THE MAKING OF THE POTTERVERSE

By Scott Thomas

ECW Press, 210pp, $29.95

Some books are really nothing more than a clever idea. Scott Thomas, an American entertainment journalist, came up with the very simple and probably very lucrative concept of tracking the history of the Harry Potter phenomenon.

The book starts in the norther spring of 1997, when J.K. Rowling's agent sold the rights to the first Harry Potter book for $100,000 to Scholastic, a US publisher. It finished in February, 2007, when Rowling announces the publication date of the final volume.

Along the way, Thomas records how the prizewinning books have been translated into Braille and how Bloomsbury stocks went up because of Rowling's success.

He includes extracts of reviews and explains that by 2000 Rowling earned #50million in a single year - making her Scotland's highest-earning individual.

The book also contains extensive interviews with the actors from the Harry Potter movies. If there is a flaw it si that the information is very US-centric. A suitable gift for Potter fanatics.