As you know, tonight at 5pm EST the entire LeakyLounge will shut down save for one area that will serve as a main discussion group until our moderators have had a chance to read the book and prevent people from getting spoiled. Our comments have been disabled for some time now because of traffic, but …read more!

Forbes.com has a set of three Harry Potter-themed articles in their current issue. Harry Potter And The Vanishing Brand Magic explores forecasting and sales issues at Scholastic, Wizard Rock profiles Harry & the Potters, and links to one of their songs, and Will The Real Harry Potter Stand Up profiles a Washington attorney named Harold …read more!

Philip let us know that the London Evening Standard newspaper carried a report today (July 13) on all the victims of last week’s outrage (those confirmed dead and those who are still missing) and in its tribute to Carrie, aged 24, said that on the night before the terror attacks Carrie “interrupted her father’s painstaking …read more!

JuneRose let us know that MSNBC’s Scarborough Country discussed the series on their July 12 episode, and featured a British woman who complained that the series teaches children about witchcraft. UPDATE: And here’s the transcript!

The San Jose Mercury News and Denver Post both report today on how some adult fans of the Harry Potter series share their love of the books through participation in the fanfic-writing community. The Post also has an article on how Potter is “magic for grownups”.

The Sydney Morning Herald‘s Emma MacDonald joins Joel Stein from the LA Times in criticizing adult fans of the Harry Potter series. One of her “criticisms” is interesting, because JK Rowling herself has said that she never intended the books to be children’s books. MacDonald writes: Children notice she’s been writing the recent ones not …read more!

“Dumbledore” has been calling Books-a-Million customers to remind them to pick up their books this weekend, so between those messages and the pre-recorded message Jim Dale did for Borders, you never know who will be on the other end of your phone when you answer it this week!

EDITOR’S NOTE: We posted this the evening before last, but are “bumping” it up, as we have since received many emails from our readers who saw it this morning on CNN, as well as on other sites – including CBC Arts, which features an interview with Leaky’s own B.K. DeLong (click for RealPlayer audio). ~*~ …read more!

Amazon.com released some pics today of HBP being packed up and shipped; check them out below – some great closeups of the book herein: HBP packed up by Amazon, images 1-4 HBP packed up by Amazon, images 5-8 HBP packed up by Amazon, images 13-16 HBP packed up by Amazon, images 17-18

The next edition of RetroVision Magazine will feature a Harry Potter News Diary, chronicling in 35,000 words a month-by-month, year-by-year timeline of the Harry Potter phenomenon. It covers “everything from the first announcement that J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone had been picked up by Bloomsbury through the publication of this summer’s book …read more!