Harry Potter - History of the Books Harry Potter Harry Potter – History of the Books Series Overview Collectively, the seven Harry Potter books have sold nearly 500 million copies since the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in 1997, making Harry Potter the bestselling book series of all time. Some estimates suggest that only The Bible and The Red Book have sold more copies than the series. The books have been translated into more than 70 languages, making them some of the most translated works of literature in history. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone J.K. Rowling finished the manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in 1995. Represented by Christopher Little, the manuscript was rejected by dozens of publishers. Editors cited the story’s length and politically incorrect focus on boarding school as reasons for rejection. Bloomsbury eventually acquired the manuscript and ordered an initial print run of 500 hardback copies. Two hundred copies hit store shelves in June of 1997 with the remaining 300 sent to libraries. Later that year, the book earned the UK’s National Book Award and a gold medal in the Nestle Smarties Book Prize.

These awards, along with positive reviews and word of mouth, made the book well-known in a matter of months – ensuring it would receive larger additional printings. Within two years of its publication, Philosopher’s Stone had sold more than 300,000 copies in the UK alone. Before Philosopher’s Stone even began to appear in bookshops, several U.S. publishers engaged in a bidding war for its American publishing rights. In April of 1997, Arthur A. Levine from the Scholastic Corporation won the rights for $105,000 – more than Levine had ever paid any author, let alone a first-time novelist. Scholastic replaced the word “philosopher” to “sorcerer” in the title, fearing that American children might be put off by the former. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone debuted in the United States in October of 1998. In December, the book appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for the first time. It remained there, generally in one of the top three slots for 79 consecutive weeks, until the Times created a separate list for children’s book list in 2000.

The novel garnered numerous honors in the U.S. including Publisher’s Weekly’s Best Book of 1998 award. As of 2012, Philosopher’s Stone has been translated into 74 languages, including Latin and Ancient Greek. More than 107 million copies of the novel have been sold worldwide. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets The second installment in the Harry Potter series was published on July 2, 1998 in the United Kingdom and June 2, 1999 in the United States. It quickly rose to the top of bestseller lists in both countries and has since been translated into 65 languages. Like its predecessor, Chamber of Secrets won the Nestle Smarties book prize as well as several other honors including the American Library Association’s Best Book for Young Adults, and the first-ever children’s book award from the Scottish Arts Council. As of 2012, the book has sold 77 million copies worldwide and been translated into 72 languages. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Prisoner of Azkaban was published in July of 1999 in the United Kingdom, and three months later in the United States.

After the book sold more than 68,000 copies on the first day of its release in the U.K., American publisher Scholastic ordered an initial print run of half a million copies. The novel quickly took the number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list. This accomplishment meant that, for the first time, a third of the prestigious list consisted of children’s books, with Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets finishing out the top three slots. Along with other honors, Prisoner of Azkaban was named the Whitbread Book of the Year for 1999. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Goblet of Fire was released in the United States and the United Kingdom on July 8, 2000. J.K. Rowling originally intended to call the book “Harry Potter and the Doomspell Tournament” but changed the title some months before publication. Hundreds of bookstores in both countries stayed open until midnight to distribute the book to eager crowds, setting a precedent that would continue with all subsequent Harry Potter novels. With a combined first print of almost five million copies, Goblet of Fire smashed sales records by selling over three million copies in the first two days of its release.

In 2001, the novel won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix The fifth book in the Harry Potter series, Order of the Phoenix, debuted in the United State, United Kingdom and Canada at midnight on June 21, 2003. The three year gap between the fourth Harry Potter novel and Order of the Phoenix was the longest space between any two books in the series. The book broke the previous record for fastest selling novel of all time, held by Goblet of Fire, when it sold five million copies in the first 24 hours alone. Order of the Phoenix was named the American Library Association’s Best Book for Young Adults in 2003. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released at midnight on July 16, 2005 in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. J.K. Rowling revealed the title to fans via her new website on June 24, 2004 and later used the site to unleash several more clues about the content of the novel.

Half-Blood Prince sold a record-breaking 11 million copies on the first day of its release, beating the previous record held by Order of the Phoenix. It won the British Book of the Year award for 2005, along with several other prizes and honors. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows The long-awaited final installment in the Harry Potter series was released on July 21, 2007. Prior to its public release, copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows were kept well guarded, with publishers spending millions of dollars on security to protect details about the plot from leaking. Bookstores were legally forbidden to open boxes containing the books until midnight. Despite the high security, there were several leaks of the books content – including photos of every single page appearing on illegal file sharing sites. However, the leaks did nothing to dent the books popularity, as over 15 million copies were sold worldwide. Once again, the series had absolutely smashed its own record for a final time.

TV World Book Day: Our top ten reading-related world records | Guinness World Records Guinness World Records World Book Day: Our top ten reading-related world records By Kevin Lynch Google+ Today marks World Book Day, an annual event designed to encourage parents to read to their children. As well as hundreds of reading events taking place around the world, many schools have also been marking the event by encouraging pupils to dress up as their favourite characters from literature, with Harry Potter and the Gruffalo being among the most popular costumes. To celebrate, here below we list ten of the best book-related world records. Youngest person to write a published book The youngest commercially published female author is Dorothy Straight (b. 25 May 1958), of Washington, DC, USA, who wrote How the World Began in 1962, aged 4. It was published in August 1964 by Pantheon Books. More recently, the record for the youngest published male author is 5 years and 302 days and was achieved by Brazil's Adauto Kovalski da Silva (pictured above) who released his book Aprender é Fácil on 15 October 2005.

Staff from United Biscuits UK sales team marked their annual sales conference earlier this year by successfully toppling an arrangement of 5,318 Guinness World Records 2015 annuals at Old Windsor in Berkshire. Check out the record-breaking topple in the player below, and read more about the attempt here . video Largest book signing The most books signed by one author in a single session is 6,786 by Orrin Woodward (USA), who signed his book "And Justice For All" at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio, USA, on 21 June 2014. The attempt took 6 hours and 33 minutes to complete. Highest earning adult fiction author In terms of book sales and earnings, Erika Leonard James (published as E L James) is the most successful author of adult fiction. During the period June 2012 to June 2013, the British author netted a cool US$95million, beating previous record holder – the American writer James Patterson, who finished the 12-months with an almost-as-impressive US$91m.

Fastest selling book of fiction in 24hours The fastest selling book in history is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh - and final - novel in JK Rowling's (UK) Harry Potter series, which sold 8.3 million copies in the first 24 hours (or 345,833 books per hour), following its release in the USA at 00.01 on 21 July 2007. Rowling also holds the record for Highest annual earnings for a children's author having notched up an estimated US$300 million (£150 million) between in 2007-2008 according to the Forbes Celebrity 100 list released on 11 June 2008. Largest collection of books owned privately John Q. Benham of Avoca, Indiana, USA has a private collection of over 1.5 million books. As they have filled up his house, most of them must be kept in his six-car garage, two-storey building and piled under tarpaulin outdoors.

The longest marathon reading aloud is 113 hours 15 minutes achieved by Deepak Sharma Bajagain (Nepal) at the Tudikhel Ground, Kathmandu, Nepal, from 19 to 24 September 2008. He recited 17 different books from 13 authors during his record attempt. Highest library The world's highest library is located on the 60th floor of the JW Marriott Hotel at Tomorrow Square in Shanghai, China, at 230.9 m (757 ft 6 in) above street level. Membership is available to the public, and the 103 shelves in the library contain an ever-expanding collection of Chinese and English books. Best-selling copyright book And finally, a record of our own that we're all very proud of at Guinness World Records HQ. Excluding non-copyright works such as the Bible (with an estimated 6 billion copies sold) and the Koran, the world's all-time best-selling book is Guinness World Records (formerly The Guinness Book of Records).

Since it was first published in October 1955, global sales in some 37 languages have exceeded 124 million as of October 2010. Share Author J.K. Rowling � Harry Potter | Scholastic.com LEARN ABOUT ILLUSTRATOR KAZU KIBUISHI J K (Joanne Kathleen) Rowling was born in the summer of 1965 at Yate General Hospital in England and grew up in Chepstow, Gwent where she went to Wyedean Comprehensive. Jo left Chepstow for Exeter University, where she earned a French and Classics degree, and where her course included one year in Paris. As a postgraduate she moved to London to work at Amnesty International, doing research into human rights abuses in Francophone Africa. She started writing the Harry Potter series during a Manchester to London King’s Cross train journey, and during the next five years, outlined the plots for each book and began writing the first novel. Jo then moved to northern Portugal, where she taught English as a foreign language. She married in October 1992 and gave birth to her daughter Jessica in 1993.

When her marriage ended, she returned to the UK to live in Edinburgh, where Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone was eventually completed, and in 1996 she received an offer of publication. The following summer the world was introduced to Harry Potter. Jo married Dr. Neil Murray in 2001, and a brother for Jessica, David, was born in 2003. A sister, Mackenzie, followed in January 2005. The Books Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was published by Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic in September 1998. The second title in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published on June 2, 1999 and debuted at No. 1 on the adult hardcover bestseller lists. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was published on September 9, 1999 to worldwide acclaim and massive press attention. The first three Harry Potter books occupied the top three spots on numerous adult bestseller lists.

The fourth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published simultaneously in Britain, the USA, Canada and Australia on July 8, 2000 with a record first print run of 3.8 million in the US alone. It quickly broke all records for the greatest number of books sold on the first weekend of publication. The fifth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, was published in Britain, the USA, Canada and Australia on June 21, 2003. It is the longest in the series – 766 pages - and broke the records set by Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire as the fastest selling book in history. The sixth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was published in the UK, US and other English-speaking countries on July 16, 2005 and also achieved record sales. The seventh and final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published in the UK, US and other English speaking countries on July 21, 2007.

With a record-breaking first print-run of 12 million copies in the USA, the book sold 8.3 million copies in the first 24 hours making it the fastest selling book in history. J K Rowling has also written two small volumes, which appear as the titles of Harry’s school books within the novels. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through The Ages were published by Bloomsbury Children’s Books and Scholastic in March 2001 in aid of Comic Relief. A third volume, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which appeared in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published on December 3, 2008 in aid of The Children's High Level Group. The Harry Potter books are distributed in over 200 territories, are translated into 68 languages and have sold over 400 million copies worldwide. Selected Honors and Awards J K Rowling was voted author of the year at the 1999 British Book Awards (Nibbies) and won the Booksellers Association Author of the Year award two years in a row (1998 and 1999).

She won the W H Smith Children’s Book of the Year for 2000 and in 2004, she was awarded the WH Smith’s Fiction Award. In 2006, Jo was Winner of the Nibbie’s (Children’s Book of the Year) for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Most recently, Jo received the 2008 British Book Awards’ Lifetime Achievement Award. Jo was awarded an OBE for services to children's literature in June 2000 and in 2003 received Spain’s prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for Concord. In February 2009, she was inducted into France’s prestigious Legion of Honor and given the honorary title of “knight”. Jo has honorary degrees from Harvard University, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire USA, University of Exeter, University of St Andrews, Napier University, Edinburgh, and University of Edinburgh. J K Rowling supports a wide range of charities and causes: For seven years J K Rowling was an Ambassador of One Parent Families, now called Gingerbread, a charity working with lone parents and their children. In 2007 she took an honorary position as President for the charity.

In 2005 Jo co-founded the Children’s High Level Group, which aims to make life better for young people in care, in Eastern Europe and ultimately all over the world. In February 2010 the UK- based arm of the charity became Lumos. Since 1999 Jo has been a supporter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society Scotland, for nine of those years as its patron. Although she has recently stepped down as Patron of the charity, she continues to fund MS research directly. free pdf book free pdf book Title page of the original edition (1865) Author(s) Lewis Carroll Publication date 26 November 1865 Followed by Through the Looking-Glass Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (commonly shortened to Alice in Wonderland) is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world (Wonderland) populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures. The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as children.

It is considered to be one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre, and its narrative course and structure have been enormously influential, especially in the fantasy genre. Title page of first edition (1605) Author(s) Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Original title El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote De la Mancha Country Spain Genre(s) Picaresco, satire, parody, farce Publisher Juan de la Cuesta Publication date 1605 (Part One) 1615 (Part Two) Dewey Decimal 863 LC Classification PQ6323 Don Quixote , fully titled The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (Spanish: El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha), is a novel written by Miguel de Cervantes. The novel follows the adventures of Alonso Quijano, who reads too many chivalric novels, and sets out to revive chivalry under the name of Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza as his squire, who frequently deals with Don Quixote's rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood with a unique Earthy wit.

He is met by the world as it is, initiating themes like Intertextuality, Realism, Metatheatre and Literary Representation. Published in two volumes a decade apart, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, and one of the earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. In one such list, Don Quixote was cited as the "best literary work ever written". Sales 44 million (worldwide)[1] Story timeline 1997–1998 Chapters 37 (counting the epilogue) Pages 607 (UK) ISBN 0545010225 Preceded by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the seventh and final of the Harry Potter novels written by British author J. K. Rowling.

The book was released on 21 July 2007 by Bloomsbury Publishing in the United Kingdom, in the United States by Scholastic, and in Canada by Raincoast Books, ending the series that began in 1997 with the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The novel chronicles the events directly following Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), and the final confrontation between the wizards Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort. Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in January 2007. Before its release, Bloomsbury reportedly spent GB£10 million to keep the book's contents safe before its release date. American publisher Arthur Levine refused any copies of the novel to be released in advance for press review, although two reviews were submitted early. Shortly before release, photos of all 759 pages of the U.S. edition were leaked and transcribed, leading Scholastic to look for the source that had leaked it. Released globally in 93 countries, Deathly Hallows broke sales records as the fastest-selling book ever.

It sold 15 million copies in the first 24 hours following its release, including more than 11 million in the U.S. and UK alone. The previous record, 9 million in its first day, had been held by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The novel has also been translated into over 120 languages, including Ukrainian, Swedish, and Hindi. Major themes in the novel are death and living in a corrupted society, and critics have compared them to Christian allegories. Generally well-received, the book won the 2008 Colorado Blue Spruce Book Award, and the American Library Association named it a "Best Book for Young Adults". A two-part film based on the book began showing in November 2010, when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 was released; Part 2 was released on 15 July 2011. Preceded by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Followed by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth and penultimate novel in the Harry Potter series by British author J. K. Rowling.

Set during protagonist Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts, the novel explores the past of Harry's nemesis, Lord Voldemort, and Harry's preparations for the final battle alongside his headmaster and mentor Albus Dumbledore. The book was published in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury and in the United States by Scholastic on 16 July 2005, as well as in several other countries. It sold nine million copies in the first 24 hours after its release, a record at the time which was eventually broken by its sequel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. There were many controversies before and after it was published, including the right to read the copies delivered prior to the release date in Canada. Reception to the novel was generally positive and it won several awards and honours, including the 2006 British Book of the Year award. Reviewers noted that the book took on a darker tone than its predecessors, though it did contain humour. Some considered the main themes to be love and death, and trust and redemption. The character development of Harry and several other teenage characters was also remarked upon.

Budget $150 million[1] Box office $939,885,929[1] Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a 2007 fantasy film directed by David Yates and based on the novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling. It is the fifth instalment in the Harry Potter film series, written by Michael Goldenberg and produced by David Heyman and David Barron. The story follows Harry Potter's fifth year at Hogwarts as the Ministry of Magic refuses to believe the return of the evil Lord Voldemort. The film stars Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, alongside Rupert Grint and Emma Watson as Harry's best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. It is the sequel to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and is followed by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Live-action filming took place in England and Scotland for exterior locations and Leavesden Film Studios in Watford for interior locations from February to November 2006, with a one-month break in June. Post-production on the film continued for several months afterwards to add in visual effects.

The film's budget was reportedly between £75 and 100 million ($150–200 million). Warner Bros., the distributor of the film, released it in the UK on 12 July 2007, and in North America on 11 July, both in conventional and IMAX theatres, and was the first Potter film to be released in IMAX 3D. Order of the Phoenix is the unadjusted 16th highest-grossing film of all time, and a critical and commercial success, acclaimed as "the best one yet" by Rowling, who has consistently offered praise for the film adaptations of her work. The film opened to a worldwide 5-day opening of $333 million, fourth all-time, and grossed $939 million total, second to Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End for the greatest total of 2007. Budget $150 million Box office $896,911,078[1] Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a 2005 fantasy film[1] directed by Mike Newell and based on the novel of the same name by J. K.

Rowling. It is the fourth instalment in the Harry Potter film series, written by Steve Kloves and produced by David Heyman. The story follows Harry Potter's fourth year at Hogwarts as he is chosen by the Goblet of Fire to compete in the Triwizard Tournament, a highly dangerous competition. The film stars Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, alongside Rupert Grint and Emma Watson as Harry's best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. It is the sequel to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and is followed by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Filming began in early 2004 and the scenes of Hogwarts took place at the Leavesden Film Studios. Five days after its release, the film had grossed over US$102 million at the North American box office, which is the third highest first-weekend tally for a Harry Potter film behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2. Goblet of Fire enjoyed an immensely successful run at the box office, earning over $900 million worldwide, which made it the highest grossing film of 2005 and the eighth highest grossing film of all time at that time.

It was the third highest grossing film in the U.S. for 2005, making $290 million. As of August 2011 it is the unadjusted 21st highest-grossing film of all time, and the sixth highest grossing film in the Harry Potter series. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction, and won the BAFTA Award for Best Production Design, making it the only Harry Potter film to win at the BAFTAs. It was also the first film in the series to receive a PG-13 rating by the MPAA and a 12A by the BBFC for sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images. Goblet of Fire was the second Potter film to be released in IMAX. The film is one of the best reviewed instalments within the series, and is noted for the maturity and sophistication of its characters, darker and more complex plotline, writing, and performances of the lead actors. Preceded by Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Followed by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling.

The book was published on 8 July 1999. The novel won the 1999 Whitbread Children's Book Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the 2000 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and was short-listed for other awards, including the Hugo. A film based on the novel was released on 31 May 2004, in the United Kingdom and 4 June 2004 in the U.S. and many other countries. Harry Potter : British : 9781523480890 Add to wishlist Description Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the seventh and final novel of the Harry Potter series, written by British author J. K. Rowling. The book was released on 21 July 2007 by Bloomsbury Publishing in the United Kingdom, in the United States by Scholastic, and in Canada by Raincoast Books, ending the series that began in 1997 with the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

The novel chronicles the events directly following Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), and the final confrontation between the wizards Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort. Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in January 2007. Before its release, Bloomsbury reportedly spent £10 million to keep the book's contents safe before its release date. American publisher Arthur Levine refused any copies of the novel to be released in advance for press review, although two reviews were submitted early. Shortly before release, photos of all 759 pages of the U.S. edition were leaked and transcribed, leading Scholastic to look for the source that had leaked it. Released globally in 93 countries, Deathly Hallows broke sales records as the fastest-selling book ever, a record it still held in 2012.[3] It sold 15 million copies in the first 24 hours following its release, including more than 11 million in the U.S. and UK alone. The previous record, 9 million in its first day, had been held by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The novel has also been translated into over 120 languages.

show more Product details 152 x 229 x 15mm | 386g Publication date 9781523480890 free pdf book: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Download Free PDF Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Download Free PDF Author J. K. Rowling Sales 44 million (worldwide)[1] Story timeline 1997–1998 Chapters 37 (counting the epilogue) Pages 607 (UK) ISBN 0545010225 Preceded by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the seventh and final of the Harry Potter novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The book was released on 21 July 2007 by Bloomsbury Publishing in the United Kingdom, in the United States by Scholastic, and in Canada by Raincoast Books, ending the series that began in 1997 with the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

The novel chronicles the events directly following Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), and the final confrontation between the wizards Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort. Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in January 2007. Before its release, Bloomsbury reportedly spent GB£10 million to keep the book's contents safe before its release date. American publisher Arthur Levine refused any copies of the novel to be released in advance for press review, although two reviews were submitted early. Shortly before release, photos of all 759 pages of the U.S. edition were leaked and transcribed, leading Scholastic to look for the source that had leaked it. Released globally in 93 countries, Deathly Hallows broke sales records as the fastest-selling book ever. It sold 15 million copies in the first 24 hours following its release, including more than 11 million in the U.S. and UK alone. The previous record, 9 million in its first day, had been held by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The novel has also been translated into over 120 languages, including Ukrainian, Swedish, and Hindi.

Major themes in the novel are death and living in a corrupted society, and critics have compared them to Christian allegories. Generally well-received, the book won the 2008 Colorado Blue Spruce Book Award, and the American Library Association named it a "Best Book for Young Adults". A two-part film based on the book began showing in November 2010, when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 was released; Part 2 was released on 15 July 2011. The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling) - Author Biography • Where—Chipping Sodbury near Bristol, England, UK • Education—Exeter University • Awards—3 Nestle Smarties Awards; British Book Award- Children's Book of the Year; British Book Awards- Author of the Year; British Book Awards- Book of the Year. • Currently—lives in Perthshire, Scotland and London, England. Joanne "Jo" Rowling, better known under the pen name J. K.

Rowling, is a British author known as the creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series, the idea for which was conceived while on a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990. The Potter books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, sold more than 400 million copies, and been the basis for a popular series of films. Rowling is perhaps equally famous for her "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from living on welfare to multi-millionaire status within five years. As of March 2010, when its latest world billionaires list was published, Forbes estimated Rowling's net worth to be $1 billion. The 2008 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £560 million ($798 million), ranking her as the twelfth richest woman in Great Britain. Forbes ranked Rowling as the forty-eighth most powerful celebrity of 2007, and Time magazine named her as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fandom.

She has become a notable philanthropist, supporting such charities as Comic Relief, One Parent Families, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, and the Children's High Level Group. Early years Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling and Anne Rowling (nee Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16.1 km) northeast of Bristol. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce. (The school's headmaster has been suggested as the inspiration for Harry Potter's Albus Dumbledore). As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would read to her sister. "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it.

Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called "Rabbit." He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee." When she was a young teenager, her great aunt gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books. She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother, Anne, had worked as a technician in the Science Department. Rowling has said of her adolescence, "Hermione [A bookish, know-it-all Harry Potter character] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books. "Ron Weasley [Harry Potter's best friend] isn't a living portrait of Sean, but he really is very Sean-ish." Rowling read for a BA in French and Classics at the University of Exeter.

After a year of study in Paris, Rowling moved to London to work as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International. In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry "came fully formed" into her mind. When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately. In December of that same year, Rowling’s mother died, after a ten-year battle with multiple sclerosis, a death that heavily affected her writing: she introduced much more detail about Harry's loss in the first book, because she knew about how it felt. Rowling then moved to Porto, Portugal to teach English as a foreign language. While there she married Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes in 1992. Their child, Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (named after Jessica Mitford), was born in 1993 in Portugal. The couple separated in November 1993. In December 1993, Rowling and her daughter moved to be near her sister in Edinburgh, Scotland.

During this period Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression, which brought her the idea of Dementors, soul-sucking creatures introduced in the third book. After Jessica's birth and the separation from her husband, Rowling had left her teaching job in Portugal. In order to teach in Scotland she would need a postgraduate certificate of education (PGCE), requiring a full-time, year-long course of study. She began this course in August 1995, after completing her first novel while having survived on state welfare support. She wrote in many cafes, especially Nicolson's Cafe, whenever she could get Jessica to fall asleep. As she stated on the American TV program A&E Biography, one of the reasons she wrote in cafes was not because her flat had no heat, but because taking her baby out for a walk was the best way to make her fall asleep. Harry Potter books In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on an old manual typewriter. The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript. A year later she was finally given the green light (and a £1500 advance) by Bloomsbury, a small British publishing house in London, England.

The decision to publish Rowling's book apparently owes much to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury’s chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next. Although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, her editor Barry Cunningham says that he advised Rowling to get a day job, since she had little chance of making money in children’s books. Soon after, in 1997, Rowling received an £8000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to enable her to continue writing. The following spring, an auction was held in the United States for the rights to publish the novel, and was won by Scholastic Inc., for $105,000. Rowling has said she “nearly died” when she heard the news. In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher’s Stone with an initial print-run of 1000 copies, five hundred of which were distributed to libraries. Today, such copies are valued between £16,000 and £25,000. Five months later, the book won its first award, a Nestle Smarties Book Prize.

In February, the novel won the prestigious British Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year, and later, the Children’s Book Award. Its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in July, 1998. In December 1999, the third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, won the Smarties Prize, making Rowling the first person to win the award three times running. She later withdrew the fourth Harry Potter novel from contention to allow other books a fair chance. In January 2000, Prisoner of Azkaban won the inaugural Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year award, though it lost the Book of the Year prize to Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf. The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was released simultaneously in the UK and the US on 8 July 2000, and broke sales records in both countries. Some 372,775 copies of the book were sold in its first day in the UK, almost equalling the number Prisoner of Azkaban sold during its first year.

In the US, the book sold three million copies in its first 48 hours, smashing all literary sales records. Rowling admitted that she had had a moment of crisis while writing the novel; "Halfway through writing Four, I realised there was a serious fault with the plot....I've had some of my blackest moments with this book..... One chapter I rewrote 13 times, though no-one who has read it can spot which one or know the pain it caused me." Rowling was named author of the year in the 2000 British Book Awards. A wait of three years occurred between the release of Goblet of Fire and the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This gap led to press speculation that Rowling had developed writer's block, speculations she fervently denied. Rowling later admitted that writing the book was a chore. "I think Phoenix could have been shorter", she told Lev Grossman, "I knew that, and I ran out of time and energy toward the end." The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was released on 16 July 2005.

It too broke all sales records, selling nine million copies in its first 24 hours of release. While writing, she told a fan online, "Book six has been planned for years, but before I started writing seriously I spend two months re-visiting the plan and making absolutely sure I knew what I was doing." She noted on her website that the opening chapter of book six, which features a conversation between the Minister of Magic and the British Prime Minister, had been intended as the first chapter first for Philosopher's Stone, then Chamber of Secrets then Prisoner of Azkaban. In 2006, Half-Blood Prince received the Book of the Year prize at the British Book Awards. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released in July, 2007, (0:00 BST) and broke its predecessor's record as the fastest-selling book of all time. It sold 11 million copies in the first day of release in the United Kingdom and United States. She has said that the last chapter of the book was written "in something like 1990", as part of her earliest work on the entire series.

During a year period when Rowling was completing the last book, she allowed herself to be filmed for a documentary which aired in Britain on ITV on 30 December 2007. It was entitled J K Rowling... A Year In The Life and showed her returning to her old Edinburgh tenement flat where she lived, and completed the first Harry Potter book. Re-visiting the flat for the first time reduced her to tears, saying it was "really where I turned my life around completely." Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated £7 billion ($15 billion), and the last four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history. The series, totalling 4,195 pages, has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages. The Harry Potter books have also gained recognition for sparking an interest in reading among the young at a time when children were thought to be abandoning books for computers and television, although the series' overall impact on children's reading habits has been questioned.

Life after Harry Potter Forbes has named Rowling as the first person to become a U.S.-dollar billionaire by writing books, the second-richest female entertainer and the 1,062nd richest person in the world. When first listed as a billionaire by Forbes in 2004, Rowling disputed the calculations and said she had plenty of money, but was not a billionaire. In addition, the 2008 Sunday Times Rich List named Rowling the 144th richest person in Britain. In 2001, Rowling purchased a luxurious nineteenth-century estate house, Killiechassie House, on the banks of the River Tay, near Aberfeldy, in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Rowling also owns a home in Merchiston, Edinburgh, and a £4.5 million ($9 million) Georgian house in Kensington, West London, (on a street with 24-hour security). On 26 December 2001, Rowling married Neil Michael Murray (born 30 June 1971), an anaesthetist, in a private ceremony at her Aberfeldy home.

Their son was born in 2003 and a daughter in 2005. In the UK, Rowling has received honorary degrees from St Andrews University, the University of Edinburgh, Napier University, the University of Exeter and the University of Aberdeen; and in the US, from Harvard. She has been awarded the Légion d'honneur by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. (During the Elysée Palace ceremony, she revealed that her maternal French grandfather had also received the Légion d'honneur for his bravery during World War I.) According to Matt Latimer, a former White House administrator for President George W. Bush, Rowling was turned down for the Presidential Medal of Freedom because administration officials believed that the Harry Potter series promoted witchcraft. Subsequent writing Rowling has stated that she plans to continue writing, preferably under a pseudonym. In 2012, however, under her own name, she published her first novels for adults, The Casual Vacancy. Although she "thinks it's unlikely" that she will write another Harry Potter, an "encyclopedia" of wizarding along with unpublished notes may be published sometime in the future.

Using the pen name "Robert Galbraith," Rowling published The Cuckoo's Calling in 2013. It reached the top of the New York Times Best Sellers list within weeks. (Adapted from Wikipedia.) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 London Premiere Live Feed Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square Webcam Streams Leicester Square Webcam Event Information: London Premiere of The deathly Hallows Part 2 Live in Trafalgar Square, July 7 2012, followed by walk by cast and guests to Leicester Square for screening. A two-part film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is planned, with David Yates directing both parts. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the seventh and final of the Harry Potter novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The book was released on 21 July 2007, ending the series that began in 1997 with the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This book chronicles the events directly following Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), and leads to the long-awaited final confrontation between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury Publishing, in the United States by Scholastic, in Canada by Raincoast Books, and in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin. Released globally in ninety-three countries, Deathly Hallows broke sales records as the fastest-selling book ever. It sold 15 million copies in the first twenty-four hours following its release, including more than 11 million in the U.S. and U.K. alone. The previous record, nine million in its first day, had been held by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The novel has also been translated into numerous languages Several awards were given to the novel, including the 2008 Colorado Blue Spruce Book Award, and it was listed as a "Best Book for Young Adults" by the American Library Association. Reception to the book was generally positive, although some reviewers found the characters to be repetitive or unchanging. A two-part film based on the novel is in the works, with part one's release date in November 2010.

Local Weather: 10 best-selling products of all time FacebookEmail Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest 10 best-selling products of all time The Best-Selling Products of All Time By Vince Calio, Thomas C. Frohlich and Alexander E.M. Hess May 8, 2014 10:53 am EDT Creating the most popular product of the year will make consumers and investors happy. Post to Facebook 10 best-selling products of all time The Best-Selling Products of All Time By Vince Calio, Thomas C. Frohlich and Alexander E.M. Hess May 8, 2014 10:53 am EDT Creating the most popular product of the year will make consumers and investors happy. Check out this story on USATODAY.com: CancelSend A link has been sent to your friend's email address. Posted! A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. 3 To find out more about Facebook commenting please read the Conversation Guidelines and FAQs 10 best-selling products of all time Vince Calio, Thomas C. Frohlich and Alexander E.M. Hess, 24/7 Wall St. 6:33 a.m.

ET May 18, 2014 Rubik's Cube inventor Erno Rubik says he's OK with having the solution to his puzzle on the Internet: "To make it hidden makes it more difficult and disturbing." (Photo: Patrik Stollarz, AFP/Getty Images) Creating the most popular product of the year will make consumers and investors happy. But making an all-time bestseller can transform an industry and define a business for decades. Many of the best-selling products were first in a new category. Apple (AAPL), which has sold more than 500 million iPhones, was the first to introduce a touchscreen smartphone that could seamlessly handle music, Web browsing and phone calls. Other bestsellers took a niche market and made it mainstream. Before Star Wars, film was either comedy, romance or drama. The Harry Potter book series was so successful that The New York Times Book Review created a separate children's bestseller list in 2000 to account for the series' popularity. In some cases, top-selling products were simply better than their competitors. Before Sony (SNE) PlayStation, video game consoles were largely cartridge-based.

With the advent of the PlayStation, which relied on the new CD-rom format, game files could be large enough to support 3D gameplay and full-motion video. Lipitor, which has become the world's best-selling drug with $141 billion in sales, was far more effective than previously-released drugs at lowering bad cholesterol. A number of these products continue to dominate their markets. The iPad remains the world's best-selling tablet, with a 32.5% market share last quarter, despite challenges from Amazon.com's (AMZN) Kindle Fire and Samsung's Galaxy tablet lines. The PlayStation 4 has sold over 7 million units since it launched last year, well above the Microsoft (MSFT) Xbox One. Despite their success, some of these products face challenges. Sales of Pfizer's (PFE) Lipitor dropped each year after its maker, Pfizer, lost patent protection on the drug in 2011 and cheaper generic drugs came on the market. The ongoing Star Wars saga may lose its status as the all-time best-selling movie franchise to Walt Disney's (DIS) Marvel franchise. The Avengers broke box office records, grossing $203.4 million on its opening weekend.

To determine the best-selling products of all-time, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed categories of products widely purchased by consumers and identified individual products that had the highest sales in their category. In some cases, we gathered figures from multiple sources and estimated the final sales figure. In other instances, where one company had a clear market lead, figures reflect data from previous years. These are the best-selling products of all time. 1. PlayStation • Total sales: 344 million units • Parent company: Sony When Sony released the PlayStation in the United States in 1995, its 32-bit processor was the most powerful available on the console market at the time. Sony sold more than 70 million PlayStations worldwide by the time the PlayStation 2 was released in 2000. The PlayStation 2 also sold very well in the U.S. and abroad. Sony released the PlayStation 3 in 2006, and it sold 80 million units to retailers by November 2013. The latest generation, the PlayStation 4, has been wildly successful thus-far, already selling 7 million units as of April. 2.

Lipitor • Total sales: $141 billion • Parent company: Pfizer Pfizer's Lipitor is prescribed to lower LDL (or bad) cholesterol — high levels of bad cholesterol increase the risk of heart disease. Lipitor is classified as a statin, a class of drug used to reduce the risk of heart-related ailments. However, Lipitor sales have plummeted in recent years after its U.S. patent expired in 2011. Lipitor has lost patent protection in other major markets since. In 2013, Lipitor sales totaled $2.3 billion, down from $9.6 billion in 2011 according to Pfizer's 2013 annual report. Still, since its introduction in 1997, no other drug came close to Lipitor's commercial success. The closest competitor for all time sales is Plavix, which had slightly more than half of Lipitor's lifetime revenue, according to Forbes. 3. Corolla • Total sales: 40.7 million units • Parent company: Toyota (TM) Toyota announced last month it sold 1.2 million Corollas in 2013, a 5% year-over-year increase.

Since its introduction in Japan in 1966 — the car became available in the U.S. in 1968 — Toyota has sold more than 40.7 million Corollas, more than any other car model. The Corolla's success on the market is likely due to its reliability, relatively low gas mileage and affordability. The newly redesigned 2014 Corolla is the model's 11th generation, and it claims to have better gas mileage and a slightly larger interior. Brand new, the Corolla's starting MSRP is $16,800. 4. Star Wars • Total sales: $4.6 billion • Parent company: 20th Century Fox Only Gone with the Wind brought in more money than the original Star Wars movie. Combined, however, the original trilogy grossed $2.4 billion, accounting for inflation. When Star Wars: Episode I was released more than 20 years later, it grossed $675 million, considerably more than the later installments — Episodes 2 and 3 — which each still grossed more than $400 million.

In total, the Star Wars movies, including special editions and re-releases, grossed $4.6 billion adjusted for inflation in the U.S. While 20th Century Fox still owns the rights to the original Star Wars, Disney purchased the Star Wars universe — Lucasfilms — for $4 billion in 2012. Disney will release the final three movies under J.J. Abrams' direction. The first of the three is scheduled to hit the box office in 2015. 5. iPad • Total sales: 211 million units • Parent company: Apple Despite losing market share in the first quarter, Apple's iPad is still the best-selling tablet. The iPad held 40% of the tablet market in the first quarter of 2013, but only 32.5% in the first quarter of this year, according to market research firm IDC. Close rival Samsung picked up much of that market share. IDC analyst reported that iPad lost some of its market share because consumers are holding onto their tablets for longer rather than immediately purchasing the newest version.

Apple sold 16.4 million units in the second quarter alone, and more than 211 million since the iPad was first introduced in 2010. 6. Mario Bros. franchise • Total sales: 262 million units • Parent company: Nintendo Since debuting in 1981 in the popular Donkey Kong arcade game, the Italian plumbers have appeared in 115 titles and in their own cartoon series. According to the company, as of 2011 more than 262 million units of "core" Mario Bros. games have been sold worldwide. Mario originally was known as Jumpman in a Japanese arcade game before being converted into a plumber in the U.S. In 2011, the Guinness Book of World Records named the original Mario the top video game character of all time as voted-on by more than 13,000 readers. 7.

Michael Jackson's Thriller • Total sales: 70 million units • Parent company: Epic records Michael Jackson's Thriller is not only the best-selling album of all time, but is also credited with ushering in the MTV generation, bringing the moonwalk into mainstream culture, and giving Jackson the moniker "The King of Pop." According to michaeljackson.com, a website run by Sony Music and owned by the Michael Jackson record label, 70 million copies of the album have been sold since its release in 1982, although various sources have estimated that as many as 110 million copies have been sold. The album featured hits: "Beat It" and "Billie Jean," and "Thriller." Perhaps what made the album most famous was the 14-minute long Thriller movie/music video. The Thriller album also sold 101,000 copies the week after Jackson's death in 2009, and downloads of Jackson's songs totaled 2.3 million. 8. Harry Potter • Total sales: 450 million units • Parent company: Scholastic (U.S.

publisher) Roughly 450 million Harry Potter books had been sold in 73 different languages as of mid-2013, making it the best-selling book series of all time. The books has also made author J.K. Rowling the highest-paid author in the world. In 2007, Harry Potter's U.S. publisher Scholastic sold 8.3 million copies of the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in the first 24 hours. The book series inspired eight movies between 2001 and 2011 that, combined, grossed $7.7 billion worldwide. In 2012, Rowling launched Pottermore.com, a site that offers new Harry Potter content and interactive experiences. The site reportedly had 1 billion viewers in the first two weeks it went live. 9. iPhone • Total sales: 516 million units • Parent company: Apple Apple took the smartphone market by a storm when it launched the iPhone in 2007. Despite suggestions from some analysts that the iPhone's market share has peaked, unit sales remain massive.

In its fiscal first and second quarter, the company sold nearly 95 million iPhones, and sales this year are poised to exceed the 150 million mark set in 2013. With the exception of a brief period in 2012, Apple's iPhone has been the best-selling smartphone since its inception. According to Counterpoint Technology Research, the iPhone 5S and 5C were the two top-selling smartphones in February, while the Samsung Galaxy S4 was a distant third. 10. Rubik's Cube • Total sales: 350 million units • Parent company: Seven Towns The Rubik's Cube remains the top-selling single toy of all time with 350 million sold since 1980. The Rubik's Cube remains so popular that in the decades since its creation, it has spawned entire speed-cubing competitions. The toy still has a large fan base, among young and old. One developer even created an iPhone application that instructs users how to solve a Rubik's Cube in 20 moves. Unlike other best-selling toys, such as Monopoly and the Gumby Doll, the cube was not originally intended to be a toy.

Its inventor, Hungarian architecture professor Erno Rubik, created it in 1974 as a way to teach his students three-dimensional geometry. The combined collections of Mattel's Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels have both outsold the Rubik's Cube, but none of them have as a single toy.

Question: Which book broke the record for book sales in July 2007, selling 15 million copies in the 24 hours following its release?
Answer: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows