Note: this post is spoiler-free.

Security guru Bruce Schneier writes:

It’s online [Note: link is spoiler safe]: digital photographs of every page are available on BitTorrent.

I’ve been fielding press calls on this, mostly from reporters asking me what the publisher could have done differently. Honestly, I don’t think it was possible to keep the book under wraps. There are millions of copies of the book headed to all four corners of the globe. There are simply too many people who must be trusted in order for the security to hold. And all it takes is one untrustworthy person — one truck driver, one bookstore owner, one warehouse worker — to leak the book.

But conversely, I don’t think the publishers should care. Anyone fan-crazed enough to read digital photographs of the pages a few days before the real copy comes out is also someone who is going to buy a real copy. And anyone who will read the digital photographs instead of the real book would have borrowed a copy from a friend. My guess is that the publishers will lose zero sales, and that the pre-release will simply increase the press frenzy.

I’m kind of amazed the book hadn’t leaked sooner.

Paper-based media also has its share of spoilers and early releases:

With only two days to go before the publication of the seventh and final instalment of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, both the New York Times and the Baltimore Sun have broken one of the most stringent embargoes of recent times and published a review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

After reading a copy “purchased at a New York City store yesterday”, one of America’s most influential literary critics, Michiko Kakutani, hails the volume in the New York Times as a dose of “good old-fashioned closure”.

Bloomsbury described the review as “very sad” to Reuters, pointing out that there was only one more day until the official release of the book around the world.

Link to Guardian article (some very vague spoilers, mostly about book structure/pacing)

As the end of the Harry Potter series approaches this July, publishers and booksellers are stepping up the search to find a new big hit to fill the coming hole in their profits.  Tunnels, by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams, is one of the latest candidates.

Interestingly, Tunnels was originally self-published; then went on to be picked up by one of the stars of the publishing business.

The latest candidate arrives under the aegis of the man who, as an editor at Bloomsbury, was the first to spot Potter’s potential, and who has gone on to publish the popular Cornelia Funke books. Barry Cunningham is now tipping a fantasy tale about a boy archaeologist, who discovers a world of thrilling adventure after digging a hole, as the next enormously big thing.

Cunningham found the first of the books, Tunnels, after its joint authors Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams pooled their resources to self-publish a deluxe edition. The first print run, sold through Gordon’s local bookshop in Norfolk, apparently sold out within hours - a sensational success for a self-published book - and word reached Cunningham.

With the backing of Cunningham - a man considered something of a magician himself in the publishing world - the book has gone on to sell pre-publication rights in 15 languages around the world, securing advances totalling more than £500,000. Cunningham is currently in Hollywood, in discussions to sell the film rights.

Link to the full Guardian article

The Leaky Cauldron writes:

Thanks to all the readers who mailed about the new contest the Miami Herald is holding asking fans to write their own final chapter to “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” In 300 words or less, submissions entered by June 21 from those 18 years and younger may be the winners of a free copy of the last Harry Potter book as well as free tickets to an advance screening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Along with Herald columnist Sue Corbett, the judge for this contest will be noted (and very funny) author Dave Barry. Good luck!

Link

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows US, UK, and UK adult cover art, from left to right:

Links to larger versions:

• Large US cover
  
• Large UK cover (including back)
• Large UK adult art (including back)

The jacket text on the UK covers reads:

Harry has been burdened with a dark, dangerous and seemingly impossible task: that of locating and destroying Voldemort’s remaining Horctuxes. Never has Harry felt so alone, or faced a future so full of shadows. But Harry must somehow find within himself the strength to complete the task he has been given. He must leave the warmth, safety and companionship of The Burrow and follow without fear or hesitation the inexorable path laid out for him…

In this final, seventh instalment of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling unveils in spectacular fashion the answers to many questions that have been so eagerly awaited. The spellbinding, richly woven nerrative, which plunges, twists and turns at a breathtaking pace, confirms the author as a mistress of storytelling, whose books will be read, reread and read again.

The Hamas-run Education Ministry on Saturday rescinded its decision to pull an anthology of Palestinian folk tales from school libraries and destroy copies, reportedly over mild sexual innuendo, following a widespread public outcry.

Some 1,500 copies of the book [Speak Bird, Speak Again] were destroyed — the most direct attempt by the militant Muslim group to impose its beliefs on Palestinian society.

Link to the Yahoo News article

The New York Times posted a story on this a few days ago, but Times Online has their own article now:

An award-winning children’s book about a ten-year-old girl seeking answers about life has provoked an uproar in America because it uses the word “scrotum” on the first page.

[…]

The Higher Power of Lucky won the Newbery Medal, considered the Pulitzer of children’s literature, last month and has gone into a second print run of 100,000.

Continue reading on TimesOnline.co.uk.

Another book has found its place on ban lists around the country on the basis of protecting the delicate constitutions of American children.

The word “scrotum” does not often appear in polite conversation. Or children’s literature, for that matter.

Yet there it is on the first page of “The Higher Power of Lucky,” by Susan Patron, this year’s winner of the Newbery Medal, the most prestigious award in children’s literature. The book’s heroine, a scrappy 10-year-old orphan named Lucky Trimble, hears the word through a hole in a wall when another character says he saw a rattlesnake bite his dog, Roy, on the scrotum.

“Scrotum sounded to Lucky like something green that comes up when you have the flu and cough too much,” the book continues. “It sounded medical and secret, but also important.”

The rest of the article can be read here, and the definition of ridiculous can be found here.

Anticipation over the ending of the best-selling Harry Potter series reached new heights today as J. K. Rowling announced today on her site that:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be published on Saturday 21st July 2007 at 00:01 BST in the UK and at 00:01 in the USA. It will also be released at 00:01 BST on Saturday 21st July in other English speaking countries around the world.

BBC News says:

[Bloomsbury] said it would publish a children’s hardback edition, an adult hardback, a special gift edition and an audio book on the same day.

As well as making Rowling a dollar billionaire, the books have been credited with bringing children back to reading and reviving the British film industry.