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Little, Brown Book Group have announced today that the release date for the paperback edition of JK Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy will be released on July 18th.

They also have a new cover for the paperback edition, which you can see below.

Read the rest of this entry »

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J.K. Rowling attended the Independent Bath Literature Festival Friday night and, while there, was asked if she had any plans to write about the Marauders (James “Prongs” Potter, Sirius “Padfoot” Black, Remus “Moony” Lupin, and Peter “Wormtail” Pettigrew).  Her response was, sadly, in the negative.

“I’m never going to say never but I have no current plans. I think prequels are not generally very successful,” she said.

During the festival, she answered many fans’ questions.

She said she had her first french kiss at a disco club when she was 12-years-old with someone who was much older than her.

She says she’s become adept at writing in the front seat of a car while her three kids and dog are with her.

She was very up front when asked about the more adult content in her latest novel, The Casual Vacancy, which the BBC are adapting for television.

“I have never ever sat down and thought… ‘now is the moment to write a book with a penis or with swearing in it’. This was a book I was burning to write… I draw on my own adolescence… and on my experience of adolescents as a teacher… I see adolescence as very fragile. When I watch my two young children, who are eight and 10, they will watch shows on Nickelodeon where teenagers are wholly false.”

She did speak a bit about the current book she’s writing, stating it’s more for the age group that is younger than that of the Potter books.

“It will be shorter. I’m very bad at estimating what sort of age group will like this… I think it might be for slightly younger children.”

She admitted that by the year 2000 she would never be able to write anything like the Potter books again. She spoke of some of the struggles she had when she first started writing the Potter books, stating she would put them away for up to two months at a time.  Now she enjoys the solitude that writing provides her.

“One of my children said ‘if it was us or the books?’. I said ‘you, but I would be really grumpy’.”

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An announcement was sent out today to tell of a new contest on JK Rowling’s website where three lucky winners can win a signed copy of the English version of The Casual Vacancy.

The contest is open to visitors world wide who are aged 18 and older.  It begins today at 2:00pm GMT and will end on Monday, December 17th, at midnight GMT.

To enter the prize draw, new subscribers to her website must enter the requested details, while existing subscribers must confirm they wish to be entered into the prize draw by re-entering their details on the website. See the terms and conditions here.

Good luck to everyone!

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The BBC have signed a deal for JK Rowling’s latest book, The Casual Vacancy, to be adapted into a TV series for BBC networks.  JK Rowling will work closely with the BBC during the project.  The number and length of the episodes haven’t been decided upon yet.  This will occur once the creative process begins.

JK Rolwing seems pleased with the turn out.

“I always felt that, if it were to be adapted, this novel was best suited to television, and I think the BBC is the perfect home.”

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J.K. Rowling has announced in a new video that The Tales of Beedle the Bard is now available in e-book and that all proceeds of the e-book sales will go towards her charity, Lumos.

Lumos is a program that helps children around the world who are trapped in institutions.  The second video below has J.K. Rowling providing more information on the program.

To help support the Lumos charity and get The Tales of Beedle the Bard e-book, go to the Pottmore Shop here. Read the rest of this entry »

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We previously reported that J.K. Rowling will make only one appearance here in the US at the Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York City on October 16, which is this evening, to answer fans’ questions, and do book signings for her new book, The Casual Vacancy.  According to the Hatchette Book Group’s site and Little, Brown & Company (publishers of The Casual Vacancy), a live webcast of J.K. Rowling’s appearance at the Hall will be shown at select bookstores here in the US.

The only bookstore in my state that will be broadcasting the webcast is The Bookstore in the Grove in Coconut Grove, FL.  When I spoke to a representative from the store to get details about the webcast, I was told it will be streamed onto their large television in their Cafe at 8:00pm this evening.  The publishers had sent the store an exclusive link which will be accessed when it is time for J.K. Rowling to appear on stage at the Hall.

Click here to find the booksellers who will broadcast the livestream in your area.  It may be necessary to call the store to confirm the time the webcast will be shown.

Thanks to The Bookstore in the Grove for the information!

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J.K. Rowling was in a live webcast today with Bloomsbury where she answered many questions about Harry Potter and herself.

She mainly talked about the Harry Potter books and their characters.  She also said a small bit about what she’ll write next. Here are a few of the things she discussed:

• She knew that writing wasn’t a good career but she always wanted to write.
• She said she had many teachers who helped her express yourself creatively.  She had a couple of primary teachers who allowed her to read her my work out loud which made her feel great pride. Lucy Sheppard was one of the teachers who helped her a lot  not only with writing but with life as well.
• The first and last sentences she wrote in Harry Potter series were: First – She doesn’t remember it verbatim, but it had to do with a place called Dark’s Hallow which became Godric’s Hallow. Last – she doesn’t recall as it had to do with editing Deathly Hallows.
• One of her favorite moments along the way having to do with the books include Harry receiving his wand and Luna’s first appearance. She also loves the graveyard scene in Goblet of Fire and small things like ‘stupid jingles that Peeves says.’
• She also said that her second American tour was unbelievable as she could remember traveling in a car for 1st signing and blocks of people queuing and finding out the people were for her.
• She read a read the portion of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone of Harry going into Ollivanders Wand Shop and getting his wand. She said she wrote this while under a tree in a park.
• She says that Ron is perhaps more human than Harry because Harry is the hero. Ron sticks by Harry pretty much no matter what. Hermione is all about knowing stuff, so she is someone Harry needs. She’s very clever and she knows how to find out about stuff. She learns to loosen up a lot because of Ron.
• She says that the three characters really need to learn about themselves and each other. But self-knowledge is key. The Deathly Hallows are things that are very self revealing depending on which one a person chooses and by the time the trio come along them they are really prepared to come in contact with the hallows.
• Harry isn’t the most popular in the books… he is often the bystander and the eyes unto the world and slightly detached. She says this is the part of her that is in Harry… the slightly detached part as the writer.
• Hermione is the exaggerated version of her.
• Ron’s humor is the part of her.
• She says that all of us have felt that we don’t have a sense of what’s going on especially at the age that these characters are at when the books start.
• When asked if she knew that when writing these books whether they would help other children with their own challenges, she said no. It was only later that she realized this, especially how she got letters stating that the books have helped with bullying.
• She said that the initial idea for Pottermore came about because she felt it was time to do something like this because people were asking about ebooks. And she felt it was time for them and that she finally had time for it. But she, inevitably, wanted to do more. She was excited to put a really good reading experience online. But the visitors get a lot of extra material for free.
• She says that her next book will likely be a book for younger children, but she’s not committing to that. She has to see how she feels and whether she’s ready for another children’s book.

Rapid Questions:

• Favorite color: pink
• Favorite food: sushi
• Least favorite food: tripe
• Favorite sound: the sea or husband’s snore
• Least favorite sound: husband’s snore when she wants to sleep
• Favorite sport: quidditch
• Favorite thing to do when not working: take kids out somewhere fun or draw listen to music cook and bake
• Quality you must admire in a person: bravery
• If I wasn’t a writer I would be: depressed

A replay of the webcast is now available here.

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Somehow I missed this one… J.K. Rowling will be on a live webcast today with Bloomsbury at 5pm GMT.  It will start in just over 2 hours from now.  If you’d like to be part of this webcast, head on over to Bloomsbury’s website here and enter your information in the right column.

Sorry for the late announcement.

Source: MN

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BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat posted an article about J.K. Rowling’s appearance at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in the UK.  Although the author was promoting her latest book The Casual Vacancy, she has stated that her next book will be for children.  But the age group will be younger than the age group of children who read her Harry Potter books:

“I think probably the next thing I write, or the next thing I publish, will be for children,” she said.

She told fans that she had a “number of ideas on my laptop”, but wouldn’t reveal the details about what she had been working on.

Yet, Rowling still plans to continue to write for adults, too:

“I know what my next book for adults will be,” she said. “I have a number for children I’m working on.”

During the Question and Answer session of her appearance at the festival, Rowling revealed that she does make up bedtime stories for her children:

“They are tailored very much for my children,” she said. “So don’t expect to see those being published any time soon.”

Click here to read the complete article.

Source:  New York Daily News Blogs

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J. K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy is one of this year’s biggest new book releases, stirring passionate reviews from both lovers and despisers of the novel. Unfortunately for book’s U.S. publisher, Hachette, who was already criticised for charging a higher-than-normal price for an ebook, The Casual Vacancy did not have a smooth start on e-readers either.

As the BBC News reports, errors in the formatting of the ebook form of The Casual Vacancy caused the text to be largely unreadable on e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Nobles’ Nook. (Tablet and phone ebook apps, however, seem to have been unaffected by the issue. My own copy from the Google Play store reads perfectly well and looks great in the Google Play Books app on both my phone and tablet.)

Hachette have released a fixed version of the ebooks to retailers and state that any customers who have not heard from their retailers should contact them to have their copy of the book reloaded.

Did you have issues with your ebook copy of The Casual Vacancy? Let us know in the comments section below.

The Casual Vacancy is available in physical form at your favourite book store, and digitally at Amazon’s Kindle Store and on Google Play.

Source: BBC News

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