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I have always loved the idea of magic, ever since I was read my first fairy tales. It didn't matter whether they were twinkly ones with fairy godmothers and wonderful pink ball-gown confections, Ladybird books with powdered Regency princes, or the dark, tangled, thrilling tales in Andrew Lang's collections, illustrated, preferably, by Arthur Rackham. All of them had magic, and so all of them had something that fed my strong desire for the unknown, the extraordinary.
As I got older, I graduated to C.S. Lewis, Susan Cooper, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones - wonderful, glorious books that made it seem entirely plausible that there was magic in the real world, or at least held out the chance of slipping into other worlds where magic existed. As an adult, I veered away from fantasy (mainly because most adult fantasy conforms too closely to the model lampooned so hilariously by Diana Wynne Jones in her Tough Guide to Fantasyland) but I never really lost the sense that magic was out there, just out of reach, visible in the corner of your eye.
So, when I started write my own books for children, I knew they'd have magic in them. The question was, what kind? What would be the logic of the magic I wrote? Fairy-tale magic is mostly based on cauldrons, spells, witches and waving wands, although there are some strange and wonderful ways that magic works, too - feather cloaks that turn their wearers into swans; geese that lay golden eggs; combs that, thrown behind you, turn into mountain ranges. My first and best guide to magic in older fiction, though, was Diana Wynne Jones.
In Jones's Chrestomanci series, there are witches, warlocks and potions, ingredients like newt's eyes, snake's tongues and dragon's blood, and spells that are made by grinding, heating and muttering, as in all the best fairy tales. But she also has more powerful and exciting magic, magic that happens when someone with the right sort of power simply tells the world to be different - and it is. This is the magic that belongs specifically to enchanters, and when you realise that someone in a Diana Wynne Jones book has it (and you nearly always find at least one) you know you are in for some seriously delightful mayhem.
There's another, very different, magical logic at work in Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus books. Here, magicians lord it over the non-magical commoners, but their dark secret is that none of their magic is really done by themselves. Wizards' only power is the ability to raise afrits, imps, djinni and demons from the 'other place', and all their apparently wonderful spells are carried out by the sweat and toil of these enslaved and invisible beings. It allows Stroud to have a lot of fun with the quarrelsome, vain and power-hungry magicians of his alternative London, while also giving us possibly the best fictional depiction of a djinni ever - Bartimaeus himself.
Perhaps the most technically minded inventor of magic for children is J.K. Rowling. I thoroughly enjoyed the Harry Potter books (despite being slightly bemused at how much attention they received) but I find magic in her books to be very 'National Curriculum': once spotted at 11, you just have to learn how to do it the right way, and pass exams, and then you are a proper witch or wizard. Despite the constant reiteration that some wizards are more powerful than others, we never really see much evidence of this. Hermione Granger is said to be 'the best witch of her generation', but we get no sense of any raw power that is simply part of her very being - instead, we get the impression that she's just very precise and has a good memory. The witch as swot, rather than enchanter.
So when I wrote 'Frogspell', which is set in the mythical time of King Arthur, I decided to go with the cauldrons, spells and potions of fairy-tale and legend, but I also wanted a sense that magic was something not just anyone could do - there had to be a special part of you, a power you had that others didn't. As the stories progress, my novice wizard, Max Pendragon, discovers more and more about the logic of magic, learns to tell one person's magic apart from another's, and finally realises that he doesn't need potions or spells, he can (like his hero, Merlin) do spells with his mind. Max, in fact, is an enchanter, of sorts - and it's a power that is crucial, in the end, to his defeat of the icy sorceress, Morgana le Fay.
In the process of writing the whole series, I found myself discovering and exploring more and more about how magic in this world worked, and I realised something else that gave me a huge thrill. Writing is a little like doing magic. Finally, I am a kind of enchanter!
Scholastic has unveiled the first of seven new covers for a set of U.S. trade paperback editions of J.K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter series. The new editions will come out in September.
Amulet graphic novel artist Kazu Kibuishi created the covers. What do you think? Kibuishi explained his process in the release:
When I was asked to submit samples, I initially hesitated because I didn’t want to see them reinterpreted! However, I felt that if I were to handle the project, I could bring something to it that many other designers and illustrators probably couldn’t, and that was that I was also a writer of my own series of middle grade fiction. As an author myself, I tried to answer the question, ‘If I were the author of the books – and they were like my own children – how would I want them to be seen years from now?’
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Suzanne Collins and The Hunger Games dominated Facebook this year, her trilogy taking the first, second and third spots on Facebook’s Most Read Books of 2012 list.
Above, you can see Facebook’s infographic about the top books of 2012. Below, we’ve listed the top five books on that list…
1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
2. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
3. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
4. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
By: Jason Boog,
on 12/4/2012
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With 11,525 votes, The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling has won the Best Fiction award at the Goodreads Choice Awards. Earning 20,328 votes, Veronica Roth was named Best Goodreads Author for Insurgent.
We’ve collected all the winners below, each winner nominated and picked by Goodreads users.
What do you think of the choices?
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The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling's latest novel, will be made into a miniseries for the BBC, it's been reported today. BBC One and BBC Drama have entered an exclusive adaptation deal; it wil be produced by an independent production company produced by J.K. Rowling's agent, Neil Blair (on behalf of his agency, The Blair Partnership) and Rick Senat.
JKR will "collaborate closely" with the project. The number and length of episodes has not yet been decided. It is expected to air in 2014.
JKR said of the adaptation:
"I always felt that, if it were to be adapted, this novel was best suited to television and I think the BBC is the prefect home."
A new Wikipedia page has been made for Sony and J.K. Rowling's Wonderbook: Book of Spells Playstation video game! The new page can be viewed here.
As Hurricane Sandy nears the East Coast, FEMA administrator Craig Fugate urged parents to read with their children.
If you want to know how Hurricane Sandy will affect your state, visit the State-by-State Guide to Hurricane Sandy at The New York Times.
Readers have been using the #StormReads hashtag to talk about the books they are reading during this difficult time. We’ve embedded some of these tweets below.
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By:
Betsy Bird,
on 10/28/2012
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See now, this is what I get for waiting when I see a good video. I’ve been doing my Video Sundays a little less frequently since I like to do them when the content is primo. The flipside is that sometimes I get scooped. Such is the case with today’s video. It is a delight and I have watched it multiple times, but it’s not as new as it once was. No matter. You will enjoy it thoroughly, I think. Thanks to Jon Scieszka and, by extension, Lisa Brown for the link.
Next up, a triple threat. He writes books like Geeks, Girls, and Secret Identities (which I have read and thoroughly enjoyed). He blogs at Mike Jung’s Little Bloggy Wog. But the kicker? He sings. And goldurnit . . . he’s good.
Brother Iz step aside. I may have to rework my children’s book boy band roster around to include him. Dude has pipes.
Speaking of music, I am of the opinion that a catchy score can make or break a book trailer. Example A: As the Crow Flies by Sheila Keenan and Kevin Duggan. Catchy as all get out.
And where would this little trailer for the oh-so Canadian Little Jack Horner LIVE from the Corner be without its catchy tunes? Only author Helaine Becker and illustrator Mike Boldt know for sure.
In other news, J.K. Rowling was in town. Care to watch her chatter? Here’s the uncut interview with Jon Stewart in all it Daily Showy glory.
Finally, our off-topic video comes to us from good man Mike Lewis. As he says, it’s the reactions that make this one a classic.
Love it!
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on 10/25/2012
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You folks have been awfully good about my recent shoddy blogging, so I tip my hat in your general direction. Jules of 7-Imp and I are putting the final touches on our book for Candlewick editing-wise and, as you might imagine, it eats up large swaths of time like an irate and hungry badger. There is no situation in which a badger cannot be used as an example. True fact.
In other news, there’s an author/illustrator out there that I happen to like very much. His name is Aaron Zenz and over the years he has startled me time and again with the relative brilliance of his creativity. If he wasn’t making multiple inspired pieces for the Re-Seussification Project then his kids were contributing to the stellar Boogie Woogie blog. Well, Aaron and Co. are some of my favorite folks so when I saw the Friends of Zenz page asking to help ‘em out in the midst of some pretty upsetting surgery, you can bet I jumped on board. If you’ve a minute, you can too. They’re swell folks.
So I got to meet J.K. Rowling the other day. Yup. The woman who basically set me on the path of children’s librarianship in the first place via her books and I up and met her. You see the good Dan Blank had tickets and one of those tickets happened to have my name on it. So I got to see her speak with Ann Patchett about this adult novel of hers The Casual Vacancy (a title I’m certain she stole from the notes of Lemony Snicket) and then I stood in a long line and got my copy signed. The conversation between us is as follows:
J.K. Rowling: Thanks for coming.
Betsy Bird: Guh.
Many thanks to Dan for the opportunity. He’s blogged about the experience here and just so you writer folks know, he’s doing another session of his author platform course starting Oct 31, with a free webinar. The course features Jane Friedman, Richard Nash, Colleen Lindsay, Kathleen Schmidt, Joanna Penn and Jeff Goins as guest speakers. Info on the session is here and the webinar is here.
“COMIC LEGEND: There was a Winnie the Pooh comic strip where the characters acted a lot more aggressively than most Winnie the Pooh fans are used to.
STATUS: True”
Thus we find the strangest and maybe most engaging link of the day. Apparently there was a Winnie-the-Pooh syndicated comic strip out there for a while that contained the Disneyfied Pooh and friends. And apparently it was written by some seriously odd souls. How else to explain some of these downright weird inclusions? Comic Book Legends Revealed explains more (you’ll have to scroll down a little but they’re worth finding). This one’s my favorite:
Wowzah.
And speaking of bears . . . how do you get kids interested in the political process? Have ‘em vote for bears, of course! The West Linn Public Library had an inspired idea. They’re holding a bear election through election day on November 6 and, as they explained it to me:
“inviting kids (and adults) to vote for their favorite bear from children’s literature: Pooh, Paddington, Mama Berenstain, or Corduroy. We have also gotten staff involved by asking them to volunteer to be bear campaign managers. The response from staff and patrons has been tremendous! Our campaign managers have embraced their roles beyond my wildest dreams by designing posters, stickers, bookmarks, and games to support their bear.We are having so much fun that I thought I would share with other libraries. I have even created a campaign video for my candidate, Mama Bear—here is that link: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=vb.153513568034372&type=2“ Love it! I suppose I’m a staunch Pooh supporter thanks to my job, but it’s tough. Paddington comes in at a close second in my heart.
Okay, let’s do the Me Stuff all in one fell swoop today. First off, I made a reading list for NYC’s New Victory Theater to accompany their upcoming shows. Check it out here. I never properly thanked Miss Kathleen at Mental Floss for including me in the 24 Library-Centric Sites We Love round-up, to say nothing of the compliments regarding my video with Travis Jonker. Thanks to Maureen Petry for the links! I’m speaking at a Joan Aiken event tonight so enjoy this piece written by Lizza Aiken, Joan’s daughter, entitled Voices: The magical mysteries of children’s literature. I was interviewed at the blog The Children’s Book Review as part of their ongoing librarian series. And the Children’s Media Association blog gave me what could well be the most flattering spotlight I’ve received in my long internet life. Whew!
There was a Bibliography-Off between Judy Blume and one of my favorite comics Patton Oswalt not long ago. As Jezebel described it, “The only thing that could really be better than this (for a Sunday, anyway) is if Calvin and Hobbes were real and they spoke at a TED Talk about the vividness of a small child’s imagination.” I just wish S.E. Hinton had heeded Patton’s call to give him a hand. She’s on Twitter all the time, y’know. Thanks to Marjorie Ingall for the link!
Maybe you can’t see Phil Nel speaking in my library tomorrow about Crockett Johnson. If not, here’s the next best thing.
All right. Enough with the books. Let’s look at some up-to-date movie news directly from Cynopsis Kids. First up:
“Nickelodeon begins production this month on its new original comedy/caper TV movie, Swindle, which will star a bevy of the network’s stars including Jennette McCurdy (iCarly), Noah Crawford (How to Rock, You Gotta See This), Noah Munck (iCarly), Ariana Grande (Victorious), Chris O’Neal (How to Rock, You Gotta See This) and Ciara Bravo (Big Time Rush). Based on the popular kids book of the same name by Gordon Korman, the movie will be shot in Vancouver Canada. The movie is set to begin airing in 2014 on Nickelodeon’s 40+ international channels across Europe, Latin America, Asia and Australia. The story begins when an evil collector cons Griffin (Crawford) out of a million dollar baseball card that could have saved his best friend’s (O’Neal) home, he teams a ragtag group of his classmates (Grande, McCurdy, Munck and Bravo) to take down the swindler. Directed by Jonathan Judge (Big Time Rush, Fred 3), Swindle is written by Bill Motz (Brandy & Mr. Whiskers) & Bob Roth (Lion King 2), Eric Freiser (Road to Ruin) and Adam Rifkin (Small Soliders, Mousehunt). Marjorie Cohn (Big Time Movie, Rags), Lauren Levine (Bridge to Terabithia, Best Player), Loris Lunsford, Karen Glass and Paul Barry serve as executive producers. Scott McAboy’s Pacific Bay Entertainment is producing.”
Second up:
“Toronto-based Radical Sheep Productions (Stella and Sam, Yub Yubs, The Big Comfy Couch) acquires the rights to the graphic novel series Fangbone! Third-Grade Barbarian, by author/illustrator Michael Rex (Goodnight Goon, The Runaway Mummy). Under the deal Radical Sheep will develop a K6-11 aimed animated series based on Fangbone! The story revolves around Fangbone, a nine-year-old barbarian warrior from Skullbania who winds up in third grade at Eastwood Elementary in order to save his native land from the evildoer Venomous Drool. With the help of his new pal Bill, a lovable, average, goofy kid, Fangbone outwits his enemies while discovering the modern world.”
Sometimes the title sells it alone: Children’s Author Illustrator Elisha Cooper Gives Lecture on “Inappropriate” Children’s Books.
New Blog Alert: The election’s coming up and everyone’s getting ready. With that in mind, did you know that there’s a blog out there solely dedicated to talking about political children’s books? Kid Lit About Politics it’s called. One for the radar.
New Blog Alert II: For that matter did you know there was a mother-son blog out there (adult mother and son!) called crossreferencing: a hereditary blog? Yep. There you can find Sarah and Mark Flowers as they, “discuss YA Literature and Librarianship from our dual perspectives.” It’s pretty cool.
New Blog Alert III: Tis the season. This third new blog is actual that of The Junior Library Guild called Shelf Life. It’s currently doing a wonderful job of discussing current issues and hot books. Of particular note is the post Save [Books of Wonder] and Save Your Soul. Couldn’t have put it better myself.
Have you ever watched the movie Matilda and thought to yourself, Whatever happened to child actress Mara Wilson? Thank god for the internet, eh? Thanks to Brita for the link.
On a serious note there is a lovely memory of Peter Sieruta up at the blog Archives and Special Collections. It happens to include what may be the first picture of Peter to ever make it to the world wide web. God, I miss that guy.
The Onion’s A.V. Club has been a bit lazy in their looks at children’s and YA literature but this recent post on 2012 graphic novels is well worth reading. Many thanks to Eric Carpenter for the link!
Daily Image:
Just knowing that Gabi Swiatkowska has a blog where she displays art like the pieces below is enough to make my life complete.
Thanks to Jane Curley for the link.
By: Maryann Yin,
on 10/17/2012
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Have you ever written a scary story? In honor of the Halloween season, we are interviewing horror writers to learn about the craft of scaring readers. Recently, we spoke with author Jonathan Maberry.
Throughout Maberry’s career, he has won multiple Stoker Awards for his horror work. Last month, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers released the third installment of the Rot & Ruin series, Flesh & Bone.
He has written for Marvel Comics and published multiple novels for both adults and young-adults. As a nonfiction writer, Maberry has examined topics ranging from martial arts to zombie pop culture. Check out the highlights from our interview below…
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In brief – I was a matron of honor at my sister’s wedding and then, after I returned to New York, I met J.K. Rowling.
You want proof?
Fuzzy lady with brown hair on the left is me. Fuzzy lady with the blond hair on the right is Ms. Rowling. And so you may have to forgive my inability to make coherent words for a day or so. I be floored. A million thanks to Dan Blank for the opportunity and the photo itself!
Author J.K. Rowling revealed that her next book would likely be for young readers, chatting with fans in a webcast hosted by Scholastic.
During the virtual event, which drew more than a million Harry Potter fans, Rowling discussed her next writing project. She said, “The next thing I publish is likely to be a book for children. The reason, I’m not committing myself wholeheartedly, is because after fifteen years of being a writer for Harry Potter, where you would say something and someone would cease on it and say, ‘You are definitely doing that now.’ And you kind of thought you weren’t allowed to change your mind. And it got a little intense, so I try not to commit myself with my plan. So I’m not 100 percent sure about doing it, but I think it will be a book slightly more for children.” continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
As reported previously, J.K. Rowling gave an interview that was streamed live. A video of this interview is now available at Scholastic.com. J.K. Rowling answered questions about the success of Harry Potter, the encouragement she received to write, and many questions on Harry Potter cannon (such as her favorite moments in the books, the first/last sentence she wrote, and the question posed to her by Pottermore).
As reported previously, J.K. Rowling made an appearance at Cheltenham Literature Festival to promote her new, adult novel The Casual Vacancy. (Pictures of the author posing with The Casual Vacancy can be seen below). In an interview at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, J.K. Rowling responded to critic's accusations and confirmed that her next book would be for children. The Telegraph reports:
She said: "I am not a particularly thick-skinned person. It is true that a lot of what I am looking at in the book are certainly middle-class issues, but then I think that's fair and I am well-qualified as I am from the middle class, which I can empathise with.
"But I think some critics have misrepresented my views as more extreme or black and white than they really are. I don't think I am evangelical in my work."
Ahead of the book's publication last month, she said: "We're a phenomenally snobby society and it's such a rich seam. The middle class is so funny. It's the class I know best and it's the class where you find the most pretension." She added that she had "laid my friends bare".
The author said that she had decided to portray several troubled adolescents in The Casual Vacancy in order to attempt to remove the social stigma surrounding many teenagers.
She said: "We do stigmatise teens a lot and see them as scary and alien. It's a very fragile time of life. It is more difficult to be a teenager now than when I was a teenager. The internet has been a boon and a curse for teenagers."
The author, who has been reluctant to say whether she would return to children's fiction after finishing the Harry Potter series, confirmed that her next book would be for young children.
"As the writer of Harry Potter, I'm always nervous of committing myself to another children's book, but yes, the next thing I write will be for children," she said.
"I have a lot of things on my laptop currently, including a couple of things for children - for a slightly younger age group than Harry Potter was aimed at - which are nearly done and will, I think, be the next thing I publish. I have run them by my children and they seem to like them which is always a good sign.
"I also have some ideas for another book for adults but it isn't too far on [in development]."
The rest of the article can be read
here. Thanks to SnitchSeeker and Hypable for the heads up!
Numerical sale statistics are starting to emerge for The Casual Vacancy. It has been reported that J.K. Rowling's new adult novel has sold 374,000 copies in the USA, and 124,000 copies in the UK, since its release last Thursday. Hypable reports:
Sales numbers for The Casual Vacancy’s first week are now out, and Little Brown says that J.K. Rowling’s first post-Potter novel “exceeded expectations.”
The publisher believes that it is on track to become the bestselling hardback book of the year. Despite high anticipation and one million pre-orders, the book did not surpass first week sales of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol which holds the record at 550,000 copies.
In just six days, J.K. Rowling has sold 375,000 copies in all formats of her new novel for adults.
Little, Brown and Company publisher Michael Pietsch explained in a statement: “The Casual Vacancy has exceeded our expectations in its first six days in stores, selling 375,000 copies in all formats. We believe it is on track to become the year’s bestselling novel in hardcover.”
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
The Casual Vacancy has entered the Number 1 slot on USA Today's Best-Selling Books list. J.K. Rowling's first adult novel has knocked E.L. James 50 Shades of Grey into the Number 2 slot--James' first fall in 21 weeks. USA Today reports:
J.K. Rowling still has the magic — at least when it comes to selling books.
Despite mixed reviews from critics, The Casual Vacancy, Rowling's first post-Harry Potter novel — this one for grown-ups — will land at No. 1 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list on Thursday. The book was released Sept. 27.
Rowling is "kind of review-proof," says Sara Nelson, editorial director of books and Kindle for Amazon.com, who's not surprised at Rowling's top ranking given the strong pre-orders over the past few weeks.
The test, Nelson says, "is how well it continues to sell." No one in publishing expects it can match Potter sales in their heyday. Rowling's publisher, Little, Brown, says
The rest of the article can be read
here.
J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy is the fastest-selling novel to hit the UK book market in three years. According to The BookSeller, Little,Brown shipped out over one million copies of the physical book to fill pre-orders in UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa. This number, shy of the estimated 2.5 million pre-orders, does not include digital copies of The Casual Vacancy that were sold. The BookSeller reports:
A statement from the publisher said: "We are delighted by the first day sales of The Casual Vacancy, which make it the fastest-selling book in the UK in three years . . . We will have official weekly sales figures from BookScan next Tuesday."
The record for first-week sales for an adult hardback fiction title is currently held by Dan Brown for The Lost Symbol (Transworld), which sold 550,000 copies in its first week on sale in 2009.
Meanwhile, Waterstones spokesperson Fiona Allen said: "[The Casual Vacancy] definitely was the biggest seller of the day and it was a very good day for us. In fact, I think sales might actually have been bigger than Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol, certainly at 2.30pm it looked like it was heading for it and may well have taken over by the end of the day. We had a constant stream of people coming in to pick it up."
Stay close to Leaky for more sales statistics coming soon!
Novelist J.K. Rowling has earned some divided early reviews on Amazon. As of this 10 a.m. ET writing, she counted 14 reviews: eight were five-star reviews and six were one-star reviews. The majority of these early reviewers have not read the book.
Most of the one-star reviews were written by customers complaining about the steep price of the book. Those reviews even generated a five-star review from somebody who had not read the book:
Even if this book wasn’t that great I would still give it five stars to make up for those ridiculous price reviews. They don’t contribute anything. The price for the Kindle version is high, yes, but so what? If you don’t want to pay that much then don’t buy it. Just don’t ruin the star rating with useless review. By the way, even though I gave this book five stars for the reason I mentioned, I am sure I will very much enjoy it.
continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Reuters has released statements on The Casual Vacancy from various official sources:
"Unfortunately, the real-life world she has limned in these pages is so willfully banal, so depressingly cliched that 'The Casual Vacancy' is not only disappointing — it's dull." (New York Times)
"The Casual Vacancy is no masterpiece, but it's not bad at all: intelligent, workmanlike, and often funny," said Theo Tait in the Guardian newspaper.
Andrew Losowsky of the Huffington Post website, said Rowling's foray into adult fiction was worth publishing, but perhaps did not match the giddy anticipation surrounding its release.
"Would this book be published if it weren't for the name on the cover? Almost certainly. Would anyone pay much attention to it, and its message? Probably not." (Huffington Post)
"Though some sequences feel a few drafts short of being ready, others are written with a fluency and beauty that suggest that there could be more and better works to come from her pen." (Huffington Post)
In The Independent newspaper, Boyd Tonkin believed Rowling was at her best when describing the younger characters.
"The teens of Winterdown belong in a bolder, richer book than some of the parental caricatures," he said. "All the social and hormonal turbulence that the later Potter volumes had to veil in the euphemisms of fantasy appear in plain sight here." (The Independent)
The conservative Daily Telegraph broadsheet took umbrage at Rowling's skewering of the middle class.
"While Rowling gives due respect to the poorer, damaged characters, higher up the social scale she is busy carving grotesques," wrote Allison Pearson in a three-star review. (The Daily Telegraph)
The rest of the article can be read here.
UPDATE: Washington Post captured a few more reviews:
The Washington Post:
“In this one 500-page book, Rowling re-traverses the Potter series’ entire tonal journey: a gradual darkening in which snide comments on small stakes give way to sharp commentary on big ones. The election unearths tensions. The tensions ruin lives. No amount of Reparo spells can undo the things that are done; we’re not in Hogwarts anymore.”
The Associated Press:
“This isn’t a book that’s easy to fall in love with, the way Harry Potter was with its charming, winning hero and his plucky friends, saving the world from evil with the help of a powerful spell or two. Even with its moments of humor, it’s a hard story where some people just don’t get saved, because really, they never had a chance.”
The LA Times:
“Rowling clearly knows how to create a universe that’s compelling, consuming even, but Pagford is no such place. Rather, it is little more than a backdrop, a stage set, its lack of depth an emblem of Rowling’s inability to engage us, to invest us sufficiently in her characters, young or otherwise, to reckon with the contrivances of her fictional world.”
New York Daily News:
“Rowling’s strength was never her prose. It was her ability to create unforgettable characters and weave stories that held us captive. The magic simply isn’t there in ‘The Casual Vacancy.’ Indeed, the spell has been broken.”
Entertainment Weekly:
“Rowling does a nice job laying out her 20-plus characters’ endless pretensions and weaknesses, which she punctures with gleeful flicks of a surprisingly sharp comic blade.”
People Magazine:
“Rowling captures the humanity in everyone, even if that humanity is not always a pretty sight. And – though creating Harry Potter was more than enough – if Rowling wants to convince the world that she can cast other spells, she has succeeded.”
Publisher’s Weekly:
“As in the Harry Potter books, children make mistakes and join together with a common cause, accompanied here by adults, some malicious, some trying yet failing. Minus the magic, though, good and evil are depressingly human, and while the characters are all well drawn and believable, they aren’t much fun.”
Hyped as the most anticipated novel of this season, Washington Post has reported that sales may not live up to the hype. The Washington Post blog reports:
But for the most eagerly anticipated book of the year, Politics & Prose had sold only about half a dozen of their 300 copies by the time Oliver was not quite a half a dozen chapters in. That’s about a third of what the store would order for the “Harry Potter” series, but, according to senior book buyer Mark LaFramboise, 20 times more than they usually order for other books. For “Harry Potter,” the store could count on swarms of pre-teens rushing the door at midnight on the day of a new release. For “The Casual Vacancy,” the author’s first adult novel, there have been no such crowds.
The Wall Street Journal blog
SpeakEasy suggested that harsh reviews and critical statements may hurt sales.
Tough
early reviews may make it harder for J.K. Rowling’s new adult novel “The Casual Vacancy” to generate staying power
on the national best-seller lists. The book, set in a small town in England and
focused on characters involved in a local election, went on sale nationwide
this morning.
The Los Angeles Times reviewer David Ulin noted that “what’s
surprising, given Rowling’s ability to spin a story, is just how unsatisfying
it ultimately becomes.” Elsewhere, Monica Hesse, writing in the Washington
Post, wrote , “Much of the book I admired, even if I didn’t love,” before
concluding that the novel “would be a little better if everyone were carrying
wands.”
Meghan Cox Gurdon in The Wall Street Journal, however, was
more upbeat, writing that once the novel gets underway, it “becomes a positively
propulsive read.” She adds that the book “may not be George Eliot, but it’s
J.K. Rowling; and that’s pretty good.”
One
leading independent retailer said the book sold six copies in the first hour on
sale Thursday. “It might be review proof, as many books are,” said Mark
LaFramboise, chief buyer for the Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington
D.C. “The curiosity factor is really strong, and there is a built-in audience.
We’re prepared for the book to be very successful.”
It may not
help that the novel is expensive at $17.99 for the e-book edition compared to
$12.99 and $14.99 for many rival best sellers. In hardcover, its recommended
price is $35 although it is widely available online for the discounted price of
$20.
We will have more news about sales later this weekend.
The first video of J.K. Rowling at the Southbank Center in London, England has been released. It is a 16-minute rap-up video. This event was supposed to be streamed live; we are currently keeping an eye out for more footage. The video can be viewed here (and is not embeded below by request of Southbank Center).
While promoting A Causal Vacancy, J.K. Rowling revealed a few juicy Harry Potter tidbits.
Deadline reported that Rowling may write another story set in the Harry Potter wizarding world that does not star The Boy Who Lived. She is also pondering a “director’s cut” version of two installments from the Harry Potter series, writing them them with more “finesse.”
Would you read the director’s cut of Harry Potter?
continued…
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This weekend The Casual Vacancy shot to the top of Amazon's book charts. J.K. Rowling's adult novel currently resides in the number one slot for both physical books and e-books. According to Amazon.com, the physical copy of The Casual Vacancy has resided in the Top 100 for the past 87 days, while the e-book has resided in the Top 100 for the last 21 days.
More sales statistics are expected to be released shortly, and we will post them as soon as we can.
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling set a Goodreads record for the all-time biggest “started reading” day. Currently, more than 40,000 people have marked the book “to-read.”
The book unseated Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins as the book with the strongest “started reading” day. Insurgent by Veronica Roth holds third place. As of this writing, The Casual Vacancy has 38 percent five-star ratings on Goodreads.
Goodreads CEO Otis Chandler had this statement: “The Casual Vacancy is one of those stand-out books where people not only pre-order it, they start reading it as soon as they get their hands on it. On Goodreads, it beat the record for our previous all-time ‘started reading’ day which was set by Mockingjay.”
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As I got older, I graduated to C.S. Lewis, Susan Cooper, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones - wonderful, glorious books that made it seem entirely plausible that there was magic in the real world, or at least held out the chance of slipping into other worlds where magic existed. As an adult, I veered away from fantasy (mainly because most adult fantasy conforms too closely to the model lampooned so hilariously by Diana Wynne Jones in her Tough Guide to Fantasyland) but I never really lost the sense that magic was out there, just out of reach, visible in the corner of your eye.
Perhaps the most technically minded inventor of magic for children is J.K. Rowling. I thoroughly enjoyed the Harry Potter books (despite being slightly bemused at how much attention they received) but I find magic in her books to be very 'National Curriculum': once spotted at 11, you just have to learn how to do it the right way, and pass exams, and then you are a proper witch or wizard. Despite the constant reiteration that some wizards are more powerful than others, we never really see much evidence of this. Hermione Granger is said to be 'the best witch of her generation', but we get no sense of any raw power that is simply part of her very being - instead, we get the impression that she's just very precise and has a good memory. The witch as swot, rather than enchanter.
A very interesting post.
I think you put your finger on something with the Harry Potter series, there. There's a fundamental elitism (wizards/muggles), but vying with that is a sense that success is an index of hard work. I know I'm not the first to note that there's something very New Labour about HP - or the Blair Wizard project (publication of the first and last books coincide almost to the month with the beginning and end of Blair's premiership) - and that may be part of it.
A wonderful analysis of the many varieties of magic - including all thoughts and comments on the HP version.
That feeling that magic might just be there, seen out of the corner of your eye - and the observation that the real excitement is when there's a sense that the most powerful magic is innate - absolutely! the illustrations to your books look great, by the way...
An interesting post! I love DWJ too, and it seems to me that one of the appealing things about the magic in her books is that is can bestow power on the otherwise relatively powerful - ie children. This might be because they are an enchanter, but also might be because they are lucky (or unlucky) enough to be given a magic chemistry set.
The magic in Harry Potter doesn't seem that different - in that it still means that an apparently powerless child like Harry can turn out to be far more powerful and "special" than the apparently stronger adults who are oppressing him...
Thanks, all, for comments - I know what you mean, Emma, that JKR is similar to DWJ in that it gives children the possibility of being special/powerful - and I do really enjoy Harry Potter, for lots of reasons - extreme inventiveness with little details of the magical world, and humour, being just two. Still, the idea that spells can miss, so that wands are reduced to being a bit like guns, always went against my idea of how magic worked.