Unless you're a complete Muggle, you've probably realised that today is the long-awaited day when the fourth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, finally goes on sale. Last week the news was taken up with the young girl in America who bought a copy of the book, put on the shelves by accident, making her the first person in the world to read the published book. Despite her appearances on every syndicated television show in the US and Britain, publisher Bloomsbury wasn't too worried about her revealing the ending, pointing out that as the book is more than 700 pages long, it was unlikely she would finish the tome before it went on general release.
Dyed in the blood Potter fans here in Ireland will probably already have their copies of the book, as Easons on Dublin's O'Connell Street decided to throw open its doors at midnight last night to sell the first copies in the country. The top-secret delivery (the name of the book was only released last week) was made in a blue Ford Anglia which first flew out of the pages of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Anglias will also be making deliveries to the Dublin Bookshop, Waterstone's and Hodges Figges in Dublin; Hughes & Hughes and Keohanes in Galway, and Easons and Waterstone's in Belfast this morning.
Bookshops around the country are having special events to celebrate the new Potter, including a magician at 2 p.m. in Easons in Tallaght and Blanchardstown; face painting in Waterstone's in Belfast (just follow the newly-laid train tracks from the front door); free lollipops while stocks last in Bookstop, Blackrock, and staff in fancy dress in Hughes & Hughes, Galway. Non-Potter fans should also take note that Waterstone's on Dawson Street may be a little harder to find this morning - the store has been re-branded as Flourish & Blotts, the Diagon Alley store from the Potter books.
THE current edition of Ploughshares, the thrice-yearly publication from Emerson College, Boston, has been edited by poet Paul Muldoon, who is residing Stateside while teaching in Princeton University's creative writing programme. Muldoon gathers together a fine selection of writing including such obvious delights as a short story by Russell Banks, a short play by Joyce Carol Oates, and some song lyrics by Toni Morrison. Further reading also yields up some quieter gems such as James Richardson's "Vectors: 45 Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays", which includes number 39: "Only half of writing is saying what you mean. The other half is preventing people from reading what they expected you to mean." Indeed.
Congratulations to Cyphers literary journal which this year celebrates 25 years in business. Sadbh hopes the re are plenty of sore heads after last night's party in the Irish Writers' Centre, thrown by the editorial board, Leland Bardwell, Pearse Hutchinson and Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, to launch Cyphers 48.
Sadbh