The West Asheville Branch of the Asheville-Buncombe Library System in North Carolina won Scholastic’s competition for the first signed American edition of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the LibraryJournal.com reports. The book was hand-delivered by a representative of Scholastic this week and won among 9,000 entrants. Because response to the competition was so high, …read more!

The Scotsman is reporting about some new research that was conducted in the UK about the influence of the Harry Potter books on children’s literacy. A result of this research by The Federation of Children’s Book Groups shows that reading the Potter books have proven very beneficial to children’s reading abilities. “Almost six out of …read more!

MSNBC wants to know if you’re the biggest HP fan. If you’re under 13 you can enter their contest, to vie for the title of Harry Potter Total Trivia Tournament Champion. The contest for this title will take place on July 14 in NYC (winners will be brought to NYC for it).

Dark Horizons has posted an item today that says there’s an issue of “HOLA” with an interview with Liz Hurley that strongly implies she will be playing Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, due to start filming in Jan or Feb: “I want to have fun and when I learned …read more!

Jenna from DanRadcliffe.com and Page from DanRadcliffe.co.uk reported today that an article in Teen Hollywood.com regarding Dan’s parents’ purported concern regarding his safety in Prague was “totally untrue”. Here is what Dan’s representative had to say about it: This is a totally fabricated story, with not one grain of truth in it. Firstly, due to …read more!

As most of you are aware, on July 16, Emerson of MuggleNet and I will be in Scotland, interviewing Jo Rowling to celebrate the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. With less than 40 days to go, it’s time we get down to business! We know you’re all dying to get a question …read more!

The Herald Sun in Australia reports about a price war for the book that’s going on between the major chains, including Dymocks, Angus and Robertson. While the book has a recommended retail price of $45, Dymocks will sell it for $29.95, and the online retailers are still trying to determine their in-store prices.

The Times newspaper has posted this article speculating about what type of books J.K. Rowling will write next once the Harry Potter series is finished. The article suggests that she might turn to writing mystery novels, saying: She has a strong interest in crime fiction and would be a successful writer of detective novels, according …read more!

Just as a reminder… ABC Television will be broadcasting Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets at 7pm (ET). It will not only have some of the deleted scenes from Chamber, but also sneak peek look at the upcoming Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire film. There will be interviews with the trio, clips, …read more!

The Express newspaper today has a new article about the possibility of filming for Order of the Phoenix taking place in the Czech Republic. According to the paper, this move away from filming in Scotland and using Czech Republic locales instead, is a result of several factors, one being the continued inclement weather which forced …read more!