[Gabriela]

"Dumbledore comes back" Hahaha..oh, that just made my day! Too funny!

I'm excited b/c I finally finished my HP re-read, HP Should Have Died, and Tales of Beedle the Bard, and have officially started the Casual Vacancy! Right now I'm surprised at just how adult it is - good for her for going there and not being afraid to do so.

[MiAjeM3]

Ah! I haven't started yet, but I can't wait! I've been hearing such good things about The Casual Vacancy, though.

[baileycat]

Excellent 30 min radio interview:

http://www.cbc.ca/q/blog/2012/10/19/jk-rowling-on-q/

[baileycat]

Excellent 30 min radio interview:

http://www.cbc.ca/q/blog/2012/10/19/jk-rowling-on-q/

[L i N d $ @ y]

Charlie Rose: How much trepidation did you have after you decided to put Harry to bed in deciding what you wanted to do – and how to do what you inevitably wanted to do – is write another book? J.K. Rowling: I had the idea for The Casual Vacancy right after finishing Deathly Hallows. I was actually promoting Deathly Hallows in the states and I had the idea in the states while on a plane. CR: On a plane is crucial. JKR: On a plane is crucial because, clearly, one’s on a train, one’s on a plane. So you need to keep me moving and then I get my ideas. There’s always trepidation. I think that people might be surprised to know that I felt trepidation every time I produced a Potter book. The weight of expectation there was … I won’t say crushing. It was extraordinary and wonderful to have that weight of expectation, but at times … CR: You were competing with yourself. JKR: Yeah, and with the expectations laterally of millions of fans, all of whom were very invested in the story and wanted to see what they wanted to see. I knew where I was going. I had to put on mental blinkers a lot and just think, “I know where I’m going. I must not be influenced by this.” So in a sense it was liberating to leave that weight of expectation behind and know that I could just do what I wanted to do. It was very freeing. But I must say that I spent the first two years working on The Casual Vacancy, “You don’t even have to publish this book.” And that was a way of bringing down my own awareness that it wasn’t going to be what some people wanted it to be. Because, as we both know, I could have kept writing Harry Potters forever, pretty much. CR: And why didn’t you? JKR: Because I always envisaged it as a seven-book series. I had enough plot for seven books, and I always knew I would stop at seven. I’m not going to lie. It was heartbreaking, in many ways, because Harry was with me during a very turbulent period in my life. It was always a place I could go. You talk about readers always being able to go there. It was a place I was able to go and to close the door – it was like a death. But I knew that it was time to go, and I’ve not regretted it. I think it was definitely time. CR: He meant what to you? Other than all the obvious things, wealth and all that. JKR: Yeah, it changed my life. The most obvious thing, clearly, it utterly changed my life. It transformed my life situation. My daughter and I were in a precarious situation for a few years. But beyond that, Harry connected me to … it’s just been the through line through so much of my life. So when I look back at the books, I can remember where I was when I wrote all these seventeen years I spent with those characters. Seventeen years. CR: But do you talk to them in some real sense? JKR: The one that I miss the most beyond any character is Dumbledore. He was a strange character because I say I feel like I wrote him from somewhere in the back of my brain. He would often say things I didn’t know I believed. But once I saw that Dumbledore had said them, I was, “Oh yeah, that’s true.” So he was an interesting character, and I miss him. If I could talk to any of them, it would be Dumbledore. CR: So you set out to write this new book. You knew it was going to be about adults. What else did you know when you had that inspiration on that plane? JKR: Well, the germ of the idea was a local council election that would be diverted by teenagers, which was a device to expose certain secrets. That was the basic idea. I was excited by that idea because it was going to give me an opportunity to explore a lot of things that are important to me. Things that obsess me, frankly. CR: Like? JKR: Well, for example, I’ve just talked about the fact that I was in a very precarious situation for a few years. I was probably as poor as you can go without being homeless in the U.K. Which is not to say that friends and family didn’t help me, because they did. But, you know, it was tough. CR: And you were writing a book, and had to depend on the government. JKR: Well, yeah I did, although I was working part-time. The law, at that time, was that you could earn up to a very small amount a week without forfeiting housing benefit, which was the thing that was keeping us homed. So I worked up to that amount. I had a clerical job in a church at one point, and then I was teaching, but we were still existing partly on benefits. I couldn’t wholly support us. Then the miracle happened. Harry was published, and we really didn’t look back after a few months. It changed my life. But that period of my life was a formative experience for me. It shaped my world view, and it always will shape my world view. The experience of having been part of a mass of people who are very voiceless, the experience of being scapegoated and stigmatized – because that was the political climate at that time – really has colored my world view ever since. I don’t think I’ll ever lose that.

SOURCE

[LucyGu]

I'll finally start to read The casual vacancy tonight I've had it on my bedside table for a while, but I haven't read much lately I blame the exams for that.

[Gabriela]

I've started it, but I have to admit that I'm having a hard time getting into it I think right now I'm having trouble remembering all the characters and who they are in relation to Barry and what their feelings are regarding him.

I hope it picks up soon :-/

[baileycat]

It does. And yeah keeping track of all those characters IS tough initially but eventually they're committed to memory and it becomes sooooo much easier.

[L i N d $ @ y]

Originally Posted by LucyGu (View Post) I'll finally start to read The casual vacancy tonight I've had it on my bedside table for a while, but I haven't read much lately I blame the exams for that.

Pace yourself and read at your own time.

Originally Posted by Gabriela (View Post) I've started it, but I have to admit that I'm having a hard time getting into it I think right now I'm having trouble remembering all the characters and who they are in relation to Barry and what their feelings are regarding him.

This happened to me early on but you'll get to pick up on them eventually. There are a lot of characters so it's hard to remember the relationships but they're all connected to each other.

[Gabriela]

Originally Posted by baileycat (View Post) It does. And yeah keeping track of all those characters IS tough initially but eventually they're committed to memory and it becomes sooooo much easier.

I'm glad to hear it! I am excited to come more full circle and see how they're all interconnected - I'm getting a hint of it now, and I really love it when the characters in a story end up all relating somehow.

I do think it's very well written - the descriptions are awesome and you can really see what she's talking about. She will always be a great storyteller.

[baileycat]

Its the most difficult form of writing when you have so many characters to balance each story and maintaining their interest equally throughout the whole book. Jo said herself that was an issue she could not forget. I think she succeeded pretty well.

The one point I found fascinating in her recent talks is that its not a book about good vs evil. The dynamic here is Serious aspects counter balanced with funny. The only real funny moments for me were Sam's thoughts. Her inner opinion on everything was humorous but other than that I was really chuckling with anyone else.

[L i N d $ @ y]

JKR tops Fiction list!

FICTION


1. The Casual Vacancy,

by J.K. Rowling(Little, Brown)

2. NYPD RED, by James Patterson (Little, Brown)

3. Winter of the World,

by Ken Follett (Dutton)

4. Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn (Crown)

5. Mad River, by John Sandford

(Putnam)

6. The Time Keeper, by Mitch Albom(Hyperion)

7. A Wanted Man, by Lee Child

(Delacorte)

8. Live by Night, by Dennis Lehane

(William Morrow)

9. Low Pressure, by Sandra Brown

(Grand Central)

10. This Is How You Lose Her,

by Junot Díaz (Riverhead)


http://www.newsday.com/entertainment...list-1.4147716

[LucyGu]

Great job

[Gabriela]

Yeah!

I feel like I'm getting more into the story and it's drawing my interest a bit more, which I'm very happy about I really love her writing style in the book - her descriptions are just awesome.

[baileycat]

Oh she certainly does. I can't decide who I detested more Howard, Simon or Fats.