It’ll be another harried year ahead for Rowling
J.K. Rowling expects to have a busy 2006, “the year when I write the final book in the Harry Potter series.” Rowling expects to start on the seventh and final book in the series, not yet titled, next month.
“I contemplate the task with mingled feelings of excitement and dread, because I can’t wait to get started, to tell the final part of the story and, at last, to answer all the questions (Will I ever answer all of the questions? Let’s aim for most of the questions); and yet it will all be over at last and I can’t quite imagine life without Harry,” the British author wrote in a recent posting on her Web site.
Rowling said she had been “fine-tuning the fine-tuned plan of seven during the past few weeks,” adding that “reading through the plan is like contemplating the map of an unknown country in which I will soon find myself.”
The sixth installment of Rowling’s fantasy series, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” came out last summer. It has sold more than 10 million copies in the United States alone.
Total worldwide sales of the Harry Potter books top 300 million.
Hurry up with that d-i-v-o-r-c-e
Tori Spelling is engaged, just months after separating from her first husband.
Actor Dean McDermott, who met the former “Beverly Hills, 90210” earlier this year while working on a TV movie, proposed Christmas Eve in Toronto.
In October, actor-writer Charlie Shanian filed for divorce from Spelling, a little more than a year after they were married. McDermott filed for divorce from his wife of 12 years in September.
For the birds
Stop the presses: It wasn’t a bird that grounded Oprah Winfrey‘s private jet, just normal wear and tear.
Winfrey and her boyfriend, Stedman Graham, were forced to return to the Santa Barbara, Calif., city airport Monday after what initially was described as a collision with a bird that damaged the plane’s windshield.
“There was no bird involved, but the pilot did tell my captain that he felt it was a fatigue thing with the glass,” a fire department spokesman said.
Glitter gives some gold
Former rock star Gary Glitter has paid $4,000 to two Vietnamese girls he’s accused of sexually abusing.
Glitter gave $2,000 each to the families of the girls, ages 11 and 12, after they agreed to write letters to the court asking that the case be dropped.
“If we pay the money for the two families, when this case goes to court, maybe Mr. Gary will receive a lighter penalty,” lawyer Le Thanh Kinh said.
Glitter, 61, has been held in prison since Nov. 19 on suspicion of engaging in obscene acts with a child, an offense punishable with up to 12 years in prison.
Pump you up
Sylvester Stallone can keep his magazine “Sly” on newsstands despite the complaints of an Internet magazine with the same name.
U.S. District Judge Richard Casey said the 59-year-old former “Rocky” star could continue to produce the lifestyle and fitness magazine even though it has the same title as what he called an online shoe fetish magazine.
“There is a little difference between shoe fetish and Mr. Sylvester Stallone,” Casey said.
The birthday bunch
Actress Mary Tyler Moore is 68. Actor Jon Voight is 67. Singer Marianne Faithfull is 59. Actor Ted Danson is 58. Actress Patricia Clarkson is 46. Comedian Paula Poundstone is 46. Actor Kevin Weisman (“Alias”) is 35. Actor Jude Law is 33. Actor Mekhi Phifer is 31. Actor Shawn Hatosy (“The Cooler,” “The Faculty”) is 30.