8/7/2008

in

JK Rowling has released a collection of short stories in the UK which were sold out by lunchtime.

Marshall Burns

JK Rowling's new book with a new Harry Potter tale has become the fastest-selling collection of short stories of all time in the UK. *What's Your Story?* is Rowling's newest book and has 13 postcard-sized tales from such authors as Sebastian Faulks, Nick Hornby, and Doris Lessing, according to BBC.  
  
More than 10,000 copies of the set of short stories was sold on its first day of release and sold some shops out by lunchtime on Thursday. The prequel to the Potter series is set three years before his birth. The 800-word story is set around his father, James Potter, and his friend, Sirius Black, in their teenage years, tearing around on a magical motorbike. The tale finishes with, "From the prequel I am not working on - but that was fun," reported the BBC.  
  
The book was released by Waterstones to celebrate the National Year of Reading and was only available in the chain's stores. The profits from the book are going to English Pen, the promoter of literature as a means of greater understanding between cultures and Dyslexia Action, according to the BBC.  
  
Coming in December, the author is going to publish *The Tales of Beedle the Bard*, which is a series of fairy tales that were integral to the last of the Potter novels, *The Deathly Hallows*. The film version of the sixth book, *The Half-Blood Prince*, is coming out in November, according to the BBC.