‘His hand closed automatically around the fake Horcrux, but in spite of everything, in spite of the dark and twisting path he saw stretching ahead for himself, in spite of the final meeting with Voldemort he knew must come, whether in a month, in a year, or in ten, he felt his heart lift at the thought that there was still one last golden day of peace left to enjoy with Ron and Hermione.’

With these words Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince draws to a close.

End of a dream: in the seventh and final book — Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Harry discovers what fate truly has in store for him as he inexorably makes his way to that final meeting with Voldemort.

In this thrilling climax to the phenomenally bestselling series, J K Rowling unveils in spectacular fashion the answers to the many questions that have been so eagerly awaited. Harry has been burdened with a dark, dangerous and seemingly impossible task: that of locating and destroying Voldemort’s remaining Horcruxes. Never has Harry felt so alone, or faced a future so full of shadows. But Harry must somehow find within himself the strength to complete the task he has been given.

This is the conclusion to the series that J K Rowling first dreamt up 17 years ago. Copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows went on sale worldwide in the English language at 00.01am BST Saturday, July 21. The Harry Potter series has sold over 325 million copies around the world and has been translated into 65 languages. A simultaneous launching of the book also took place in Karachi in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

Classics made easy: Well, compared to these astronomical numbers of copies of Harry Potter series of books (all not famous for their brevity) sold, the dwindling sales of age- old classics like Anna Karenina, David Copperfield and Vanity Fair are being attributed to their lack of brevity and therefore a leading publishing house is making Tolstoy, Dickens and Thackeray easy to read by cutting off what it claims to be 40 per cent of dispensable ‘fat’!

Since none of these authors are around to object to the slimming down of their epics to 60 per cent of the originals, publishers are likely to get away with their argument that modern readers will welcome the shorter versions.

Malcolm Edwards, publisher of Orion Group, has been quoted by the media saying that the idea had developed from a game of “humiliation”, in which office staff confessed to the most embarrassing gaps in their reading. He admitted that he had never read Middlemarch and had tried but failed to get through Moby Dick several times, while a colleague owned up to skipping Vanity Fair.

What was more, he said: “We realised that life is too short to read all the books you want to and we never were going to read these ones.”

Research confirmed that “many regular readers think of the classics as long, slow and, to be frank, boring. You’re not supposed to say this but I think that one of the reasons Jane Austen always does so well in reader polls is that her books aren’t that long”.

The first six titles in the compact editions series, all priced at £6.99, are Anna Karenina, Vanity Fair, David Copperfield, The Mill on the Floss, Moby Dick and Wives and Daughters.

Bleak House, Middlemarch, Jane Eyre, The Count of Monte Cristo, North and South and The Portrait of a Lady will follow in September. Each has been whittled down to about 400 pages by cutting 30 to 40 per cent of the text. Words, sentences, paragraphs and, in a few cases, chapters have been removed.

Matthew Crockatt of the London bookshop Crockatt & Powell, reportedly poured scorn on the enterprise. “It’s completely ridiculous - a daft idea,” he said.

“How can you edit the classics? I’m afraid reading some of these books is hard work, which is why you have to develop as a reader. If people don’t have time to read Anna Karenina, then fine. But don’t read a shortened version and kid yourself it’s the real thing.”

Louise Weir, director of the online bookclub, described the compact editions as “a breath of fresh air”. She added: “I am guilty of never having read Anna Karenina, because it’s just so long. I’d much rather read two 300-page books than one 600-page book.”

India now: This summer London will host ‘India Now’ — a three-month season celebrating London’s strengthening relationships with India and exploring India’s culture and its contribution to London life. A replica of the Taj Mahal sailed up the Thames on the morning of Tuesday last, pictured against some of London’s most famous landmarks including, the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, the London Eye, St Paul’s, the Tate Modern and Tower Bridge before coming to rest at More London outside the GLA in London Bridge where it remained for the public to view throughout the day.

This visual spectacle will kick off 1,500 events and exhibitions dedicated to Indian art, film, theatre, music, fashion, food and business. Rahul Dravid, the captain of the Indian cricket team, actresses Joanna Lumley OBE and Shilpa Shetty, and Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, were just some of the well-known faces celebrating the launch of India Now alongside the Taj Mahal. — M.Z