More Harry Potter? Nope. (Publicity image.)
Fans of the gazillion selling Harry Potter novels by J K Rowling can rejoice – the sainted author is going to produce another book. Which will certainly add to her current estimated fortune of £530 million.
Will there be wizards aplenty? Nobody knows. Her publishers – not Bloomsbury, but Little, Brown – are being very tightlipped about the whole thing. Their press release doesn’t give details of what the book will be about, what it will be called, or even when it will be released.
Her agents, Neil and Partners, are staying equally mom. The book world is buzzing, though – any book with Rowling’s imprimatur on it is bound to sell more than the nicest hot cakes you could ever find. And that’s saying something. Waterstones think it might be a mystery story, according to The Daily Telegraph; author Ian Rankin hinted to his Twitter followers that it could be a detective story set in Edinburgh. Periscope is privately hoping that it will be a post-post modern story set from the perspective of Harry’s wand. It has a heart too, don’t you know. Or maybe a twenty four volume examination of the consequences of deportation on Australia. With wands. Sigh. Periscope can but dream.
Potterless? Other promised scraps from the table of the mistress of children’s literature have failed to come forth. The website Pottermore, which was greeted with jubilation last year, was meant to go live in October; it is, however, still in “beta” mode, and many fans are upset. She was meant, said The Guardian, to have written 18,000 words for the site, which was stuffed with graphics and games. Shoshana Kessler said that in the end, though, “you’re just a muggle with a mouse.” Fans’ “expectations will get higher and higher and when they’re finally allowed in, unless there have been big changes, I expect that there will be a bit of a backlash.”
J K Rowling said that “Although I’ve enjoyed writing it every bit as much, my next book will be very different to the Harry Potter series, which has been published so brilliantly by Bloomsbury and my other publishers around the world. The freedom to explore new territory is a gift that Harry’s success has brought me, and with that new territory it seemed a logical progression to have a new publisher,” quoted on The Daily Telegraph
A HISTORY OF TURNIPS. There were some great Twitter comments. “Grug wonders why J.K. is writing another book. Surely she is already Rowling in it,” said Grug, who is apparently a giant talking punning haystack. Professor Snape, meanwhile, snarled: “J.K. Rowling has stated that her new book will not involve Harry Potter. Good, never liked him anyway.” And Claudiagray, herself a children’s novelist, said: “What will the new J.K. Rowling novel be? Let’s face it: if it’s A HISTORY OF TURNIPS, we will still all read it.”