Tomorrow evening, all of the anticipation, all of the planning and all of the wheeling n’ dealing with Hachette will come to fruition when Breaking Dawn is finally unveiled for an audience that is salivating like a pack of Palvoian hounds. The media is doing its part to fan the flames of Meyermania; so much so that people have actually stopped talking about The Dark Knight.

Crowds will begin descending on bookstores early Friday evening to dance, party and even give blood as they await the witching hour of midnight. Here are what a few of our customers are up to:

Third Place Books is having a Breaking Dawn Prom Party starting at 11pm, with live music and a drawing to be held for a pair of tickets to see Meyer at Benaroya Hall in Seattle on August 12th.

Both Tattered Cover locations will be hosting parties beginning at 10pm, with a t-shirt customization party and a chance for customers to test their knowledge of Meyer trivia in a Forks Family Feud: Vampires vs. Werewolves.

Powell’s is kicking things off a bit earlier than most. Bella’s Ball begins at 3:30, with the arrival of a bloodmobile, and folks who donate a drop of the red stuff will get priority placement in line when the book goes on sale at midnight. Blood donations are being accepted from 3:30-6:30pm. There will also be dj music, a costume contest, games and custom limited edition Bella’s Ball t-shirts for sale.

Are you having an event, midnight or otherwise? If you’d like us to list your event, please place a comment and we’ll keep updating this post.

If you have any pictures to share from your events, please email them to blog@partners-west.com, and we’ll post as many as we can on Monday.

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The chance to own one of seven copies of J.K. Rowling’s Tales of Beedle the Bard was enough to drive somebody to pony up $3.98 million at Sotheby’s last year.

Had they waited, they could have scooped up one the many, many copies that Scholastic will be publishing in December for the princely price of $12.99.

Of course, this edition will not be encrusted with silver and moonstones, but the story is the same.

You really didn’t think the Harry Potter madness was over, did you?

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Part of the fun in reading the New York Times‘ book blog Paper Cuts is their ongoing series of playlists created by authors called Living With Music.

Anybody who has read any of George Pelecano’s novels knows that the man has an almost fetishistic appreciation for music. He even had Hachette (AOL Time Warner at the time) put out a promotional cd soundtrack for Hard Revolution, featuring his favorite soul numbers by folks like Otis Redding and Solomon Burke, that played like a soundtrack to the novel.

I haven’t read his newest, The Turnaround (LB HC 9780316156479 $24.99), but it stands to reason that there will be as much music in it as crime and punishment.

The playlist featured here is just stunning…running the gamut from Ennio Morricone to the Arctic Monkeys to Blue Oyster Cult.

If you read this list with iTunes open, you can almost hear the sound of twenty bucks being sucked out of your wallet and into your iPod.

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Norwegian Wood (Vintage TP 9780375704024, $13.95), Haruki Murakami’s novel of love and loss of innocence, looks like it’s going to be adapted into a film by French-Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung (director of The Scent of Green Papaya).

Tran has a wonderful eye for capturing mood and location, and since this is a relatively straightforward novel (meaning it doesn’t feature time-shifting wells, talking cats or the end of the world), this should be an adaptation that pleases both film lovers and fans of the novel. (ifc.com via weblog of jason gray)

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Alison Morris, over at PW’s children’s bookseller blog Shelftalker, writes about this product in the UK called Tankbooks, which repackages old classics in cigarette packages. They’re called (I’m not making this up) Books That Take Your Breath Away.

Are we being grumpy old farts by not seeing the humor in this? Or, is it possible that given a a minute or two, we can come up with a half-dozen better ways to market public domain titles?

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‘Nuff said! (via radiomaru.lj)

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Monday’s broadcast of All Things Considered featured a piece on librarians who flocked to Comic Con last weekend in search of the latest and greatest manga. And boy were they in for a shock. I mean, nobody shows up at the ALA convention dressed up characters from Tuck Everlasting or The Giving Tree (do they?).

NPR is only telling listeners what booksellers and librarians have known for a long time: that graphic novels and manga are fantastic tools for ‘reluctant readers’, and helps them become lifelong readers.

But, if you’re a librarian, you don’t have to go all the way to San Diego and brave monstrous crowds dressed like Klingons, Cylons or Aquaman. Trent Shaw, our Partners West Graphic Novel Program master, was in San Diego for Comic Con.  Although he lacked the courage to dress in character, he came back with tales to tell!

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Last week in his blog over at Publishers Weekly, Rick Simonson at The Elliott Bay Book Company said this about Partners West with regards to the endless stream of publisher drop-in (add-on, crash etc.) titles:

In the West, we’re generally very fortunate in this regard with how Partners West keeps on top of things.

You can read the entire article here.

Thanks Rick. At the risk of sounding like we’re trying to get to second base with you, we like what you’re doing too.

PS. Sorry the headshot is so small, but that’s the size it was when we swiped it from your blog.

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This just in from the Who Knew department, Shelf Awareness reports today that Erich Origen and Gan Golan’s Goodnight Bush (Little Brown HC 9780316040419/031604041X $14.99) is a bestseller in the gift shop at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay.

Am I the only person who finds the idea of a Git-Mo gift shop more than just a bit disturbing?

I wondered this aloud in the office, and it would have ended there were it not for the magic of Google. Thanks to the most awesome power in the universe, a co-worker found this article on “the sickest souvenir shop in the world”.

And, if you’re having trouble reading the shirt, it says “Somebody who loves me got me this shirt in Guantanamo Bay Cuba”.

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The Man Booker Prize longlist has been announced in England, and it seems like, for the first time in a while, it is a satisfying collection of titles. That is at least of what we’ve been able to read so far.

One question begs to be asked: who does Salman Rushdie have naked pictures of that he keeps appearing on the list every time he publishes a book? Perhaps this former Rushdie bodyguard turned expose writer knows.

Here’s the list. Drumroll please!

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (Free Press HC 9781416562597 $24.00)

Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold (Due to be released in the US in December)

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry (Viking HC 9780670019403 $24.95)

From A to X by John Berger (Due to be released in the US in September)

The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser (Little Brown HC 9780316001830 $29.99)

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (Due to be released in the US in October)

The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant (No US release announced)

The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher (Due to be released in the US in February 2009)

Netherland by Joseph O’Neill (Pantheon HC 9780307377043 $23.95)

The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie (Random HC 9780375504334 $26.00)

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (S&S HC 9780446402385 $24.99)

A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz (Spiegel & Grau HC 9780385521727 $24.95)

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