The Potter Petering-Out Saga
Try Your Luck, Now Why Don't You;
And Just Speak A Simpleton's Spell
Then Click On JKR's Smug Grin Above - Why Don't You
You Might Just Hear The Witch's Voice Then!
As Melodious As That Bell Belle Straight From Hell
Unlike JKR, Though, Her Movie Will Surely Not
Mass Merchandise Your Finances To Hell!
No - The Bell Witch Is Kinder Than JKR Tied Up In A Knot
The Latter Witch Thinks Only Of Her Own R & R
So Click On Her Pic - Take A Deep Breath - Invoke JKR
And She Will Be Reading Her Crap Straight To You
All In One Breath - Toorloo Tootoo!
Me, I still cannot fathom how
SCHOLASTIC Press got to ever consider this material
as fit for children's literature AND also fit
for the term which describes, distinguishes
and qualifies their publishing house...
And howcome no one has ever heard again
of LARRY POTTER - the children's pre-schooler book
with a ratio of illustrations to words that favored the former
but that PREDATED the Harry books
and incorporated all the very exact same concepts...
Hmm... Did some damnable Hogwarts wart-infested hag
cast a spell of silence upon the plagiarized predecessor
ON TOP OF IT...? Talk about adding insult
to injury - in writ and in many other ways...!
SCHOLASTIC Press got to ever consider this material
as fit for children's literature AND also fit
for the term which describes, distinguishes
and qualifies their publishing house...
And howcome no one has ever heard again
of LARRY POTTER - the children's pre-schooler book
with a ratio of illustrations to words that favored the former
but that PREDATED the Harry books
and incorporated all the very exact same concepts...
Hmm... Did some damnable Hogwarts wart-infested hag
cast a spell of silence upon the plagiarized predecessor
ON TOP OF IT...? Talk about adding insult
to injury - in writ and in many other ways...!
Last I heard, according to a NEIGHBOUR of the distinguished dame JKR
(unofficial title - the Queen hasn't authorized anything of the sort yet)
(it wouldn't be the first time the Queen knighted a witch though...)
(but I digress...)
so, the lady JKR has reportedly started work on a new novel
a CRIME NOVEL - a THRILLER...
After Larry, she'll scavenge all the Inspectors she can now -
Poirot, Morse, Gadget, Clouseau...
Say it isn't so, JKR...
say it is not so...
WITCH!!!
In closing, and straight from my inbox...
(unofficial title - the Queen hasn't authorized anything of the sort yet)
(it wouldn't be the first time the Queen knighted a witch though...)
(but I digress...)
so, the lady JKR has reportedly started work on a new novel
a CRIME NOVEL - a THRILLER...
After Larry, she'll scavenge all the Inspectors she can now -
Poirot, Morse, Gadget, Clouseau...
Say it isn't so, JKR...
say it is not so...
WITCH!!!
In closing, and straight from my inbox...
From: "Hbc" (Add to Address Book)
(Request Denied) To: luminous_luciano@yahoo.ca
Subject: Celebrate the final installment of the Harry Potter series!
(Request Denied)
Labels: lambasting spin-off, No More Rrrrrrrowling, simulpost
posted by Luminous (\ô/) Luciano™ at 1:26 AM
8 Comments:
Launch night looms for Harry Potter book
By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer Thu Jul 19, 9:14 AM ET
NEW YORK - Leaks. Lawsuits. Profiteering. What a way to treat such a fine young man like Harry Potter.
Despite pleas for silence from author J.K. Rowling and some leading Potter fan sites, publishing's secret of all secrets — whether the wizard lives or dies — is in danger of becoming plain gossip as publication approaches for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."
"As launch night looms, let's all, please, ignore the misinformation popping up on the web and in the press on the plot of `Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,'" Rowling wrote in a message posted Wednesday on her Web site, http://www.jkrowling.com/.
"I'd like to ask everyone who calls themselves a Potter fan to help preserve the secrecy of the plot for all those who are looking forward to reading the book at the same time on publication day. In a very short time you will know EVERYTHING!"
Two newspapers have published early reviews. Alleged images of Rowling's seventh and final Potter book have already been circulating online days before the official July 21 release. More than 1,000 actual books may already have been received by customers. As of Wednesday morning, the $34.99 release was being offered on eBay, for immediate purchase, for $250.
"That's right — I've got one copy of Harry Potter 7, on July 17, and it can be yours as soon as July 19. Hurry! Confirmed payment by 6:30PM on July 18 will ensure delivery on July 19 by FedEx Priority Overnight!" read a message from a seller identified as "willpc" and based in Atlanta.
"I don't work for a bookstore, and I don't have a magic wand — an online store shipped a copy early."
Two pictures of the book, which sits upon a copy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, are offered as proof. The seller, who declined immediate comment when e-mailed by The Associated Press, has been an eBay member since 1999 and has a perfect "Feedback" score, according to the "Feedback Profile" for willpc.
Hundreds of copies of "Deathly Hallows" are being offered on eBay, but almost all have been promised only after the book is published.
Meanwhile, Scholastic, Inc. announced Wednesday that it was taking "immediate legal action" against online retailer DeepDiscount.com and distributor Levy Home Entertainment after learning that "some individuals have received copies of `Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' through the mail."
In papers filed Wednesday at Chicago's Circuit Court of Cook County, Rowling's U.S. publisher accused the defendants, based in Illinois, of a "complete and flagrant violation of the agreements that they knew were part of the carefully constructed release of this eagerly awaited book." Scholastic is seeking damages "to be determined."
Donna Coyne, Levy's director of product management, declined comment when contacted by The Associated Press.
According to a Scholastic press release, "around one one-hundredth of one percent of the total U.S. copies" going on sale early Saturday morning were shipped prematurely, before the agreed upon July 20 mailing. With an announced first printing of 12 million, that would mean about 1,200 copies.
One book was obtained by a reporter for The (Baltimore) Sun and a review ran Wednesday on the newspaper's Web site. The New York Times published a review of the book in its Thursday editions.
"I am staggered that some American newspapers have decided to publish purported spoilers in the form of reviews in complete disregard of the wishes of literally millions of readers, particularly children, who wanted to reach Harry's final destination by themselves, in their own time," Rowling said in a statement.
Scholastic on Monday obtained subpoenas ordering two San Francisco Bay Area companies to remove possible copies of the book posted at their Web sites.
Scholastic ordered Photobucket, which provides file-sharing services and has an office in Palo Alto, and Milpitas-based Gaia Online, a social networking site used mostly by teenagers and college students, to remove the material. The company would not say whether the copies were real.
Gaia spokesman Bill Danon said the company gave a two-week suspension to the user who posted the possible copy and removed the material. He did not reveal the user's identity.
Officials at Photobucket refused to comment, but also apparently removed the material.
Despite the strictest security, digital photographs of what looks like the full text of "Deathly Hallows" have been leaked on the Internet. Emerson Spartz, the Web master of the Potter site http://www.mugglenet.com has seen some of the pages and believes they're real.
"It's far too detailed to be an elaborate hoax," he told The Associated Press.
Scholastic has declined to comment on the authenticity of any given spoiler. Spokeswoman Kyle Good says that conflicting editions, all of them believable, have appeared on the Internet.
Hiding the contents of a book, especially when millions have been printed and shipped, has proved nearly impossible over the years. Publishers have tried repeatedly to "embargo" an anticipated work until its scheduled release date, and almost always failed. But early leaks, usually by the media, have not kept such books as Bob Woodward's "State of Denial" or Bill Clinton's "My Life" from blockbuster success.
"I can't think of an example from our publishing list where sales were hurt," says Paul Bogaards, director of publicity at Alfred A. Knopf, which published Clinton's book. "None of the leaks are going to hurt sales of Potter."
As of Wednesday, "Deathly Hallows" remained at No. 1 on the best seller lists of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.
___
AP reporter Sudhin Thanawala in San Francisco contributed to this report.
...
Everyone's talking Potter; last book out
By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer
NEW YORK - The books are out; the word is spreading.
"The last Potter is amazing. It has definitely gone way beyond what I expected," Deb Kiehlmeier, 16, of the Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill, N.J., says of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," which was released Saturday to worldwide ecstasy.
"Harry Potter fans are always trying to predict what will happen next, and J.K. Rowling always gives them something different," Kiehlmeier, who had completed the book 759-page book by late Saturday afternoon, told The Associated Press.
On Day 1 of the A.H. (After Harry) Era, reviewers and readers mourned the end of a historic series that proved young people can still crave the written word like the crispiest French fry. It was a day for the sleepless and the sleepy to enjoy and to recall one last, fresh taste of Potter.
The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune were among those bowing before Rowling's achievement. She was compared to the greats of children's and fantasy authors — J.R.R. Tolkien, L. Frank Baum, Roald Dahl — and held in awe for living up to the most intimidating standards.
"To create such an extraordinary world, fill it with complicated characters and convergent back stories is beyond the reach of most writers," wrote the Los Angeles Times' Mary McNamara.
"To sustain that world and grow those characters over seven books filled with plot twists, folklore and even a magical curriculum and then bring it all to an articulate, emotionally wrenching conclusion — that is a truly epic quest."
The AP's Deepti Hajela called the seventh and final Potter a "classic," writing that Rowling "completes her entertaining, compulsively readable series with a book that is both heartbreaking and hopeful, one that left this reader sad to say goodbye to Harry but thoroughly satisfied at how it all went."
Some readers, ironically, were tougher than the critics, especially about the 759-page book's brief epilogue. One reader on the Potter fan site http://www.mugglenet.com even suggested skipping the last chapter, or at least getting to it later so the rest of the book could be thoroughly enjoyed first.
For those who can't wait to find out whether Harry lives, Potter fan Julie Neal advises patience. In a customer review on Amazon.com, she writes, "Regardless of the temptation, don't skip to the end. It doesn't work. The answers to all those key questions everyone wants to know unfold throughout the story."
Potter is a pastime and a business. Before the release date, booksellers competed worldwide to sell the $34.99 book, with some cutting the price by two-thirds. Now, the re-sales are starting. On Amazon.com, some individuals were hawking used copies, and some new ones, for as little as $16, $1.99 less than Amazon's price. On eBay, where just a few days ago a pre-release copy was worth $250, "Deathly Hallows" was offered Saturday for immediate purchase for $10.99.
The first six Potter books have sold more than 325 million copies, and in some places demand for "Deathly Hallows" is already exceeding supply. Taylor Books, an independent book store in Charleston, W.Va., quickly sold out of the 100 copies of the book it had put on sale.
Employee Dane Klingaman said Saturday that customers had been asking for the book all morning, but that only 12 copies that had been specially ordered remained.
"I've had to turn people away," he said.
Seven of the top 10 best sellers on Amazon.com were Potter books Saturday, including a box set of the whole series coming out in September with a list price of $195. The British retailer Asda Group Ltd., which discounted "Deathly Hallows" to $10, said Saturday it had sold 450,000 copies of the book between midnight and 4 p.m. and was selling it twice as fast as the previous Potter. Waterstone's, a British bookstore chain, said that at the height of the overnight sales frenzy, staff members were serving 20 customers a second.
Even people in war zones are reading Harry Potter. About 50 foreigners working in Afghanistan got their hands on a copy of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" on its release date, beating many of their friends back home.
"I sent several text messages to friends and none of them had it yet, and they all said 'I can't believe you're in Kabul and you got the book before us,'" said U.N. worker Jayne Cravens, 41, of Henderson, Ky.
John Connolly, an executive with Paxton International, a logistics and moving company, bought 50 copies of the book in Dubai at 3:01 a.m. Saturday, the exact time of the book's release in London. He boarded a plane to Kabul a couple hours later with the books on board.
"Harry Potter is released worldwide at the same time. As a logistics company based in Afghanistan for five years, we saw every reason to include Afghanistan," said Connolly, who asked customers to donate a book to the American University in Kabul in exchange for the free shipping on the book. "It was not on the publisher's list, that's for sure."
___
Associated Press writer Jason Straziuso in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
...
A fitting finale for Harry
By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer Fri Jul 20, 7:04 PM ET
Clearly, since this is the last chapter, J.K. Rowling decided to go all out.
It may not be the longest book in the series, but "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" definitely packs the most punch. The drama starts on the first page and continues practically throughout the entire story.
With Book 7, Rowling brings her phenomenally successful series about the young wizard to a close. And what a close it is.
There were some complaints that Book 6 — "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" — didn't have a lot of action until the end, that its role seemed to be filling in important bits of back story and setting the stage for the final installment.
There will be no such complaints here. The pace picks up from the start, with readers thrown into a world that's much darker than any of the previous Potter books. Harry and friends Ron and Hermione are on a quest some weeks after the death of Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, and it's time to put aside familiar faces and places and get on their way.
Lord Voldemort, Harry's nemesis, seems to be everywhere, his tentacles of power reaching into every corner. It's a dangerous world they must travel, and no place or happy occasion is safe. Their journey takes them to some unexpected locations and makes them interact with a whole host of characters, including some who were merely references in other books and some who are painfully familiar faces.
Old antagonists from previous books show up — one of whom enters into a positive relationship with Harry, and another who continues to wallow in all the traits that inspired Harry's hatred.
Harry, Ron and Hermione are on the search for horcruxes, vessels that Voldemort created to hold pieces of his soul, which make it impossible to kill him as long as they exist. The search has them moving over various parts of the United Kingdom as they try to fit all the pieces together. Many secrets are finally revealed, all leading up to the ultimate confrontation between Harry and the wizard who tried to kill him so long ago.
Rowling captured many hearts with her first book, and her last is guaranteed to keep them. She is amazingly gifted, demonstrated not only by the incredibly detailed world she has created, but by the depth of feeling and complexity she writes into her characters.
It's all here: humor, courage, redemption, sadness, terror, human frailty — sometimes all in the same character. There are sections that will make readers laugh out loud, as well as scenes of such sadness that tears are inevitable.
From a boy of 11, Harry has become a young man, determined to take on quite a burden. He suffers because of his commitment, and he's not the only one. Rowling said characters would die, and she meant it. Pain and death are constant companions, and sometimes who is taken is a shocker. The deaths aren't always drawn-out, violent scenes; sometimes, you discover that someone has died at the same time Harry does.
Characters you thought you knew surprise you. Some grow in unexpected (and not always pleasant) ways, while others have more complicated pasts than you could ever imagine. No one's life is simple — with a couple of Death Eater exceptions, many of the characters prove that you can't make assumptions about people's motivations.
Rowling rewards her faithful readers; there are numerous allusions to people, places, spells and objects that were mentioned in earlier books. It's a pleasure to see how she closes the loop she opened so many years ago with the story of a young boy who one day discovered he was a wizard.
And, of course, she answers many questions: Why did Snape kill Dumbledore? Is Snape Harry's enemy? Where are the horcruxes? What are the deathly hallows?
It's been a long, long road to get to this point (the first book was published in the United States almost a decade ago), and Rowling does herself proud. She completes her entertaining, compulsively readable series with a book that is both heartbreaking and hopeful, one that left this reader sad to say goodbye to Harry but thoroughly satisfied at how it all went.
From "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" to "Deathly Hallows," Rowling has completed an astonishing cycle of books that can only be described as a true literary classic.
___
On the Net:
http://www.scholastic.com
http://www.jkrowling.com
...
NOW, THE NEXT ARTICLE'S TITLE READS SOMEWHAT...
WELL, EQUAL PARTS
LIKE A DOMINATRIX RELEASING HER VICTIM -
AND A MAY-DECEMBER FETICHISTIC ROMANCE GONE HORRIBLY WRONG...
(WHAT A SPIN ON THE OLD SCHOOLBOY-SEXY TEACHER FANTASY!)
(HEY - JKR COULD WRITE EROTICA NOW...? WORKED SO WELL FOR
THE FORMER QUEEN OF THE GHOULS - ANNE RICE - NOT.)
Rowling bids her boy wizard goodbye
By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer Thu Jul 19, 11:07 PM ET
EDINBURGH, Scotland - Harry Potter's life hangs in the balance. Millions of fans are holding their breath. Meanwhile, his creator is baking a cake — and keeping her secret.
On Saturday, readers around the globe will learn the schoolboy wizard's fate with the publication of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the seventh and final book in J.K. Rowling's fantasy series. Will Harry defeat his evil nemesis, Lord Voldemort, and restore order to the wizarding world? Will he die in the attempt, as many fans fear — and as Rowling, an expert narrative tease, has hinted?
"Harry's story comes to a definite end in book seven," is all she will say a few days before publication, serving up tea and home-baked sponge cake in her comfortable Edinburgh house. Writing the final words of the saga felt "like a bereavement."
That sounds ominously final. So have we really seen the last of the staff and students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?
"Because the world is so big, there would be room to do other stuff," Rowling says carefully. "I am not planning to do that, but I'm not going to say I'm never going to do it."
Rowling (her name rhymes with bowling, rather than howling), looking relaxed in jeans and a sweater, shoulder-length blonde hair stylishly cut, has wildly mixed emotions at leaving behind the character she conjured up during a train journey across England in 1990: a neglected, bespectacled orphan who learns on his 11th birthday that he is a wizard.
She's enjoying the absence of pressure from publishers and fans clamoring for the next installment in Harry's adventures. And she's reveling in the chance to focus on normal life with her husband and three children.
But after finishing the last book, "I felt terrible for a week."
"The first two days in particular, it was like a bereavement, even though I was pleased with the book. And then after a week that cloud lifted and I felt quite lighthearted, quite liberated," she says.
"Finishing is emotional because the books have been so wrapped up with my life. It's almost impossible not to finish and look back to where I was when I started."
It has been an extraordinary journey. When Rowling created Harry Potter, she was a struggling single mother, writing in cafes to save on the heating bill at home. Now, at 41, she is the richest woman in Britain — worth $1 billion, according to Forbes magazine — with houses in Edinburgh, London and the Scottish countryside.
Her first book, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," was published in 1997, with a print run of less than 1,000. Rowling's publisher suggested she use gender-neutral initials rather than her first name, Joanne, to give the book a better chance with boys. Lacking a middle name, she took the K from her paternal grandmother, Kathleen.
By the time the book appeared in the United States in 1998 — as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" — Harry was on his way to becoming a publishing phenomenon.
The six Potter books have sold some 325 million copies in 64 languages, including Latin and Ancient Greek. "Deathly Hallows" has an initial print run of 12 million in the United States alone; more than 2 million copies have been ordered from Internet retailer Amazon.
The novels have produced five movies, mountains of toys, a riot of Internet fan sites and scores of companion books — from academic studies to parodies to pop psychology. A theme park, complete with Hogwarts castle and Forbidden Forest, is to open in Orlando, Fla., in 2009.
The launch of each new book is now accompanied by choreographed chaos and military-level security. No book is sold until a minute past midnight on Saturday.
The series' success has been "a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon," said Joel Rickett, news editor of trade magazine The Bookseller. "It has brought a new generation to reading — got kids absorbed in huge hefty hardbacks the way they wouldn't have been," he said.
While some critics have dismissed the books as lightweight kiddie fare, others have been impressed by their moral complexity and darkening tone. Death haunts Harry Potter, who was orphaned at the age of 1 when Voldemort killed his parents. He loses his godfather Sirius Black in the fifth book and his beloved headmaster Dumbledore in the sixth. No wonder fans fear for Harry's future.
Rowling was profoundly affected by the death of her own mother from multiple sclerosis in 1990 at the age of 45.
"My mum died six months into writing (the books), and I think that set the central theme — this boy dealing with loss," Rowling says.
And she makes no apologies for exposing children to death.
"I think children are very scared of this stuff even if they haven't experienced it, and I think the way to meet that is head-on," she says. "I absolutely believe, as a writer and as a parent, that the solution is not to pretend things don't happen but to examine them in a loving, safe way."
Rowling says her success has been "the experience of a lifetime." But it also has brought an intense level of pressure, scrutiny and criticism. In the United States, her book tours have attracted thousands of screaming children, but also death threats. Some Christians have called for the books to be banned, claiming they promote witchcraft.
But it's only now that she realizes just how intense the pressure has been at the center of the Harry Potter whirlwind.
"I was very lonely with it," she says. "It's not like being in a pop group, where at least there would be three or four other people who knew what it was like to be on the inside. Only I knew what it was like to be generating this world as it became bigger and bigger and bigger and more and more people were invested in it.
After producing a book a year between 1997 and 2000, Rowling took a break. There was a three-year gap between the fourth book, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," and "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," published in 2003. During the gap, Rowling met and married Neil Murray, a Scottish doctor. They live in Edinburgh with their children David, 4, and Mackenzie, 2, as well as Jessica, Rowling's daughter from her first marriage to a Portuguese journalist.
Rowling now seems reconciled to her success. She says she lives a normal life and is rarely recognized in the street, although her graystone town house on a tree-lined street is protected by an 8-foot stone wall and iron security gates. Like the neighborhood — a leafy literary enclave that's also home to crime novelist Ian Rankin and "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" writer Alexander McCall Smith — the house exudes solid affluence, rather than extravagance.
The modestly sized lawn holds a soccer net and a colorful plastic jumble of children's toys. In the tidy family room, are crowded bookshelves, an aquarium, photo albums and board games — the trappings of any middle-class family's life.
Rowling predicts that some of Harry's fans will dislike "Deathly Hallows." But she is proud of it. "The final book is what it was always supposed to be, and so I feel very at peace with that fact," she says.
As for the future, she says she has no plans.
"I can never write anything as popular again," she said. "Lightning does not strike in the same place twice.
"I'll do exactly what I did with Harry — I'll write what I really want to write, and if it's something similar, that's OK, and if it's something very different, that's OK.
"I just really want to fall in love with an idea again, and go with that."
...
Final 'Potter' book breaks sales records
By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer Sun Jul 22, 1:25 PM ET
NEW YORK - The records are breaking, yet again. Borders Group Inc. announced Sunday that "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" sold 1.2 million copies worldwide in its first day, the biggest single-day number ever for the superstore chain. According to orders, the previous Potter, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," sold 850,000 copies on its first day of release in 2005.
Scholastic Inc., the book's U.S. publisher, was expected to announce sales figures later Sunday. British publisher Bloomsbury will release data Monday.
The seventh and final volume of J.K. Rowling's fantasy series was released Saturday with a first printing of 12 million in the U.S. alone. Pre-orders for Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble topped 1 million and stores everywhere reported manic activity upon the book's midnight release.
Reviews have been almost universally ecstatic and sales and reader enthusiasm apparently unharmed by prerelease "spoilers" that proliferated on the Internet.
"The book was fascinating and I think I'll have to read it through at least once more before I get the full scope of it — but I thought it had some of her best, most action-packed, funniest moments in it," says Melissa Anelli, webmaster for the Potter fan site http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org, who said she finished the 759-page book Saturday.
"When I closed the book I was overjoyed and devastated — overjoyed at the story, and the way it had played out, but devastated that the tale was complete," she said. "It did feel like a bereavement, like it was saying farewell to a long-trusted friend."
...
...
Harry Potter author talks about ending
Thu Jul 26, 10:40 AM ET
NEW YORK - Less than a week after the release of the final Harry Potter book, author J.K. Rowling is giving hints about its conclusion.
Before publication, Rowling pleaded for secrecy about the ending of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." But in an interview broadcast Thursday on NBC's "Today" show and in one published Thursday in USA Today, she discussed Harry's fate.
THOSE WHO DO NOT WANT TO KNOW HOW IT ALL TURNS OUT FOR THE BOY WIZARD SHOULD STOP READING HERE.
"I'm very proud of the fact that as we went into this book, many, many readers believed it was a real possibility that Harry would die. That's what I was aiming for," she said on NBC.
In the book, Voldemort meets his end and Harry lives. But Rowling said Harry's survival was not always a certainty.
"In the early days, everything was up for grabs," she told USA Today. "But early on I knew I wanted Harry to believe he was walking toward his death, but would survive."
The last volume of Rowling's fantasy series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," was released Saturday to international fanfare as millions read to find out whether Harry lived or died. More than 10 million copies sold over the weekend.
In a prerelease interview with The Associated Press, Rowling acknowledged that she had no control over discussions about the book once it went on sale. But she said that she hoped readers would finish the book to find out what happens, rather than to peek at the ending.
"It's like someone coming to dinner, just opening the fridge and eating pudding, while you're standing there still working on the starter. It's not on," she said.
She also told the AP that after finishing the last book, she "felt terrible for a week."
"It was like a bereavement, even though I was pleased with the book. And then after a week that cloud lifted and I felt quite lighthearted, quite liberated," she said.
"It was this amazing cathartic moment — the end of 17 years' work," she told NBC.
When asked if she felt like she had to say goodbye to Harry, she said, "Yes and no. He'll always be a presence in my life, really."
She acknowledged that the final Potter installment leaves some loose ends.
"It would have been humanly impossible to answer every single question that comes up," she told NBC. "Because, I'm dealing with a level of obsession in some of my fans that will not rest until they know the middle names of Harry's great, great grandparents."
Rowling, whose seven Potter books have sold more than 335 million copies worldwide, said she plans to take time off to be with her family and will continue writing. She told USA Today she has two writing projects — one for children and one for adults.
But whether she will write about her young wizard again, she said: "I think I've kind of done the wizarding world. ... I have done my Harry Potter."
Really no word whatsoever on that LARRY POTTER plagiarism trial?
(JKR & Harry ripped off LARRY and some small-time children's book author -
NOT the other way around... Just clarifying!)
...
Rowling answers fans final questions
By LINDSAY TOLER, Associated Press Writer Mon Jul 30, 3:19 PM ET
LONDON - Just because J.K. Rowling has stopped writing about Harry Potter and his friends and foes doesn't mean she has stopped thinking about them.
She told fans Monday what she thinks happened to many of the book's characters after the final installment.
In a 90-minute live Web chat, she fielded some of the approximately 120,000 questions submitted by devotees. It was her first public comment since "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" — the last book in the series — debuted on July 21.
Rowling said she was elated to share with fans the secrets she'd been harboring since she conjured up the idea for the boy wizard during a train journey across England in 1990.
"It is great to be able to do this at last," she said. "I've looked forward to it for so long!"
"Deathly Hallows" sold over 10 million copies in its first weekend. All seven books in the blockbuster series have sold a combined 335 million copies worldwide.
In the novel — which centers on Harry's journey to kill Lord Voldemort, the most powerful dark wizard of all time — the young wizard learns of three powerful magical objects called the Deathly Hallows that, when combined, will make their owner the Master of Death, meaning he or she accepts mortality without fear.
Rowling said in the online chat the hallows were in part inspired by "The Pardoner's Tale," one of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" about greed and death.
Rowling shared with fans, many of whom said they'd read the final book several times in the last week, where she imagines their favorite characters went after the series' conclusion.
SPOILER ALERT: Those who do not wish to know what happens to the characters after the book ends should stop reading here.
Rowling said the world was a sunnier, happier place after the seventh book and the death of Voldemort.
Harry Potter, who always voiced a desire to become an Auror, or someone who fights dark wizards, was named head of the Auror Department under the new wizarding government headed by his friend and ally, Kingsley Shacklebolt.
His wife, Ginny Weasley, stuck with her athletic career, playing for the Holyhead Harpies, the all-female Quidditch team. Eventually, Ginny left the team to raise their three children — James, Albus and Lily — while writing as the senior Quidditch correspondent for the wizarding newspaper, the Daily Prophet.
Harry's best friend Ron Weasley joined his brother, George, as a partner at their successful joke shop, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Hermione Granger, Ron's wife and the third person of the series' dark wizard fighting trio, furthered the rights of subjugated creatures, such as house elves, in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures before joining the magical law enforcement squad. The couple had two children — Rose and Hugo.
Luna Lovegood, Harry's airily distracted friend with a love for imaginary animals who joins the fight against Voldemort in the Order of the Phoenix, becomes a famous wizarding naturalist who eventually marries the grandson of Newt Scamander, author of "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them."
And what Muggle, or non-wizard, song would have been played at the funeral of Albus Dumbledore, the most brilliant and talented wizard the world had ever known?
"Surely 'I Did It My Way' by Frank Sinatra," Rowling told her fans, referring to the song "My Way," written by Paul Anka but popularized by Sinatra, among other singers.
As the chat wrapped up, Rowling thanked readers for their loyalty to the series.
"What can I say? Thank you so much for sticking with me, and with Harry, for so long. You have made this an incredible journey for Harry's author."
What a waste of time...
They never had so many questions regarding the fate of some witches in the blessed days of Salem Hunts and/or back in McCarthy's old gang bangs era...!
...
Rowling loses London court battle over pictures of son
Tue Aug 7, 8:42 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling Tuesday lost a court fight in London to ban publication of a photograph of her young son.
Rowling, whose seventh and final Potter book was released worldwide last month to a frenzy of excitement and record sales, had argued at the High Court that her son David's right to privacy was invaded by the picture.
The photograph, showing Rowling and her husband Neil Murray with the child in a buggy, was taken by a picture agency photographer using a long-range lens in a street in her home city of Edinburgh in 2004.
The boy, now aged four, was 20 months old at the time.
Rowling and Murray took action in the child's name against the agency, Big Pictures (UK) and Express Newspapers, seeking damages and an injunction banning further publication of the shot or any others of the boy.
But the court ruled that the law would not allow Rowling to carve out a press-free zone for her children and struck out proceedings against the photo agency. Express Newspapers had separately settled the claim.
Rowling and her husband were ordered to pay the photo agency 40,000 pounds (59,000 euros, 81,000 dollars) interim costs pending the outcome of an appeal.
Can't win them all, Rowling...
I bet she's a closet reader of Ira Levin too...
On top of her pillaging of pre-school material, that is...
;)
Hmm - ever sang her name to the tune of yesteryear rock classic "ROLENE"...? I did!
"Rrrrrrrrow -ling!
Row-oh-ohoh-Ling!
Rrrrrrrrow-ohhhhh-oh-Ling!"
Not sure what the rest of the song should be - but the chorus works; just like it did for the original classic! ;)
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