J K Rowling

NEW YORK -- J.K. Rowling said Monday that her efforts to halt a publisher's "Harry Potter" lexicon have been crushing her creativity. Rowling said she has stopped work on a new novel because the lawsuit in federal court has "decimated my creative work over the last month." Rowling is suing RDR Books to stop publication of Steven Vander Ark's "Harry Potter Lexicon." She says her copyrights are being violated.

Harry Potter mania is about to descend on Irvine. Bracing for an onslaught of 800 or more fans of the phenomenally popular book series about an orphaned wizard, Alexandra Uhl has lined up three security guards for her Whale of a Tale Children's Bookshoppe when British author J.K. Rowling arrives Monday for a two-hour signing from 4 to 6 p.m. Uhl expects the largest turnout ever for an author's appearance at her 12-year-old bookstore in University Center across Campus Drive from UC Irvine.

Pajama parties, costume contests and wizard snacks will be the order of the day when J.K. Rowling's newest Harry Potter book goes on sale at 12:01 a.m. July 8. Here's a sampling of Harry Potter-related activities at area bookstores: * Barnes & Noble. Many of the chain's Southern California stores will stay open until 1 a.m. July 8, dispensing free refreshments and holding Harry Potter trivia contests and games. Employees might also dress in capes and wizard hats.

One group of adults may be wilder about Harry Potter than the millions of young people whose fascination with the aspiring adolescent wizard have made the books a worldwide phenomenon: librarians. Across Southern California, those who love reading couldn't be more delighted by the buzz J.K. Rowling's popular series has generated for literature, especially among children.

There was feasting (cherry licorice and gum balls). There were trivia games with contestants screaming the answers. Faces were painted with red lightning bolts above the bridge of the nose. The fashion accessory of choice: a pair of black-rimmed, round glasses. Then, as the giddy crowd gathered round, the countdown to midnight began. Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! BONGGGGG! A gong was struck. The crowd cheered.

Harry Potter won't hit store shelves until Saturday but the youthful wizard is already working his magic on Wall Street. Shares of Scholastic Corp., Jakks Pacific Inc. and Enesco Group Inc. have risen as sharply as the hype surrounding the release of the fourth book about an orphan who attends a school for witches and wizards, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." All have a piece of the Potter franchise. Scholastic, the U.S. publisher of the series by British author J.K.

THE Harry Potter books are usually viewed alongside the children's and young adult world that they grew out of and radically reshaped. When viewed in literary terms, though, J.K. Rowling's novels stand up pretty well, book critics say, and in some ways go refreshingly against the grain of much of contemporary fiction.

There's no double-edged sword more deadly than a literary franchise. Arthur Conan Doyle got so sick of his, he mercilessly tossed Sherlock Holmes into a waterfall, only to resurrect him a few years later to satisfy the baying multitudes.

It was not the book itself that inspired the wonder in the 16-year-old's eyes, it was those who stood around him, the vastness of the crowd that showed up at a South Coast Plaza bookstore Saturday to buy the latest Harry Potter book. In a culture that didn't seem to care about the written word, he said, he didn't think such people existed. "A craze over a book?" said Kayvan Noroozi of Irvine. "I thought we cared about Pokemon . . . 'Star Wars.' When I read the books, I imagine and wonder.