Female Force: Madonna is the illustrated story of the star’s life as written by CW Cooke and drawn by Michael Johnson. The book tells the story of how a struggling dancer in New York became one of the biggest pop stars in history. The book also highlights Madonna’s influence on other artists. “Most pop stars owe everything to this woman. It’s amazing all of the things that she’s done in her lifetime, and I have a feeling that this is still only the beginning,” stated Cooke.

Bluewater’s Female Force series featured other prominent women, including: Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, JK Rowling, Ellen Degeneres and Sarah Palin.

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Old news, but the piece spells out what a pickle booksellers are in more clearly than usual. That’s because Bloomsbury set the recommended retail price at 17.99 pounds and offers HP7 to booksellers at anywhere between a 45 to 55 percent discount. But because of price wars between bookstores and supermarkets, the final Harry Potter volume will be sold at half-price or less. Even for those with little interest in number crunching, the math is obvious: zero profit or a loss.

And no matter how much spin there is about the Potter books bringing in potential customers who will then buy more books, that didn’t exactly happen in a large scale when HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX was released in 2005, and Tesco & Asda are even more major players today. So Potter 7, says the Telegraph, “is being treated with a mixture of excitement and anxiety among book retailers. Excitement because the book will bring people flooding into their stores. But anxiety because retailers fear that the days of no-profit blockbusters could be here to stay.” And I’d say that fear is reality, especially in the UK.

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First is the announcement that Dickens World, a theme park devoted to – you guessed it – the work and life of Charles Dickens, has had its opening delayed to May 25. The BBC reports that the one-month delay of the four-acre attraction in Chatham, Kent had been caused by a problem with the standard of some of the materials supplied for their interactive shows. A spokeswoman said: “Dickens World is a complex visitor attraction. Some of the elements for the interactive displays are coming from overseas and at a project meeting this morning it was decided that they weren’t sufficiently finished to our standards.”

Then there’s the inevitable theme park for Harry Potter, as the Sun reports Universal Studios is close to finalizing a deal to build Harry Potter World at its amusement park in Orlando, Florida. The park, once built, will include rollercoasters and rides based on the plots of JK Rowling‘s novels. Nikki Finke actually broke the story first on her blog last Friday, and has more details on the plans. I must say I would totally ride a Quidditch-themed rollercoaster… and Ron says the final blueprints had better include a Diagon Alley shopping strip, too.

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Trust AbeBooks to come up with a different spin on a Harry Potter website portal, eschewing the usual book information & tidbits for more offbeat items, like books about the Harry Potter books, what JK Rowling should read, translations of Potter from over 50 countries to meeting the real Harry Potters. Of course, there’s also lots on the rare books front, including an interview with an anonymous individual who paid the jaw-dropping sum of $37,000 for a first UK edition of the first Potter book. A sum that may not be close to the ceiling price. “I believe the value will keep growing,” said the man dubbed Mr X. “I don’t think that we will realize a profit from the book in my lifetime but I feel a certain joy in seeing its value increase. In the meantime, the book is well protected and very well insured.” It had better be at that price…

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