Thanks to Courtney Beth for letting us know about the article - but if anyone knows where it comes from, please do tell us!


The site seems to be down for the moment - but check back ina few hours and it shouldContinued...