International Quidditch
by Samuel Jones
Apparently, the English language version of the last instalment of the Harry Potter saga sells more overseas than in the UK - people don't want to wait for the translation. A million copies were sold last month in Germany alone, and the Chinese love it, racking up a number of pre-orders 200% higher than the last one.
Apart from wizard-fever, this shows how important popular culture is in relation to the globalisation of English, a theme we discussed in As You Like It. It's also pretty revealing, it's difficult to imagine either a German-language or Mandarin book selling 1m pre-order copies in the UK.