The muggles have fallen for it again. The least surprising publishing news of the summer is that the fourth Harry Potter story is a bestseller. The surprising news is that copies are being bought by the thousand, sight unseen, title unknown, three weeks before publication.
The book is the number one bestseller on Amazon.com, the online bookshop, with hundreds of advance orders arriving daily from readers desperate to beat the queues for copies. It has been in the top five since December, when orders starting coming in from all over the world.
The three earlier books are still on Amazon's top 20 list, at 9, 12 and 19, and all sales worldwide, in 30 languages, are estimated at 31m copies.
Paranoid security surrounds the launch of the next episode in the life of JK Rowling's boy wizard, the book that forces Harry to confront the twin demons of sorcery and puberty.
At Bloomsbury, the publishers, a spokesman said only a handful of top executives had read it. Everyone involved, from cover designer to printers, had signed a secrecy agreement.
Amazon has organised security at its Milton Keynes distribution centre worthy of a gold vault: a Harry area has been cordoned off, and staff are forbidden to discuss the book with outsiders.
In the US, where the books have sold 18m copies, interest is being fanned to fever pitch by the planned Hollywood film version, with applications from 40,000 young hopefuls to audition for the part of Harry.
Bloomsbury is planning an elaborate launch for the new book on July 8, with part of Paddington station transformed into the mysterious platform nine-and-three-quarters, where pupils, owls and brooms in hand, join their train for Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
At the tiny Kew Bookshop in west London the initial order for Harry IV is 100 copies, 10 times its normal maximum order. It is also planning a Harry Potter day on July 8, opening the shop hours early.
Its only fear is that the advance orders will eat up all its copies, leaving it with no hope of reordering until the second edition. "We've had to give in to pleas from regular customers," said the owner, Caroline Blomfield. "I've read all [the earlier books] myself, I adore them, I can hardly wait. It is a genuine phenomenon."
