Entries Tagged as 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'
Dumbledore definitely dead
News: Dumbledore ‘definitely’ dead, says Rowling
Question about upcoming deaths): You shouldn’t expect Dumbledore to pull a Gandalf. I need to be more explicit: Dumbledore is definitely dead. I know there’s an entire site out there called DumbledoreIsNotDead.com, and I’m sorry they’re not going to like this answer.
Technorati Tags: rowling, harry potter
Irving and King plead: Don’t Kill Harry Potter
Don’t Kill Harry Potter, Authors Urge Rowling
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two of America’s top authors, John Irving and Stephen King, made a plea to J.K. Rowling on Tuesday not to kill the fictional boy wizard Harry Potter in the final book of the series, but Rowling made no promises.
This is almost as surreal as yesterday’s Ann Arbor News headline that Great Britain and California are tackling global warming together.
Technorati Tags: Harry Potter, Rowling, California, Great Britain, Global Warming
J. K. Rowling, force for good
Harry Potter and the Positive Impact
On the day that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince arrives in paperback, consumer trend-tracking company Yankelovich has released a study demonstrating the power J.K. Rowling has on children’s reading habits.More than half of kids ages 5-17 say they did not read books for fun before the Harry Potter series came along, according to the report, which surveyed 500 children and 500 parents nationwide. Among parents, 76 percent say reading the series has helped their child perform better in school, while 65 percent of children agree.
“While the overwhelming success of Harry Potter is undeniable, this study quantifies for the first time the impact children and parents believe the series has had on helping kids to read and learn and indicated that the right book can even lure older kids to stay engaged with reading,” says Dr. Hal Quinley from Yankelovich.
The Harry Potter study found that the average age at which readers pick up Harry Potter is 9, and many older children will read and re-read the books as they get older.
Technorati Tags: rowling, harry potter
JKR Transcript
MuggleNet | News | JKR On Richard & Judy – Transcript
JKR On Richard & Judy – TranscriptRichard (R): Now at some point over the last ten years or so, JK Rowling quietly became apparently richer than the Queen. So is the woman who created Harry Potter now in the position to say, “Off with his head”? And how has becoming one of the world’s wealthiest people affected somebody who barely a decade ago was a single mother struggling on £70 a week in benefits? Well, we’re going to find out now because JK Rowling, or Jo as she likes to be called, is giving us one of her incredibly rare interviews and it’s live. But first: the fruits of her extraordinary imagination.
[Clip from Goblet of Fire is played]
Richard: And Jo joins us now. I love that clip because it epitomizes for me what’s really good for me about the nature of your books. I mean we’ve [Richard & Judy] just left this, this valley of pain and distress which is bringing up adolescents…
JK Rowling (JK): [Laughs] Oh, good…
R: You’re about to enter it, aren’t you?
JK: Yeah, something to look forward to then.
R: It’s just as bad as you think it’s going to be. Erm, but that’s what’s lovely about the sequence of books is that you see Harry turning into a grumpy adolescent and all the others around him going through these adolescent things. You’ve drawn up very accurately, and you don’t have adolescent kids yourself. I mean, is that just based on friends and conversations with friends who have got them?
JK: Well I taught teenagers for a while…
Richard: Of course, of course you did.
JK: They were my favourite age group to teach, in fact. So I think I drew on a bit of that, and I drew on memories of how grumpy we all were when we were teenagers. We weren’t…
Judy (J): Absolutely.
JK: My sister’s here to watch this, and she was, she was very grumpy so I drew it on her.
J: Is she older than you or younger?
JK: No, she’s younger, two years younger than me, yeah.
J: Right. I mean, what I want to end - to happen at the end of the whole Harry Potter thing. I want Harry to marry Ginny, (Ginny Weasley) and I want Ron to marry Hermione. And all that and… no, I don’t. Yes, I do. I want Ron to marry Hermione, that’s fine. And I will be so upset if it doesn’t happen but of course the last one at the moment, is at the moment residing in your safe, yeah?
JK: The last, the final chapter is hidden away although it’s now changed very slightly.
J: Is it?
JK: Yeah, one character got a reprieve.
R: Oh really?
JK: Yeah.
J: I mean you are, I just…
JK: But I have to say two die that I didn’t intend to die.
J: Oh no, two much loved ones?
JK: Well you know, a price has to be paid.
R: Significant?
JK: We are dealing with pure evil! So they don’t target the extras, do they? They go straight for the main characters… Or I do.
R: We don’t care about extras. You told your husband, obviously. You confided in him all things, and you told him.
JK: Well, not everything, that would be reckless.
R: Well, yes, let’s be honest: that would be stupid. But you did tell him which ones were up for the chop. Apparently he shuddered and said, “Oh no, not that one.”
JK: He did on one of them, yeah.
R: Listen, all the papers who have been promoting this interview today clearly want us to ask you, “Do you kill off Harry Potter?” It’s a ridiculous question because are you likely to say yes or no? I mean, obviously not. You couldn’t possibly answer that but have you ever attempted to do him a little more harm than he’s suffered - I mean in the same way that…
JK: He’s already suffered enough, I mean what…
J: He’s already suffered, he’s been through the mill…
JK: How could I? Every year of his adolescence and childhood he’s saved the wizarding world. And no one believes him, and he…he spends his entire life saving the world, and then next term he’s just back at school being bullied. He’s Harry Potter and he’s just saved your entire school. And everyone thinks he’ just a bit annoying.
R: You know how Doyle just got sick up there with Sherlock Holmes, so he pushed him off the cliff?
JK: Yeah.
R: I’m not asking if you’ve done that, obviously, but have you been tempted to bump him off because it’s just huge…
JK: No, I’ve never been tempted to kill him off before the end of Book 7 because I’ve always planned seven books; that’s where I want to - I want to finish on seven books.
J: Yeah.
JK: But I can completely understand the mentality of an author who thinks I’m going to kill him off because then there can be no non-author-written sequels, so they call it. So, it will end with me. And, after I’m dead and gone, they won’t be able to bring back the character and write a load of…
R: That never struck me before…
JK: Well I mean, Agatha Christie did that with Poirot, didn’t she? She wanted to finish him off herself.
J: So, you say you completely understand it, but you’re not going to commit yourself?
JK: No, I’m not going to commit myself… I don’t want the hate mail apart from anything else.
J: Absolutely. When you started off, when you first thought of the idea of Harry, what started off first? Was it the idea of the magic or the character or boarding school? When you were young, were you a big keen reader of boarding school stories?
JK: I read a few when I was younger…
J: Angela of Brazil?
JK: I never read Angela of Brazil. I read Mallory Towers and they really don’t bear reading, do they?
J: No.
JK When I was six I really liked them. But, I think Harry and magic came together so the essential idea was a boy who was a wizard but didn’t know - that was the original premise. So I worked back from there and that’s where all the back story came from. And there’s a LOT of back story. In fact now I’m in Book 7, I realise JUST how much back story there is because there’s a lot to explain and a lot to find out.
R: But you must have had to invent the back story further down the line because you couldn’t possibly have thought about this massive… in one go…
JK: Oh, no, you couldn’t. I’ve got, I don’t know how many characters I’ve got in play. Something ridiculous… around 200.
R: But did you ever think as you were writing the subsequent books “Oh why did I write that in Book 2? That’s screwed me now. I can’t write such and such now”?
JK: Yes. I don’t think I’ve ever done that on a really major plot point. But, certainly, a couple of times I’ve hit a snag and thought, “Oh, I’ve boxed myself in. If only I’d left something open earlier and I would have been able to find an easier way to wriggle through that hole and I’ve always found a way… It is a complicated plot.
R: The last book’s finished now; the last chapter, as you said, is in your safe?
JK: No the last book’s not finished. But, I’m well into it now.
R: But you’ve written the finale already?
JK: I wrote the final chapter in something like 1990 - no, hang on… I wrote the final chapter in something like 1990.
J: Really? So you knew exactly how the series was going to end?
JK: Well, yeah. Pretty much.
J: Gosh!
JK: Yeah, I’ve been lambasted about that by a couple of people - I think they thought it was very arrogant of me to write the ending of my seven-book series when I didn’t have a publisher and no one has ever heard of me. But I mean when you’ve got absolutely nothing and no one knows you, you can plan whatever you want… who cares?
J: Absolutely, and the other thing before we ask how you started writing was what struck us all, especially our son who is a mega Harry Potter fan, was when things started to get darker in the books. I think it started in the second one, with the Mudbloods… but it really got very dark in Book 3 with the Dementors and all the of that. Was that something you intended all along or did it just develop?
JK: It is something I intended because as Harry’s growing up, these parallel l things are happening - he’s getting older and older and more and more skilled as a wizard and simultaneously Voldemort’s getting more and more powerful and he’s returning to a physical form because, of course, in the first book he’s not even a physical entity. But I’ve always said when people say that to me, and I agree that the books have gotten a lot darker, is that the imagery in the first book where Voldemort appears in the back of Quirrell’s head, I still think is one of the creepiest things I’ve ever written. I really do. And also the image of the cloaked figure drinking the unicorn blood and slithering across the ground, which was done very well in the film - The Philosopher’s Stone - I think those are very macabre images. So I don’t think that you could say from the first book that I wasn’t setting out my stall, really. I was saying that this is a world where some pretty nasty things can happen.
J: Yes. But what I’m saying is that I started to see some parallels from Book 2 between racism, apartheid and genocide and all that sort of stuff.
JK: Yes, of course, that was very conscious. Harry is entering this world, that a lot of us would fantasize would be wonderful - I’ve got a magic wand and everything will be fabulous. The point is that human nature is human nature, whatever special powers or tarnets you have, so you walk through - you could say through the looking glass. So he walks into this amazing world and it is amazing. But he immediately encounters all the problems he thinks he’s left behind.
R: You can run but you can’t hide.
JK: Yeah, yes.
R: You talked about having a plan for seven books from the word “Go” before you even had a publisher. And you must’ve been doing backhand screams of delight when Philosopher’s Stone got published. You know…
JK: Yes, unbelievable.
R: What pleasure and optimism.
JK: You can pretty much say nothing has come close actually. That’s testament to the amount of euphoria that was.
R: Well when did the euphoria change from something…
JK: Sheer terror.
R: At what point in the books did you think, “Hold on, this isn’t just a best-seller, this isn’t just quite a nice series which I’m enjoying and the readers - this is unprecedented.” It’s been said that if you put all [printed Harry Potter] books in a big vault, they’d go around the world, around the equator, nearly one and a half times, and we ain’t finished yet. When did you wake up and think, “This is historic”? ‘Cause it’s historic. I mean, you will go down in publishing history for the next few centuries.
JK: I honestly don’t think of it in those terms. I’d say for the first three books I was in real denial. I really lived in denial…
J: About the fame?
JK: …for a long time. Yeah, totally. And I think that’s when my reputation for being somewhat..
R: Recluse.
JK: …came from because I was like a rabbit caught in headlights. And the only way I could cope was “Ah it’s not really that big a deal,” but things keep on happening, they start door-stepping you, and you pick up a paper and there are casual references to Harry Potter. That’s the freakiest thing is it permeates all the stores and it becomes - that’s an indication to me how big it’s become more than anything else. I remember there was a phase where I wouldn’t buy the papers because it was becoming a bit strange to me. And normally I devour newspapers, and then it was Wimbeldon- just a few years back- and I thought, “It’s safe to read Wimbeldon, stop being so, you know, get over yourself.” So I picked up this paper and I turn to this account of this match with Venus Williams and they said, I just saw a picture of Harry Potter staring at me and they were talking about Bludgers, you know, the balls in Quidditch. They were saying her serve was so powerful it was being compared to a Bludger with not much explanation. But that was very cool - things like that are wonderful.
R: That’s the fame thing, and that’s entering the lexicon of sort of ordinary dialogue and stuff and what they call water-cooler conversations. And that’s not just to deal with reading the latest book, it’s a continuous thing with you now. What about the wealth? Now I don’t want to be [inaudible] about that because it’s just what it is. But you are unbelievably wealthy beyond the dreams of actors, really. How’s that changed life for you?
JK: Hmm, well, it’s great, frankly.
[R & JK laugh]
R: Thank you for saying that.
JK: I mean, not to crack out the violins or anything, but if you have been through a few years where things have been very tough, and they were very tough, and it’s not so much romanticized, but it’s dismissed in half a sentence: “Oh starting in a garret.” And occasionally I thought, “Well, you try it, pal. You go there and you see. It wasn’t a publicity stunt, it was my life.” And at that time I didn’t realize there was going to be this amazing resolution. I thought this would be life in twenty years.
R: But did you ever feel guilty about the amount of money you won because…
JK: I did! I absolutely did because it came to the point where - because initially people were reporting, and they still do frequently report much more than I got and I’m not pretending I’m hugely wealthy because I am. (group laughs) But sometimes they print figures that certainly my account wouldn’t recognize. But, in the early days they were saying that I was a millionaire but I was nowhere near a millionaire. So that’s weird and mind-boggling when you’re used to counting every penny.
R: 70 pounds a week you were on.
JK: Yeah, yes, that’s right.
J: So what was happening to you was that basically there were you just the same as you’ve ever been. Writing this book that you’ve been thinking about writing for ages. And suddenly it took off, just this one book. And suddenly the next book, and then you suddenly realized this person - you, actually - had taken on a life of her own, which wasn’t new at all. And you were completely…
JK: I think that’s completely accurate and I think that you sit there thinking, “But I’m still the same idiot I was yesterday, and suddenly people have an interest in what I’ve got to say.” And my response to that is that I clammed up as well because I suddenly felt that this light had been shined on me underneath my stone, and it was a time of real turmoil when I first became subjected to that kind of scrutiny because I felt a loyalty to the person I’ve been yesterday. And I don’t want to say, “Oh it was dreadful” because it really hadn’t been dreadful. We’ve been doing okay and I’d been teaching and my daughter would still say, and said to me yesterday in fact, “You know, we’re happy.” So I didn’t want to sit there and say, “Oh it’s dreadful. Oh now it’s fabulous darling, now we got a bit of money.”
R: Yeah.
J: And is your daughter - you’re two new ones are still too little - but Jessica who’s been there with you right from the beginning, really. Has she adapted to it okay?
JKR: She’s been phenomenal. And it hasn’t always been easy for her because, well you can imagine, with your mother being JK Rowling. At one point I remember her being, metaphorically speaking, up against the school railings - [makes fist] “Tell us what the title of the next book is!”
R: Oh really?
JKR: Yeah. It’s not terribly easy.
J: Up against the school railings?
JKR: By other children, you know, trying to get titles out of her. So she was amazing; she was very cool.
R: But what about, it’s not so much to do with the wealth. Well, it might have been actually, but certainly the fame thing. Before you met your lovely husband…
JKR: He is a lovely husband.
R: He’s a reliable sort, and with sort of pop star/rock star looks [laughs].
[A picture is shown of Jo and her husband, Neil]
JKR: There he is!
R: Before that - the dating between the relationship which lead to your lovely daughter and him, there was this period where you found this immense wealth and success, and you said that dating was really tricky, really hard. Was that because you expected guys to be coming on to you because of who you were?
JKR: It wasn’t so much that. To be perfectly honest with you, dating is just tricky if you’re a single mother. That’s it. And the other business was a vaguely complicating factor. But by the time you’ve got a babysitter it’s just - it is the reality of life. I didn’t have a nanny for quite a long time. I didn’t have properly organised childcare because I think I was just, again, in denial about it when I needed it. And then there came a point when I clearly needed it - I couldn’t cover all my professional obligations even though I was trying to keep them minimal.
R: You wanted to say, “I can cope, I can handle this”.
JKR: Yeah I did, which is very much in my personality to pretend I can cope with things and not ask for help - until I’ve cracked up a bit.
J: So looking at where you are now, I mean personally as well as career-wise, professionally and all the rest of it, you’re in a very good place, touch wood; if there is any wood round here to touch. Because you’re very happy - you’ve got a lovely family.
JKR: I’m really lucky. And I think that every day, I swear. Every day I think how lucky I am.
R: Just looking at the constant theme - we’re going to take a break in a couple of minutes, but then you’re back and we’ve got some children who have questions - but, as you’ve said yourself, the theme of the books is death, isn’t it?
JKR: Yes, largely.
R: Largely. It’s a hugely powerful theme. And you were writing the first one when your mother died at 45, and you were very close to her. Had you envisaged that death would be such a powerful theme before her death or did it inform a sense of loss?
JK: Definitely informs it. Initially, in the first draft, I’d have been writing Harry for six months before she died. And, uhm, in the first draft I really finished off his parents in quite a flippant way. And then mum died. And I just couldn’t, I couldn’t finish off his parents in that flippant way - I couldn’t. Not now knowing what it felt like to lose a parents.
J: So that’s why Harry’s parents maintain this presence…
JK: They do maintain a presence.
J: In the, in the, in the photographs.
R: And in the mirror, of course.
JK: And in the mirror…yeah
R: And when you wrote that, I wouldn’t be surprised if you were to say that you have shed a few tears when you wrote those few sequences when Harry sits in the mirror lost in the reflection of his parents.
JK: That’s my favorite chapter in the first book.
R: It’s a lovely chapter. It’s a lovely chapter.
JK: It’s one of my favorite chapters in the series.
J: What’s so reassuring about the books because they are, I mean you know, they do deal with straightforward evil and death. You always seem to leave a thread somewhere even though they’re inside. I love all the headmasters, the past headmasters and teachers and they’re little friends. I’m telling you, just to end this particular section but I always loved, what was his name? What was the one that was always putting his hair in curlers?
JK: Gilderoy?
R: That’s right.
J: I love that, the idea of him in the evenings taking his curlers home and putting them in and everything. So there’s a great deal of humor in the book as well. Presumably, that’s just part of your character. I mean, that’s what…
JK: Yeah, I think so, that you wouldn’t always imagine it that way I’m describing it. But yes, I think so…
R: Yeah. Well, uhm, as you say, the last chapter is in the safe. You’re tidying up the rest of the manuscript, but this is the last of the books…That’s it? Seven books, that’s all.
JK: Yes, well I’ve always said that I might do a kind of an encyclopedia of the world for charity.
R: OK, but that’s not the same as the…
JK: NO, absolutely not. It’s not the same as the story.
R: Can you live without Harry?
JK: Well, I’m gonna have to learn. It’s going to be tough.
R: Why not extend it to 9 then? I mean, seriously, why stick to the seven? I mean, is it too much to ask from you?
JK: Because I think you’ve gotta go out when you’ve…
R: You’ve done it.
Jk: Yeah, you have. I admire the people who go out when people still want more. You know, and that’s what I want to do.
R: I’m also told. Well, I actually read this on Tattler. Maybe it’s an unguarded comment you made, but you’ve written, already completed another children’s book, for younger children.
JK: Oh yeah. It’s not completed, but it’s pretty far on.
R: And how long has that been on you mind for?
JK: Not nearly as long as Harry, a few years.
R: And are you happy with it?
JK: Yeah, I really like it. It’s for younger children, it’s kind of a fairy tale - it’s a much smaller book. so that’s not - that would probably be a nice thing to go to after Harry, not another huge tome.
R: And is that in the future then? I mean, can you envision yourself picking up another huge idea like Harry Potter and running it over?
JK: Yeah if I liked the idea enough I definitely would, but I don’t think that I’m - I don’t think I’m ever going to have anything like Harry again. I think you just get one like Harry.
J: Well I think most people will be hoping that at some point in your life, that you will come back to him in some way, shape, or form…there will be something. ‘Cause you’ll have generations.
JK: Harry Potter’s midlife crisis.
J: Yeah.
R: Should he survive to see it.
JK: Right.
J: Now just a little statistic here: more people than the combined population of Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, more people, have bought a Harry Potter book. It’s an astonishing literary success story. We’re delighted to have JK Rowling on our show today…the creator of the most magical, but also surely - health and safety people please note - the most dangerous school in the history of British education, Hogwarts.
[clip of Goblet of Fire is played]
J: And the kids are here, Jo’s here. Just before we get to you lot, I mean it is true about Hogwarts. I mean it’s terrifying - how do they get away with it?
JK: It’s all fantastic.
J: And what was the other thing I was going to say? Oh yes, Draco! Draco - the guy who plays Draco Malfoy is much fancied by…
JK: By everyone.
J: By everyone. Do any of the girls here fancy Draco in the films, do you?
JK: They’re not going to say it, surely.
J: You’re not going to tell me are you? No. Okay, right.
R: Where’s Luke sitting? Luke? Luke! How old are you Luke?
Luke: Eight.
R: Eight. Have you read all the books?
Luke: Um, not really…no.
JK: ‘I don’t know who Harry Potter is.’
R: Not all of them.
J: So you’ve got a good question for Jo then, so what is it, Luke?
Luke: If you were a character in your books, who would you be?
JK: Probably Hermione, because she was loosely based on me when I was younger. I was quite annoying like that, so…
J: Were you very much a booky, a booky-schoolgirl?
JK: Yeah I was, I was that. And, you know, that sort of annoying person who underneath is very insecure? Well I - Hermione is a combination, I think, of my sister and me.
J: Yeah.
JK: Yeah.
J: So you were kind of - the one who’d kind of put people in their place with quotations and things that you’d learn.
JK: Well, I don’t know that I’d go that far. But I was swotty, I was swotty.
R: And she’d deck them with a left hook.
JK: She was more of a house-elf then, she was a bit more clueless and a bit more hysterical about…
J: Aww, how sad!
R: Were you Head Girl?
JK: I was Head Girl.
R: You were Head Girl.
JK: That meant being voted least likely to go to Borstal if you went to my school. That wasn’t a massive accolade to be bragging about.
J: Sorry school, if you’re watching.
JK: Oh yeah, sorry.
J: Now your favorite character is, Luke?
Luke: Harry Potter.
J: Definitely Harry is it?
JK: Ooh, that’s interesting, because not a lot of people like Harry best.
J: Really, really?
JK: No, in fact it’s a tiny percentage. I remember seeing a poll on one of the unofficial fansites, something like 2% of people liked Harry best.
J: I love Harry!
JK: No, Ron’s much more popular.
R: Okay, where’s Ella sitting? Ella, how old are you please?
Ella: I’m thirteen.
R: Okay, I’m not going to ask you if you’ve read every single book, but I am told you have. You want to ask about a Boggart?
Ella: Yes.
R: Just remind us of what a Boggart is.
Ella: You like, say a spell to…sort of a cupboard, and then what you most fear comes out.
JK: Right.
R: Right. So in my case if might be a sort of huge spider?
Ella: Yeah.
R: Or in Judy’s case it might be me. Okay, fine. Boggart.
J: So what do you want to ask Jo?
R: So what’s the question?
Ella: I was wondering, if you stood in front of a Boggart what would it - what would you see?
JK: Um, I’d see what Mrs. Weasley sees in Order of the Phoenix. She sees - this is a bit awful - but she sees her children dead.
R: Oh my god!
JK: …I know it’s a bit disturbing.
R: Oh my god, you are dark, aren’t you?
JK: Sorry, well, I mean I think for any mother, probably, that’s the worst thing you could possibly imagine and that’s what she sees as the war is starting and she knows her sons are going to be involved…
J: Right.
Jo: …and that she worries about them.
R: And, and how do, I’ve forgotten it, how do you counter a boggart? What’s the counter-spell?
JK: You have to learn to laugh at it and it’s hard to laugh at that one - I mean, perhaps you can’t. Someone else saves her from it as she can’t, she can’t manage that image.
J: [To Ella (audience member)] And you love Hagrid best, don’t you?
Ella: Yeah.
J: I love Hagrid.
JK: Yeah Hagrid’s got a huge fan base, yes.
J: Yeah I wonder if Hagrid’s up for the chop. [Jo Laughs] It’s a shame, ain’t it; she won’t tell us so there’s no point asking it. Who else we got, George, George Lynch?
George: Yeah.
J: That’s you, George L there. What do you want to ask Jo, George?
George: My question is, ‘Are any of the characters based on people you know?’
JK: I did mistakenly say that Lockhart was based on someone I had known.
J: Oh, really?
JK: Yes and that got rather an annoying lot of newspapers specs, as they thought it was the wrong person, they went after the wrong person.
J: He’s the very vain one that we’re talking about?
JK: Yeah and I barely exaggerated believe it or not. [Judy laughs] It was someone I knew a long time ago.
R: Was he in television?
JK: [Laughs] No, there are a lot of Lockhart’s knocking around so…
J: I love him.
JK: Yeah, so that was the only time where I sat down and consciously thought I’m putting ‘x’ in as a character, and I did.
R: And did you like ‘x’?
JK: No I absolutely loathed ‘x,’ as I think probably comes across by making Gilderoy Lockhart.
J: Do you think ‘x’ knows?
JK: No I think ‘x’’ egotism is such that ‘x’ is probably wondering around saying, ‘We were like that [Crosses fingers]…’
[Laughs all round]
JK: ‘She wanted to marry me - I turned her down, believe you me.’
R: We should, you know Carly Simon? She had a very private dinner for charity with the person who nominated the most, and she told them who was the character of, ‘You’re So Vain’ her first hit song. You should do the same thing in a few years. You should say, ‘I’ll tell you who…’
JK: But I don’t want to ruin ‘x’’ life.
J: No, No.
R: But it sounds a…you know.
JK: [Laughs] Yeah but I don’t want to ruin that person’s life.
R: Ok that was a great question George, and a great answer.
J: And you’re a Ron Weasley fan, aren’t you?
R: Who’s next, Sian?
Kian: Kian.
R: Kian, sorry. I do beg your pardon. How old are you?
Kian: 10.
R: What’s your question?
Kian: After Harry Potter, what are you going to write next?
JK: Well I kind of answered that one before the break. I think I will finish another book for children, but for younger, slightly younger children that I’ve got knocking around me.
R: It’s a shorter book you say?
JK: Much, much, much shorter yes.
J: And will you be sorry when the last book comes out of Harry?
Kian: Yeah.
JK: Yeah, I’m gonna really, really miss it.
J: Right, we’re going to Elly, not Ella but Elly. Hello, Elly. You’re 13, aren’t you?
Elly: Yeah.
J: What did you want to ask Jo?
Elly: Who did you write Harry Potter for? Was there someone special that inspired you or…?
R: Good question.
JK: It is, I wish I could say something more in response but it was me [Laughs]. It was just something I really wanted to write when I had the idea I thought that it would be such fun to write and it has been.
R: Did the idea just fall out the clear blue sky?
JK: It really did.
R: Did you just wake up one morning…?
JK: No, I was on the train from Manchester to London and it just came, it just came.
R: It just came, fully formed?
JK: Pretty formed, not the whole thing.
R: Yeah, of course not.
JK: Yeah, the essential idea came, then with age, I kept adding bits in my mind, and by the time I got of the train I had a lot there. I really had a lot there.
J: I love the, the puns are great. Like Diagon Alley. Don’t you love that, Diagon Alley?
JK: I love Diagon Alley.
J: Right, Juliet.
R: Hang on I’ve got one more quick question on that… Oh damn - it’s gone out my head, go to Juliet and I’ll think about it.
J: Okay, Juliet.
Juliet: Have you always wanted to be an author?
JK: Always. Since literally as soon as I knew, I realised, that books didn’t just, you know, pop up out of nowhere and that people made the stories I’ve always wanted to do it. I can remember being extremely young, copying words without knowing what the words meant, so I think it’s just my nature, but I’ve always wanted to do it.
J: You loved words.
JK: Yeah.
J: You used to write, when you were about five or six, little stories.
JK: Yeah.
R: I remember what that question was. You’re obviously, because of the penury that you lived in, in that initial period, you were writing famously in cafes to keep warm, whilst the baby was asleep in the pushchair. So you still write in cafes?
JK: Mm, I won’t be saying where I go but…
R: No, of course not, but you do still go, just to get the buzz, the vibe.
JK: It’s habit, it’s so deeply ingrained I write best when…
R: Right, who’s next?
J: Okay, who hasn’t asked a question, Nathan, Aaron and George? Okay, Aaron, very quickly - what’s yours?
Aaron: How did you think up the rules of Quidditch?
JK: I did it all in about half an hour after a row with my then boyfriend, and I think that’s where the Bludgers came in. [Laughs]
R: And Nathan?
Nathan: What inspired you to make such creative animals?
JK: Well, some of the animals I make up, like the Blast-ended skrewts are mine but many of them exists in folklore and mythology and I’ve twisted them a bit to suit my own end. Hippogriffs: there’s not a lot if you go looking; I just created my own… you know.
J: And George, you’re the only one left, but quickly tell us your favourite character.
George: My favourite character is Hermione.
J: Hermione?
JK: No… You are the first boy I’ve ever met whose favourite character is Hermione.
R & J: Really?
JK: But did you like her before Emma Watson started playing her?
[George pulls face as if to say that he didn’t]
JK: Don’t worry - lots of people like Emma Watson playing her.
R: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is now out in paperback. We’re so glad you came on [to Jo]. Thank you very much. It’s been nice talking to you.
JK: Thank you. [Shakes hands]
R: See you tomorrow, guys. Bye-bye.
J: Bye-Bye. Thanks, kids.
Harry Potter, JKR, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter Book 7
Technorati Tags: Harry Potter, JKR, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter Book 7
Harry Potter Book 7 Trends in Google & Technorati
English posts that contain "harry Potter Book 7" per day for the last 30 days.
Get your own chart!
360 days from May 2005 - May 2006:
This reader knows not the journey he has begun
This reader knows not the journey he has begunReading The Da Vinci Code, “Harry Potter for adults” comes to mind. There’s a sense that writer Dan Brown and Potter author J. K. Rowling attended the same creative writing course.
“Tell the story using the simplest words you can,” their instructor might have advised. “You’re not writing poetry here. People aren’t looking for colour or rhythm or even a bon mot now and then; just tell the damn story.”
Ouch.
The game of Clue is quickly solved: It was the albino in the museum with the revolver.
But wait. Show me a mystery in which a murderous albino works for himself, and I’ll show you a flawed mystery.
Zing! Good one.
Harry Potter and the War on Terror
The American Thinker
You think I’m kidding? I’m not. In the last five years, through a series of rousing movies and books, our children have been introduced to some of the best conservative thinking ever put to paper or put on film.
The author goes on to take credit for Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Narnia as examples of steadfastly waged total war against Muslim evil. Good grief…
Is Potter Gilliam’s Next Disaster?
This is a pretty sharp take on the Gilliam/HP6 rumors. Nice job, Cinema Blend.
Is Potter Gilliam’s Next Disaster?
Is Potter Gilliam’s Next Disaster? If you’re British and you’re a director, there’s a good chance you’ll at some point be rumored to be directing the next Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The latest guy having his name thrown about his ex-Python and 12 Monkeys director Terry Gilliam.
The rumor has been everywhere by now, but as near as we can tell with the limited low-budget resources of Cinema Blend’s newsroom the whole thing originated in an interview Terry did with Entertainment Weekly in September. During the interview, Terry bashed Chris Columbus and then I think he intimated that maybe Harry Potter was entirely his idea. I’m not exactly sure. You be the judge. He “was reading the script as I was flying to Los Angeles for the Warner Bros meeting and thought, ‘Oh, she’s seen Time Bandits, she’s seen Monty Python,” says Terry G. Then just to prove he’s got his head screwed on straight he added, “I mean, Chris Columbus’ versions are terrible. Just dull. Pedestrian. But I thought Alfonso Cuaron did a great job with the last one. I thought, ‘Yeah, you got really close to it’.”c
But that was an interview from way back in September. An interview in which he said, “You know you’re not going to get the job. It’s just to keep her happy - due diligence.” Terry doesn’t think he’ll get the job, he was just reading the script. Why all the heat on this rumor now? No idea. Perhaps Warner Bros. is getting closer to picking a director and wanted to get people talking about Potter, or perhaps someone decided to recycle old information to start a fresh rumor.
Either way, Gilliam’s a weird choice to direct anything, let alone Harry Potter. He’s a brilliant mind and a guy with a few really great movies under his belt. But he’s also a guy whose films tend to drown in disaster. For every great movie he’s made, Terry makes two flops, or spends millions trying to make a movie that never actually gets made. Handing a franchise like Harry Potter to an unpredictable force like Terry would be a ridiculous gamble for Warner Bros, and one they have absolutely no reason to take. Honestly, hiring Terry Gilliam is like volunteering your film to be randomly squashed by a viciously catapulted wooden rabbit. It’s kind of like flushing money down the toilet. Seriously folks, Terry’s last film, Tideland hasn’t even been able to get distribution. It’s so bad, that it’s sitting on a shelf and rotting because no respectable studio wants to be associated with it. I doubt that’s what the WB has planned for one of their biggest cash cows.
Harry Potter Book 7 sales last 90 days
Sales for the last 90 days on my UNAUTHORIZED HARRY POTTER BOOK 7 NEWS: HALF-BLOOD PRINCE ANALYSIS AND SPECULATION.
Daniel Radcliffe’s Portraitist Speaks
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FilmStew.com • Harry Potter Faces a Hanging
Radcliffe, now 16, was only 14 when he posed for artist Stuart Pearson Wright while on a break from filming Potter. “It was quite a challenge,” Wright told British paper The Guardian. “As people’s faces get older they get blighted by cynicism and evidence of broken hearts and all the things that go wrong in life… It’s not that Daniel lacked character, it was just that he had an extreme openness and lack of cynicism - and it was difficult to know what to do with that.”
A very interesting quote!
UNAUTHORIZED HARRY POTTER BOOK 7 NEWS: HALF-BLOOD PRINCE ANALYSIS AND SPECULATION
Nimble Books is the publisher of UNAUTHORIZED HARRY POTTER BOOK 7 NEWS: HALF-BLOOD PRINCE ANALYSIS AND SPECULATION, a 156-page “living book” with all the latest news and speculation about the culmination of the Harry Potter series. Customers who present proof of purchase receive free PDF updates forever.
Mimi Cummmins, HPBook6.com:
Kudos to the author for [a] very well written book [and] using new technologies that [keep] readers up to date. –This text refers to the Digital edition.
Dave Haber, Executive Editor, WizardNews.com:
very heavily documented … making this book an important source of information you’ll want to refer to over and over again.
TheBoyThatLived.com:
…a must for any Harry Potter fan
Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator, HPANA.com:
HPANA recommended book!
Greg S. Davidson, Amazon reviewer:
this is a pathfinder for a fundamentally new kind of book … the author’s prose is both lively and concise…
Tasha “Scifi-and-fantasy-aholic” (Small Town, Va, USA) (on Amazon):
As with a lot of us Harry Potter fans I tend to check out a lot of these “discussion” books rather skeptically. I’m very glad I decided to get this one. The author has done a great job of being informative, and offering many topics for discussion, even if there are a few typos. … all the information and discussions he gives more than make up for the oopses. All in all, I can honestly say, it’s more than worth it, especially since the author gives the option of permanent updates via e-mail for the book. Enjoy it and the discussions it will start.
Book Description
Through the magic of print-on-demand technology, this “nimble” guide to the work of best-selling author J. K. Rowling provides the latest news about the author and her works, updated whenever there are significant developments. Unlike a conventional book, for which editions are printed in quantity every couple of years, this “living book” goes through frequent “mini-editions” and is printed fresh whenever customers place an order.
For those who are curious about how often we update, the answer is that it is determined by the intersection of the occurrence of significant news and the sensible management of costs. Our electronic printer, Lightning Source, charges us fees every time we update the source file for a book. So we try to be strategic about when we do updates–but we love taking advantage of technology to deliver a superior product!
From the Author
As research for this book, I read: * Every on-line chat that J. K. Rowling has ever done. * Hundreds of news articles mentioning the quoted phrase “Half-Blood Prince” in a leading news warehouse and more hundreds of articles identified by Google News as mentioning the quoted phrase “Half-Blood Prince.” * Hundreds of blogs mentioning the quoted phrase “Half-Blood Prince” in the blog search engine Feedster. * Hundreds of posts on dozens of Potter-related websites. * Dozens of trademark applications at the UK and US patent offices. * Numerous biographies and critical works about J. K. Rowling. * And, of course, the entire series to date!
This book contains the results of my research. Over the years and especially in recent months, J. K. Rowling and others have let slip quite a bit of information about the series. I think I was able to pull together a lot of interesting information. You will notice that there are many quotations and that wherever possible I have provided an “attribution”—that is, I have identified author, title, date, and place of publication (often Internet). That way, you can judge for yourself whether my sources are solid.
About the Author
W. Frederick Zimmerman is the publisher of Nimble Books. He earned a B.A. with Honors from Swarthmore College and a J.D. from Wayne State University. He has read all of the Harry Potter books with his daughter Kelsey. He read the first three to her aloud, before she got too smart for him. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA with his beautiful wife Cheryl and their children Kelsey and Parker.
About Nimble Books
Our trusty Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary defines “nimble” as follows:
1: quick and light in motion: AGILE *nimble fingers*
2 a: marked by quick, alert, clever conception, comprehension, or resourcefulness *a nimble mind* b: RESPONSIVE, SENSITIVE *a nimble listener*
And traces the etymology to the 14th Century:
Middle English nimel, from Old English numol holding much, from niman to take; akin to Old High German neman to take, Greek nemein to distribute, manage, nomos pasture, nomos usage, custom, law
The etymology is reminiscent of the old Biblical adage, “to whom much is given, much is expected” (Luke 12:48). Nimble Books seeks to honor that Christian principle by combining the spirit of nimbleness with the Biblical concept of abundance: we deliver what you need to know about a subject in a quick, resourceful, and sensitive manner.
You can buy at Amazon
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