John Williams told the Boston Globe, he is hard at work on the score for ”Harry Potter” and plans to complete it at Tanglewood this summer. ”I’m really cooking on it now. I’ve finished about an hour of the score, which means there is a lot left to go. The director Chris Columbus has done …read more!

The Unofficial Harry Potter Fan Club has published a rumor on a possible date for the release of Book 5: Wendy writes to tell us: “I have a definite release date for Harry Potter 5. It will be released February 2002 for sure. My general manger found out at a recent district manager meeting.”

Quidditch strategies in the Wimbledon semifinals Daily Telegraph writer Sue Mott describes how Venus Williams used her “Harry Potter powers” in her semi-final win against fellow American Lindsay Davenport: Williams won 6-2, 6-7, 6-1 because Davenport is twice the tennis player and half the athlete of her opponent. She knew where to put the ball …read more!

The BBC tells us details about an upcoming Harry Potter art auction at Sotheby’s: Two original illustrations for the first Harry Potter book [British edition] are to go on sale at Sotheby’s auction house in London on 10 July. The watercolour of Potter himself is expected to fetch between £20,000 and £25,000. The images, by …read more!

Reuters writer Andrej Shuksin, wrote a very interesting article about the big problems Russia has with its Harry Potter translations. Here are some excerpts: Harry Potter, trainee wizard, or Hamlet, Prince of Denmark? That was the dilemma facing Maria Litvinova, Russia’s top translator and world-renowned expert on Shakespeare, when she agreed to set aside her …read more!

This is the Japanese version of the Harry Potter teaser poster art. As you can easily read (well.. ), the movie is expected to reach Japanese theatres on December 1st. This image is taken from one of these highly collectible Japanese promotional flats. The reverse side shows a few scenes from the movie and information …read more!

The new movie “America’s Sweethearts” apparently has a Harry Potter mention. Several readers emailed us this exchange: In the movie “Americas Sweethearts,” the sister played by Julia Robert’s complains that the famous sister [Catherine Zeta-Jones] never reads a book, the sister replies: quote “I do too, I’ve read all 4 Harry Potter books.”

Empire Online has a great article about Leslie Phillips, voice of the Sorting Hat.

HOL News and Vacancies The HOL Great Hall Forum has opened its gates last weekend. Due to the overwhelming demand, we’ve decided to open some more classes in HOL. If you want to be a HOL Teacher, please check the HOL Vacancies page for details. Webmasters needed for HOL Hogsmeade: HOL will have a huge …read more!

Weakening to the rumor of Hugh Grant playing Gilderoy Lockhart in the second HP movie, a reader sent us the following summary of Hugh Grant’s appearance on the Rosie O’Donnell show: “I have the April 2001 Rosie interview on tape [and] watched it again. He brought Rosie the two Harry Potter Comic Relief books, he …read more!