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Rare JK Rowling book on display in Tokyo

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Online bookseller Amazon is giving Japanese fans a glimpse of JK Rowling's first book since the phenomenally successful Harry Potter series, which it bought for $4 million.

"The Tales of Beedle the Bard" is one of seven handmade books by the British author. Amazon, bidding anonymously, bought it at a December auction at Sotheby's where it fetched 40 times the expected price.

Amazon is exhibiting the book to promote the release of the Japanese translation of "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows," the seventh and final novel of the series.

The Japanese edition goes on sale later this month, but Amazon has already received more than 70,000 advance orders, the company said.

"The Tales" are linked to the last Potter tome. The book is supposed to be the volume of five tales of wizardry left to Potter's friend Hermione Granger by headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

One of the tales appears in "Deathly Hallows," but the remaining four are told in "The Tales" for the first time.

There are just seven of the handmade books, bound in brown Moroccan leather covered with a silver skull motif and jewels. Rowling gave the other six to people involved with the Potter books.

Amazon, which has sold 12 million of the Potter books worldwide, will invite just 20 lucky customers from those who made online advance orders in Japan to an event where they can look at the inside pages, the company said.

All proceeds from the sales of the handwritten single volume went to Rowling's charity, Children's Voice, which helps vulnerable children across Europe.

The 42-year-old author, who once lived on welfare, has become a billionaire, with the tales of the boy wizard translated into 64 languages.

© AFP

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

16 Comments
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Harry Potter books - boring, I was not able to read more than 5 pages of the series.

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From welfare UB40 days, to billionaire years at 42 for J.K. Rowling.

Same things in common as in most billionaires, that is talent in never ending boy wizard tales, which has never ending ending buyers in 64 languages.

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Raj,

Gates, Buffet, Romulus, Sarge and Northlondon don't tell boy wizard tales and we are the richest people on Earth.

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I think Raj is trying to say that the common link between billionaires is "talent". Otherwise, the statement is completely ridiculous.

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blaze524- what am I trying to say, is that I do not like too much her fantasy wizard boy tales being watched by young. Better for her to write more on reality issues and real solutions in today's world for young.

Her escapism must have more reality and reality issues. Many young children, growing up in fantasy world ,not useful for future,via illogical magic wizard boy tales.

Many children today growing up, without learning much of real world and real future woes, with so much escapism tales on tube and other multimedia.

Escapisms is good business, but bad for preparing young for future challenges.

The media/movie moghuls are hiding many realities from younger generations.

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"Many children today growing up, without learning much of real world and real future woes, with so much escapism tales on tube and other multimedia."

D'Oh! In case you haven't realized, the majority of HP readers are either young girls wanting to know what it feels like to grow up (as a boy) without having parents to constantly nag them, or adult women wanting to re-experience their teenage years.

HP has never been about escapism. It's about (re-)experiencing that period in your life where you didn't have to worry about a single d**n thing, especially from your parents' constant naggings! This is the SOLE reason for HP's immense success. Anyone can RELATE to this period in their life and being freed of parental rules and authority.

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Freed of guardians,responsibility and other problems, what do young become after that. Their own guardians with total lack of discipline and good values, before they are 17 years old adults. There is proper places and time for you to be carefree.

This when you are at the beach, at holiday resorts, are on holidays, travelling on holidays or on any other proper suitable time.

You cannot be carefree when you are studying,doing chores,crossing roads,cycling ,walking to school or when you have your classes.

No young person should be his own guardian and become carefree, before they are 17 years old.

If the young people cannot accept their guardians/parents, then they they must choose anyone else from older generations whom they like, to role model or be their mentor.

I and even many others will be lost if we ourselves did not choose the older persons, as our role models or our mentors. We need to help them avoid the same mistakes made by us and past generations.

There must proper process for young generations.We must give up bad habits for young and gullible.

There is no such things as carefree life, at least on this planet of earth or planet of life/death.

8iamhappy8, you have your views and I accept it. This is just my view, you are welcome to discuss further, 8iamhappy8. We are all here at JT to discuss our views for our mutual self improvements/knowledge.

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raj, where do you come up with such nonsense?

"Freed of guardians,responsibility and other problems, what do young become after that." They put down the book and realize that it is just one person's imagination and a pretty entertaining story.

"This when you are at the beach, at holiday resorts, are on holidays, travelling on holidays or on any other proper suitable time." So the only time a CHILD should have an imagination is when they are on vacation?

"If the young people cannot accept their guardians/parents, then they they must choose anyone else from older generations whom they like, to role model or be their mentor." Why would any child choose a BOOK as a guardian/parent? What fantasy world do YOU live in?

"I and even many others will be lost if we ourselves did not choose the older persons, as our role models or our mentors. We need to help them avoid the same mistakes made by us and past generations." Again, no one is choosing a book as their guardian. It's called entertainment. Reading a book like that lets you forget about the day to day stresses that a person may feel without any side affects, other than an expanded vocabulary and the ability to groom your imagination, which, as I see by your posts, you think shouldn't be nurtured or accepted.

"There must proper process for young generations. We must give up bad habits for young and gullible." Really? What is a proper process in your mind? What are the "bad" habits for young and gullible? And, who are you to judge who is gullible? You? It seems like when you were gullible and young, you were groomed to believe that youth, fun, and free thought were not things to be had by anyone.

"There is no such things as carefree life, at least on this planet of earth or planet of life/death." Really? Did you think that one up all on your own? No one is saying there should be, or is. However, no one is also saying that you should completely shut down a child's right to be a child and be carefree if only in their mind, which you so hope to control.

Lastly, why do you feel that children who read these books need to be shut down and forced to give up childhood to pick up your "good" habits? And what good habits are those? Your ramblings on this subject sound an awful lot like the religious zealotry that is running rampant in our world today, telling people how to live and saying things very similar to what you are saying about things like books, movies, and music.

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rtrhead1, thanks for your views. Do not take my views so seriously,it is only a discussion. This topic about how children should get their upbringing, glad to read your views.

I am practising religious zealotry, I can assure I am not, I still open to your views and all views. Do not take it very serious what I write. It is just a post, to get further views on the topic. I do not hope to control anyone, this just one post from me on this topic. I should be free to think up anything I want, so do anyone else on JT.

About the topic of guardians of children,what I am saying is many children do not like their parents as role model.

So they should be allowed to choose some one older, may be their uncle or their neighbour grandpa or grandmom as role model.

What am trying to say,if a child does not like her parents as role model, they should allow child to seek another mature older person,uncle,grandpa,neighnbours or distant relatives as role model.

This substitute guardian can play big role to solve children growing up woes.This topics of bringing up children is very diverse, it different from country to country. I am just discussing some views here only.

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What does it have to do with J.K. Rowling's book? You seem to be drawing a parallel to a pasttime which has been positively linked to increased intelligence and something about guardians, role models, and being carefree. What are you trying to say, or did you perhaps post on the wrong article?

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By the way, if my child doesn't "like" me at the moment because I disciplined them, I should allow them to choose someone else? I don't think so. Why should it be an older person? I've known plenty of older people who would've made very poor role models. Please explain.

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I've read a lot that Rowling was on welfare but in an interview I heard her say she was on unemployment after having been an English teacher (in Italy? France? I forget where) and was basically living on her sister's couch. While welfare sounds like she couldn't find a job, unemployment means she was 'between' jobs - transitioning between being an English teacher and a billionaire.

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rajakumar, they're fiction. i personally have read the books and they are very well written novels. kids devour them because the books take them away to a world where they can escape to and dream to be something incredible. all kids have dreams. rowling's was to write a book and here she has seven bestsellers. the plot is the point. its the classic good vs evil. did anyone condemn lord of the rings or the chronicles of narnia? no. they encouraged kids to read them. why not do the same with harry potter?

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8iamhappy8, i strongly disagree with you. the fact that young girls and adult women want to experience this is not the SOLE reason for harry potter's success and neither is the fact that people are merely curious about what its like to not have parents to nag at you all the time. harry's losing his parents was a tragedy and people should not take experiences from that. even if harry had no biological parents telling him what to do, he still had sirius black, remus lupin, molly weasley, arthur weasley, albus dumbledore, minerva mcgonagall, and rubeus hagrid to tell him what was right and wrong. even the dursleys had a part in his upbringing. you forget, many boys read them too. they are good books for children to read. you should read my previous post about this topic.

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timcampi13, I disagree about the Harry Potter books being well written. I couldn't get through the first five pages of the first one. The latest one, though, is pretty well written. Either Rowling learned to write or someone else wrote it.

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borscht, think about the books from a child's standpoint. they love them. they think they're well written, which is all that matters, since j.k. rowling's intended audience was children.

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