BOOK NEWS
Final “Harry Potter” hits a million orders
Amazon.com has announced that it has received more than 1 million orders worldwide (620,000 in the United States) for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the seventh and final installment in the Harry Potter series, due in stores July 21.|Amazon.com
A grim reaper study
At age 90, actor Kirk Douglas has written his ninth and, he swears, final book. Featuring chapters like “Thinking About Death,” “Dealing With Death,” “Almost Dying,” “Reading Obituaries” and “Sunset,” the book is called, “Let’s Face It.”
With chapters and a title like that, you could assume that Douglas is either preparing for a second career as an undertaker or is as death-obsessed as any character in a Woody Allen movie. Instead, he says this is what people his age think about – that and whether they have done enough good in their lives.|Reuters
FIRST LINE
The First Stone
Judith Kelman
Through a slim breach in the blinds, I watched the new neighbors move in with a ticking, four-foot, fifty-pound bomb. The explosive was cleverly disguised as a wispy, slender, glossy-haired, unsmiling girl I took to be seven or eight.
The fierce sun leeched her pale skin to near transparency and bunched her eyes in pained slits. A prim navy dress hung limply to the middle of her calves above lace-capped kneesocks and shiny black Mary Janes. She walked with great deliberation, as if the shoes were stiff and inhospitable, tracking the perimeter of each pavement square.”
BEST SELLERS
Mass-market fiction paperbacks
1. Dead Watch| John Sandford
2. Susannah’s Garden|Debbie Macomber
3. Born in Death|by J.D. Robb
4. Two Little Girls in Blue|Mary Higgins Clark
5. The Hard Way|Lee Child
Publishers Weekly
