Variety is reporting today that Goblet of Fire film director Mike Newell will be receiving a special award from the British Academy of Film & Television Arts. Mr. Newell will be the recipient of the “John Schlesinger Britannia Award for artistic excellence at the Britannia Awards to be presented Nov. 10 at the Beverly Hilton …read more!

Earlier this month we told you that Amazon.com was holding a Harry Potter Review Panel contest for children to send in videos with their thoughts about Harry Potter. The winners have now been selected, and you can view them here. According to this press release the winners are: *Kaitlin Bennett, age 13, from Houston, Texas. …read more!

A minibook written by J.K. Rowling and auctioned for charity has just resurfaced and been sold on eBay for £24,995 (a customer ended the bidding by paying a predetermined amount that would ensure victory). The piece is, as the eBay store describes it: “A beautiful piece, written, and signed, on the opening page in fine …read more!

JKRowling.com has been updated to wish Dobby a Happy Birthday! Yay!*throws lots of socks up into air 🙂 *

Hi all: we’ve reimplemented our poll feature on the main page, to prepare for Friday’s posting of the top 10 questions chosen in our “Ask Jo” contest. In the meantime, do some Snape speculating on the right, there.

UPDATE: Thanks to an anonymous Leaky reader, you can see pics of the segment CNBC did on the book – including images of the finished book being sorted and packed – right here! Barnes & Noble announced on Business Wire today that 124 tractor trailer trucks, weighing more than 4,000,000 pounds, will arrive between now …read more!

Today, actor Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom) is celebrating his 16th Birthday! Happy Birthday Matthew!

Some new stamps showing the first look at Mad-Eye as well as more images of the Horntail and other creatures have been posted by Veritaserum; check it out here! Thanks, VS!

The Associated Press released today four articles all about the Harry Potter book series. The story had been accidentally made public Friday and then pulled down, but is released from embargo today, the first part, focusing on the merchandising surrounding the launch of the new book, available on Yahoo! This time, the article says, booksellers …read more!

Want to win a part in the Order of the Phoenixfilm? Tonight perhaps you can, for at a charity ball in Scotland, film director David Yates will be auctioning off a walk-on role in the film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The Entrepreneurial Exchange charity ball, to be held at the Glasgow …read more!