Harry Potter...for friends and fans alike

[MaineWriter]

Long before BBM, I was hooked on Harry Potter and I am looking forward to the release of the 7th book this summer. I am sure we will have a frenzy of Potter-stuff in the coming weeks and months. Here's an interesting article which discusses writing related to Harry.


http://www.azcentral.com/ent/arts/articles/0514potterbook0514.html

'Deathly Hallows' may end Harry Potter offshoots
Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg
The Wall Street Journal
May. 14, 2007 12:00 AM

When J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" hits bookstores July 21, it will, as virtually everyone knows, mark the end of a 10-year run of seven books that have made publishing history.

But the series has spawned a whole literary ecosystem, with new offshoots expected to spring up as never before during these next few months. Hordes of adventuresome publishers are out there already, and others will be trying to cash in with books that predict what could happen in the final Potter title, provide behind-the-scenes analysis, or just plain ride piggy-back.

At least a dozen new or updated Harry Potter-related titles will likely be published this year, according to Cambridge Information Group Inc.'s R.R. Bowker. These aren't the kind of faux Potter fantasy tales that are posted on the Web, though there are plenty of those. (One site, harrypotterfanfiction.com, says it holds more than 34,000 stories and receives in excess of 40 million hits a month.)

Rather, these are works of nonfiction fueled by online Harry Potter communities that have kept the faith since the publication two years ago of the most recent book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." They include titles such as "The Making of the Potterverse: A Month-by-Month Look at Harry's First 10 Years" by Edward Gross, and George Beahm's "Muggles and Magic: An Unofficial Guide to J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter Phenomenon." In the fall, readers will also be offered Tere Stouffer's "The Complete Idiot's Guide to the World of Harry Potter."

Already there are more than 190 Harry Potter-related titles in print, according to R.R. Bowker. Among the more unusual: "If Harry Potter Ran General Electric: Leadership Wisdom From the World of Wizards" by Tom Morris published in 2006. There's also "Harry Potter and Torah," which Dov Krulwich self-published late last year. Mr. Krulwich, who works in the high-tech industry in Israel, describes the book as "Jewish perspectives on Harry Potter themes" and says it is aimed at teens and young adults.

The recent titles that mainly speculate on how the whole series will end will be so much "worm food in the landfill" as soon as "Hallows" hits the stores, says John Granger, who has written several Harry Potter-related titles, including the recently published "Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader." (One key: literary alchemy. "J.K. Rowling said in 1999 that she read a ridiculous amount about alchemy before she started writing the books," Mr. Granger says. "Hermione means mercury, for example, and sure enough her parents are dentists and her initials are H.G. Hg is the chemical symbol for mercury on the periodic table of elements.")

But the likelihood of a short shelf life isn't stopping publishers from moving quickly while interest is still high. "My suspicion is that there will be a rush of books after the series ends," says Daniel Nexon, an assistant professor in the government department at Georgetown University who co-edited "Harry Potter and International Relations," published last year by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc. "Having the final book out will generate a lot of buzz, and they'll look at that frenzy as one last big marketing opportunity."

Book retailers are also mindful that nothing drives traffic to their stores like Harry Potter. Borders Group Inc., the nation's second largest book chain, has struck exclusive deals to sell two related Potter books: "The Great Snape Debate" and "The Unauthorized Harry Potter." The first has a gimmick that harks back to the early days of science fiction: the book must be turned upside down in order to read the counter argument regarding Snape's allegiances. The second title offers a broad perspective on various subjects Ms. Rowling has raised in her six published books.

Borders also has a Harry Potter page at the social community site Gather.com. One topic in particular - "Severus Snape: Friend or Foe?" - has generated more than 900 comments. Some are as basic as "Yeah, there is going to be a major plot twist." But others provide lengthy, thoughtful analysis. "This is the last hurrah for fans," says Anne Roman, a Borders spokeswoman. "When will they ever get to enjoy this level of interest again?"

Much like George Lucas's "Star Wars" films and Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," the Harry Potter books are whales to which many barnacles have attached themselves. Scholastic Corp., which publishes the series in the U.S., says there are 121.5 million Harry Potter books in print, with another 12 million set to be published July 21. The Harry Potter franchise has also benefited from four successful movies. The fifth, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," will open July 13.

There are limits. Copyright law will prevent other authors from offering new titles using Ms. Rowling's characters and settings unless they're obvious parodies. "Boundaries exist," says David S. Korzenik, a publishing attorney with the firm Miller Korzenik Sommers LLP. "Characters can be copyrighted, and settings can be protected," he says. "But if you are doing a parody you can go forward with the understanding that the parody won't be book eight or nine of the series but rather is trying to deliver something very different or transformative."

Most authors don't challenge amateur authors who write tales about favorite characters as long as it's not commercially distributed, he says. While it's technically a copyright infringement, "fan fiction" is usually perceived as a way for fans to enjoy themselves while creating further interest in the original work. "Nobody views it as a substitute," says Mr. Korzenik. Guidebooks and predictions of future events are protected as well, as long as authors don't borrow too heavily from Ms. Rowling's work.

Ms. Rowling will come under significant pressure from fans if she doesn't wrap up all the various plotlines she has created since the first book, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," was published in 1997 in the U.K. "They'll be clamoring for more," says literary agent Ann Rittenberg, whose 13-year-old daughter, Gracie, has already expressed regret that the series is coming to a close.

What will Ms. Rowling do next? Efforts to reach her weren't successful. However, last August, she gave a reading in New York City and later answered questions from the audience. At one point, when asked about her future, she replied: "I have a shorter, mercifully, book for I think slightly younger children that is half-written, so I may well go back to that when Harry's done."

It's likely that all related corners of the thriving Potter publishing industry will eventually slow once the final Harry Potter adventure is published. "We'll probably see fewer titles. The energy that comes from a release of a new book in the series will be over," says Roger Scholl, the editorial director of Bertelsmann AG's Currency/Doubleday business imprint, who edited Tom Morris's "If Harry Potter Ran General Electric."

Still, some caution against underestimating the passion of Harry Potter readers. Mr. Granger, an English teacher at Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pa., says academics will attempt to fix Ms. Rowling's place in the cultural firmament, much as they continue to do so for such writers as Charles Dickens and Agatha Christie. "I'm fairly certain Potter-mania will not go the way of disco and the hula-hoop," says Mr. Granger, who is currently working on "Harry Meets Hamlet and Scrooge," that will explore Harry's literary antecedents.

[MaineWriter]

Another article...there may be an 8th book!


Harry Potter Encyclopedia To Follow Rowling's Seventh Book

BY JAMES LANGTON - The Sunday Telegraph
May 14, 2007
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/54419

Whatever the fate of Harry Potter in his final book, one thing seemed sure: There would be a parting of the ways from J.K. Rowling.

Now, however, it appears that the seventh volume in the series may not spell the end of their relationship after all.

The multimillionaire writer is understood to be preparing for one last look at the world of Harry, Hermione, Dumbledore, and Voldemort after the publication of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" in July.

Using background notes from the past decade, Ms. Rowling, 41, is set to compile an encyclopedia of magic to create the ultimate guide to the world of wizardry.

It would cover figures such as the founders of the Hogwarts school, along with elaborate genealogies of the main characters.

It would also provide a chance to flesh out other figures who merit only a passing mention in the books.

In March, Ms. Rowling described her sadness at reaching the end of the series.

"I always knew that Harry's story would end with the seventh book, but saying goodbye has been just as hard as I always knew it would be," she wrote on her Web site.

"I've never felt such a mixture of extreme emotions in my life, never dreamed I could feel simultaneously heartbroken and euphoric."

But suggestions of the plan have now appeared on her Web site, JKRowling.com.

Despite telling fans that it was "highly unlikely" that she would write any more Harry Potter novels, she wrote: "I might do an eighth book for charity, a kind of encyclopedia of the world so that I could use all the extra material that's not in the books."

The tantalizing possibility has been confirmed by her agent, Christopher Little, who said Ms. Rowling had "retained all the rights in the Harry Potter series" and pointed out that this included any companion books "which she may indeed write herself."

The prospect of an authorized Harry Potter encyclopedia will have fans and booksellers salivating. Ms. Rowling's notes are believed to be almost as detailed as those made by J.R.R. Tolkien for his fantasy Middle Earth, the setting of "The Hobbit" and his "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

Sales of the encyclopedia would almost certainly rival those of "Deathly Hallows," which has advance sales of 1.5 million on the Internet store Amazon alone. It is tipped to break publishing records when it goes on worldwide sale on July 21.

An industry of Harry Potter books already exists. In addition to the seven books by Ms. Rowling, there are estimated to be about 190 Harry Potter-related titles cashing in on the success of the series, including "What Will Happen in Book 7?," a book of predictions from the Harry Potter fan site MuggleNet.com, which has sold 300,000 copies in America. Other titles include a business book called "If Harry Potter Ran General Electric" and "Harry Potter and the Torah," which offers a Jewish perspective.

In 2001, Ms. Rowling wrote two slim companion Hogwarts schoolbooks. "Quidditch Through the Ages" and "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" have raised more than $30 million for Comic Relief.

George Beahm, an American author who has written the bestselling "Muggles and Magic: An Unofficial Guide to J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter Phenomenon," said, "I certainly think there is room for more books given the place of the Harry Potter series in the fictional universe."

"For my part, I've made no great riches — but it's been a lot of fun," he added.

Ms. Rowling, who as a penniless single mother living in Edinburgh in the early 1990s struggled to find a publisher for the first book, has seen her life transformed by the Harry Potter phenomenon. Now the richest woman in Britain with an estimated fortune of about $1.1 billion, she is married to Neil Murray, a doctor.

They have two young children in addition to Ms. Rowling's daughter from her first marriage to Jorge Arantes, a Portuguese television journalist. Meanwhile, her writing talents have helped to create one of the world's most successful brands.

With reports that the author is in negotiations to build a Harry Potter theme park in Florida, the bespectacled boy wizard now rivals Disney's Mickey Mouse as a corporate cash machine.

The fifth film in the series, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," starring Daniel Radcliffe as Harry, opens on July 13 and is expected to rival newly released "Spider-Man 3" for the biggest box office opening weekend in history.

[opinionista]

Okay, so I finished reading book 5. I still don't understand why some people think JK Rowling will kill Harry. It will destroy the entire plot. I hope she realizes it. In fact, she has been hinting at the contrary. Neither can live while the other survives, says the prophecy. I still have to read book 6th but so far Harry's death won't make sense IMO.

[ifyoucantfixit]

        I agree Natalie;  but she is a bit of a quirky one...so you never can tell what she may do.

[opinionista]

spoiler,

I think Dumbledore asked Snape to kill him off.

[opinionista]

For those who are interested in Harry Potter.

How Harry Potter took over the world

NEW YORK (AP) -- As the Harry Potter series wraps up this summer, we can look back at two remarkable narratives: Potter the boy wizard and Potter the cultural phenomenon.

Potter the wizard's fate will be known July 21 with the release of "Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows," Book 7 of J.K. Rowling's fantasy epic. (The movie of the fifth book, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," comes out July 11.) Worldwide sales of the first six books already top 325 million copies and the first printing for "Deathly Hallows" is 12 million in the United States alone.

Potter the phenomenon doesn't compare for suspense, but like the wizard's tale, it is unique and extraordinary and well placed in tradition. Like "Star Wars" and "Star Trek," it is the story of how a work of popular art becomes a world of its own -- imitated, merchandised and analyzed, immortalized not by the marketers, but by the fans.

"Every phenomenon is a kind of myth unto itself, a myth about how a phenomenon becomes a phenomenon. The story of how the public embraced Potter only gives more momentum to Potter in our culture," says Neal Gabler, an author and cultural critic whose books include "Walt Disney" and "Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality."

True phenomena are never planned. Not "Star Trek," a series canceled after three seasons by NBC; or "Star Wars," rejected throughout Hollywood before taken on by 20th Century Fox, which didn't bother pushing for merchandising or sequel rights. The public knew better -- the young people who screamed for the Beatles or watched "Star Wars" dozens of times or carried on for years about "Star Trek" after its cancellation.

In the beginning, "Harry Potter" simply needed a home. Several British publishers turned down Rowling, believing her manuscript too long and/or too slow, before the Bloomsbury Press signed her up in 1996, for $4,000 and a warning not to expect to get rich from writing children's books. An American publisher had bigger ideas: Scholastic editor Arthur A. Levine acquired U.S. rights for $105,000.

"I can vividly remember reading the manuscript and thinking, 'This reminds me of Roald Dahl,' an author of such skill, an author with a unique ability to be funny and cutting and exciting at the same time," Levine says.

"But I could not possibly have had the expectation we would be printing 12 million copies for one book ('Deathly Hallows'). That's beyond anyone's experience. I would have had to be literally insane."

For the media, the biggest news at first was Rowling herself: an unemployed, single English mother who gets the idea for a fantasy series while stuck on a train between Manchester and London, finishes the manuscript in the cafes of Edinburgh, Scotland, and finds herself compared, in more than one publication, to Dahl.

"In fact, if there is a downside to Rowling's story it is the distinct danger she will be called 'The New Roald Dahl,' which would be an albatross around her slender shoulders," the Glasgow-based The Herald warned in June 1997 with publication of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," the first Potter book.

"Philosopher's Stone" was released in England during business hours with a tiny first printing. Bloomsbury suggested that Rowling use initials instead of her real name, Joanne, out of fear that boys wouldn't read a book by a woman.

The book quickly became a commercial and critical favorite and just kept selling. In July 1998, the Guardian in London noted that Rowling was more popular than John Grisham and declared "The Harry Potter books have become a phenomenon." At the time, "Philosopher's Stone" had sold 70,000 copies.

The first book came out in the United States in September 1998, renamed "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" for young Americans and promoted by "Meet Harry Potter" buttons. Potter was first mentioned by The Associated Press that November, when Rowling was interviewed in New York during a five-city U.S. tour. Potter appeared a month later in The New York Times, cited well down in a roundup of holiday favorites.

"When the Potter books first came out, we didn't know they would sell millions of copies, but we all read them and loved them and we thought they were the kinds of books that would really grab a child. We hand-sold the heck out of them, the same way we would with any book that was so well written," says Beth Puffer, manager of the Bank Street Bookstore in New York City.

By January 1999, the AP was calling Potter a sensation, noting in a brief item that "Joanne Rowling has gone from hard-up single mother to literary phenomenon." In July 1999, the "p-word" appeared in long articles in the Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly and the Times, which observed that "Hannibal Lecter and Harry Potter are shaping up as the summer's must reads," but then added, with a bit of a wink, "Harry who?"

By 2000, Harry was a friend to millions, the toast of midnight book parties around the world. For a time, the first three Potter books held the top positions on the Times' hardcover fiction list of best sellers, leading the newspaper to create a separate category for children's books. The fourth work, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," had a first printing of 3.8 million in the United States alone. The release date became 12:01 a.m., sharp, "so everyone could come to it at the same time -- no spoilers!" according to Scholastic spokeswoman Kyle Good.

Potter was pulling in all ages. Rene Kirkpatrick, a buyer for All for Kids Books & Music, an independent store based in Seattle, says the appeal to grown-ups set Potter apart. She began noticing that adults not only read Rowling, but would browse through other titles in the children's fantasy section.

"People were beginning to realize that there was some extraordinary literature written for people under 19," she says. "It doesn't feel odd anymore for adults to be seen reading children's books. ... Potter has made a big difference."

"Potter has greatly expanded the real estate for young adult fiction," says Doug Whiteman, president of the Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA). "The teen section of a bookstore is now quite a substantial area, shopped in not only by teens, but by parents."

Meanwhile, Potter was alive and breeding on the Internet, thanks to fan sites such as The Leaky Cauldron (http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/) and Mugglenet (http://www.mugglenet.com). Potter Web masters Melissa Anelli of Leaky Cauldron and Emerson Spartz of Mugglenet agree that between 2000 and 2003 the Potter galaxy exploded again, from publishing phenomenon to cultural phenomenon. Spartz notes the release of the first Potter movie, in 2001. Anelli refers to the three-year wait for book five, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."

"Around 2000, message boards, mailing lists, blogs were starting to form into the community hubs we have now. So the fans, who were desperately awaiting word on the fifth book ... obsessed together on the Internet, writing their own fan fiction, having huge discussions picking every last piece of the canon apart and finding whatever way possible to make the wait tolerable," says Anelli, who is writing a history of Potter, due out in 2008.

"This built on itself exponentially until, by the time the fifth book came out in 2003, there was a rabid, active, flourishing online community that was spilling off the Net and into bookstores."

No longer was Rowling called the new Dahl. Now, publishers looked for the next J.K. Rowling. Countless works, from Cornelia Funke's "The Thief Lord" to Christopher Paolini's "Eragon," were compared to Potter. Again, a common symptom, like all the "new Bob Dylans" or the science fiction projects that followed "Star Wars," including the first "Star Trek" movie.

Along with imitators come the products: Beatle wigs, "Star Wars" sabers, "Star Trek" clocks, Harry Potter glasses. And along with the products come the spinoffs, whether business books such as Tom Morris' "If Harry Potter Ran General Electric," or Neil Mulholland's "The Psychology of Harry Potter" or John Granger's "Looking for God in Harry Potter."

"I think the reason that authors write books about J.K. Rowling's works and readers buy them is because being a fan of Harry Potter is about much more than just reading and enjoying Ms. Rowling's book series," says Jennifer Heddle, an editor at Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster that is publishing Anelli and has released more than 100 "Star Trek" related titles.

"I think it is similar to 'Star Trek' in that it takes place in a richly imagined world that invites fans to immerse themselves in every aspect. I think it's even closer to 'Star Wars' because it's also a very mythic story that appeals to a broad audience that crosses all age and gender lines."

Unbounded by age or format, phenomena are amphibious creatures: The Beatles were sensations on television and film and in books, which continue to come out, and sell, more than 30 years after their breakup. "Star Trek" produced a string of popular TV spin-offs and was adapted into a series of hit films, video games and novels, just as "Star Wars" inspired its own line of best-selling books and games. A live-action TV series is planned for 2009.

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the fifth Potter film, is a guaranteed blockbuster. The first four Potter movies have grossed more than $3 billion worldwide, and sales for the soundtracks top 1 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks the retail market. Potter is the rare literary series to inspire a video game and is expected to have a theme park, in Orlando, Florida, by 2010.

While fads fade out, phenomena last, thanks to the same folks who got them started: the fans, the people who hold "Star Wars" conventions, play Beatles songs for their children, post their own "Star Trek" videos online or the Potter fans around the world already vowing to continue.

"I think we'll always have Harry Potter conventions-conferences, and the appeal won't end once it's off the 'new releases' shelf," Anelli says. "The mania will never be this intense again but this series will have life in the real world for a very long time."

"When something has staying power, it's because it strikes some kind of fundamental chord," Gabler, the cultural critic, says. "Kids identify with Harry Potter and his adventures; they identify with his empowerment. It's all very circular. We feel empowered by making a phenomenon out of something like Potter and Potter itself addresses the very idea of empowerment."

From: CNN

[opinionista]

Rowling wouldn't kill Harry Potter, would she?

NEW YORK (AP) -- Brace yourselves, Harry Potter fans. No matter how desperate you are for Harry to live, some experts in classic literature and mythology say that finishing off the young wizard would make sense -- in a literary kind of way.

J.K. Rowling has never shied from darkness in her phenomenally successful series -- it started with the murder of Harry's parents, continued through his discovery that an evil wizard was trying to destroy him, and has included pain and torture and the deaths of major characters.

She's already promised two deaths in the seventh and final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," coming out July 21, and has refused to commit to Harry surviving. But she couldn't kill Harry off, could she? She wouldn't do that, would she?

"If you look at the tradition of the epic hero ... there is this sort of pattern that the hero delivers people to the promised land but does not see it himself," said Lana Whited, professor of English at Ferrum College in Ferrum, Virginia, pointing out examples from King Arthur to Moses to Frodo.

Greek mythology has plenty of examples, like Hercules, who was killed at the height of his strength, said Mary Lefkowitz, a retired classics professor who taught at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.

"There's no long promise of happiness," she said. "You may have brief moments of glory and then the darkness comes."

And don't be fooled into thinking a happy ending is automatic just because the main characters are young, said Anne Collins Smith, assistant professor of philosophy and classical studies at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas.

"Just because it's children's literature doesn't mean it can't have very dark events in it," she said.

Others aren't convinced, saying that Rowling's story about Harry and his adventures is less influenced by classical mythology than it is by other storytelling traditions.

Philip Ray, an associate professor of English at Connecticut College, said Rowling was part of a tradition of British writers like Edith Nesbit, writing stories where children are the focus and have grand adventures.

Since Harry is about to finish his years at Hogwarts, Ray said, "I think it would be very unusual for a book like this to kill off the main character at a time when he's about to graduate from school."

The books are about Harry's development into a young man, Ray said.

"For Rowling to have put Harry Potter through all seven volumes just to kill him off, the point of all development would be wasted," Ray said. "Death strikes me as being the strangest ending of all."

And even though the series has a dark aspect to it, Rowling hasn't set it up in such a way that Harry paying the ultimate price would make sense, said Tim Morris, who teaches English at the University of Texas at Arlington.

"I don't get the sense that J.K. Rowling has set us up for that kind of sacrifice," he said. "The first six books haven't given a sense of that tragedy to me. It's generally hopeful."

Whited acknowledges that reader outrage would be high if Harry died, and that it might seem cruel to younger readers, who aren't familiar with classic literary story arcs.

"I'm sure J.K. Rowling would get some howlers if Harry Potter did not survive," she said.

But even if he lives, don't be surprised if it's a hard-fought victory, she said. Another aspect of the classic hero myth is that even if he wins, it's not without some loss.

"There are always sacrifices, compromises along the way," she said. "If Harry doesn't die, one of his friends will."


From:CNN

[ifyoucantfixit]

            I will venture a guess now, and say one of the deaths will be Snape.
    And either Hagred or Mr Weasley

[ifyoucantfixit]

           Maybe others would like to put a guess in??

[opinionista]

           Maybe others would like to put a guess in??

I think Hagrid dies too, killed by the giants or some beast. I am not so sure about the second one, but now that you mention it, it could be Snape. It makes sense. However, Mr. Weasley makes sense too.  It could also be a bad character. Maybe Draco Malfoy. So far, none of the bads have died so she has to kill at least one. But I don't think she kills Harry. If she does kill him that'll be a humongous plot twist.

[MaineWriter]

Hagrid makes sense. He was the very first person Harry met from the wizarding world and Hagrid nurtured him through his early years at Hogwarts (I feel like he has been less of a presence in the last two books). I think Hagrid's death would really be a devastation for Harry.

Snape makes sense, too. Harry finally figures out he is an ally and poof! he's gone. The same sort of thing happened with Sirius.

I also wonder about Ginny Weasley, especially now since she is Harry's girlfriend. Remember, she was possessed by Voldemort before...the same thing could happen and she could die this time.

L

[ifyoucantfixit]

            I even thought about McGonagle but if she dies, the wizard world would have, no real teacher of substance and reliability.  So I dont think it will be her..but others could maybe give further thoughts. 

[MaineWriter]

This gave me a laugh...


Confessions of a Harry-come-lately
(http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/books/468674,CST-BOOKS-potter15.article)

July 15, 2007

BY KEVIN NANCE

With a tenacity Lord Voldemort himself might have admired, I fought Harry Potter for years. In the early days of his fame, I neither knew nor cared what a Muggle was, and Hogwarts sounded like the condition of someone in desperate need of a dermatologist. By 2002, I'd learned Muggles were people without magical abilities, that Hogwarts was a school for wizards and even that Quidditch was a game, something like soccer on broomsticks.

I wanted nothing to do with any of it.

The problem wasn't that I was a literary snob, or that J.K. Rowling's series of fantasy novels were marketed to young readers. I was a J.R.R. Tolkien fan from way back, and everywhere I looked, I saw adults devouring the Potter books as avidly as their children.

Nor was it Harry Potter himself I couldn't stand. It was Pottermania.

I'm one of those people who insist on discovering things on their own, preferably well before the publicity machine has been cranked up full blast. But by the time he penetrated my consciousness, Harry Potter was far more than a boy whose destiny was to save the world from an evil sorcerer. Harry was an international phenomenon on page and screen, his every move dissected on hundreds of Web sites, his publication dates and movie openings spurring long lines and front-page feature stories. Even Rowling's career -- her beginnings as a welfare mom scribbling away in cafes, her staggering wealth, her teasing secrecy about future plot developments -- had become the endlessly chewed-over stuff of legend.

To a hype-hating curmudgeon like me, it was nauseating. Harry Potter was being shoved down my throat, and I was determined to keep spitting him out.

Then one day in 2005, for reasons I can't fully explain, my resolve weakened. On Amazon, I came across a boxed set of the first five Potter books in paperback, The Sorcerer's Stone through The Order of the Phoenix. Almost as if I were playing on a Ouija board with a supernatural presence -- was that you, Harry? -- in the room, I felt my fingers tapping out the order. It wasn't so very expensive, I reasoned, so why not find out what all the fuss was about?

I was done for. When the books arrived, I read the first in two days, including short breaks for things like food and earning a living, and quickly understood something of what it must be like to be an addict. Within two weeks I'd gone through the whole stash -- er, set -- and within a month I was standing in line for my hardcover copy of The Half-Blood Prince, which, fortunately for my sanity, had just come out.

In the agonizing two-year wait for the series finale, The Deathly Hallows, to be released on Saturday, I've steeped myself in Potteriana. With Talmudic rigor I can illuminate for you exactly what a Horcrux is, reel off the three Unforgivable Curses, and spar with the field's greatest sages (who tend to be around 12 years old) about whether the sinister Professor Snape is a bad guy or a good one. I've trolled the Internet fan sites, including those in a tizzy about the possibility that Rowling might kill off Harry in the end. (If that happens, which I seriously doubt, the author may have to go underground for a while. Maybe Salman Rushdie has a spare couch.) Heaven help me, I've even tried pumpkin juice.

Naturally, I've watched all the movie versions so far -- the latest, "The Order of the Phoenix," opened this week -- and found them acceptable, though far less satisfying than the books. Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry onscreen, is a little too handsome to match my mental picture of the character, which more closely resembles the wand-wielding geek of Mary GrandPre's book jackets for the U.S. editions. (On the other hand, Alan Rickman is a dead ringer for Snape.)

And so my transformation from skeptic to fan is complete. If whatever guided my fingers on Amazon that fateful day emanated not from the spirit world or Hogwarts but from Madison Avenue, I'm grateful anyhow. The Potter craze is that rare example, like America's love affair with the Beatles in the '60s, of a mass infatuation that deservedly grew into a long-term relationship.

No, the Potter books aren't the best fantasy writing of recent years; that distinction belongs to Philip Pullman's great His Dark Materials trilogy, also coming soon to a theater near you. But Rowling has succeeded in creating a compelling, consistent and progressively dark world all her own, one that wears its literary lineage lightly but unmistakably. Harry is King Arthur, Frodo Baggins and Luke Skywalker rolled into one. Joseph Campbell would have been proud. So would Tolkien.

Come Saturday morning, I'll be proud, too -- to stand in line, plop down my Muggle money and spend a day with my favorite wizard.

I wasn't there for you at first, Harry, but now I've got your back. Voldemort doesn't stand a chance.

Kevin Nance is the Sun-Times' critic-at-large.

[opinionista]

LOL he sounds like me. I went through something similar with Harry Potter. At first I refused to read it thinking it was a silly novel for kids. Then, hearing my sister talking about Harry Potter again and again, curiosity won over me and I decided to read the first book just to find out what the fuss was all about. And I've been hooked ever since!!

[MaineWriter]

I love the Harry Potter audiobooks. Jim Dale does a terrific job. From the New York Times:


July 17, 2007

The Voice of Harry Potter Can Keep a Secret

By MOTOKO RICH

Jim Dale is either one of the luckiest men in America or one of the most tortured.

A little less than two months ago, Mr. Dale, the veteran Broadway actor turned voice of Harry Potter, finished recording the audio version of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the seventh and final installment in the colossally successful series by J. K. Rowling.

So that means that he knows how it ends.

His grandchildren, who visited from England after he completed the recording, literally twisted his arms trying to get him to divulge a clue. His wife is still in the dark. Everywhere he goes, people want to know What He Knows.

“It’s a surprise ending,” he said on Friday, during an interview in his Park Avenue co-op. “Let’s say that.”

Gee, thanks.

It is not quite four days until Harry Potter’s legions of fans can procure a copy of “Deathly Hallows” — in hardcover, CD or cassette — and find out for themselves exactly who does what to whom. Mr. Dale signed a confidentiality agreement so that he will not breathe a word of the plot.

But after spending eight years creating more than 200 voices for all the characters in the “Harry Potter” books, Mr. Dale really believes that readers — and listeners — should discover the end for themselves.

“For those people who say, ‘C’mon, Jim, how does it end?,’ it’s like parents who say: ‘There’s a surprise gift for you in the next room. It’s a bicycle,’ ” said Mr. Dale, whose apartment could easily make a Hogwarts professor feel at home with its eclectic collections of Victorian cake decorations, pewter plates and Persian swords. “Let the child find out for himself by opening this gift.”

Mr. Dale, 71, was born in central England and has had a long and storied career as a stand-up comedian, a pop singer and an actor in everything from the British “Carry On” series of films and Shakespeare at the National Theater in London to Broadway productions of “Joe Egg” and “Barnum,” for which he won a Tony Award.

Serendipity landed Mr. Dale the part of reading “Harry Potter.” Back in 1999, Listening Library, then an independent company, acquired the United States audiobook rights to “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” the first book in the series, for just $15,000. Timothy Ditlow, the son of the company’s founders, was at a dinner party with a group of avid theatergoers who recommended Mr. Dale. (In Britain the audiobooks are produced by Bloomsbury, and Stephen Fry, the actor, author and comedian, reads them.)

Mr. Ditlow recalled Mr. Dale’s performance in “Barnum” and a few other Broadway shows. Although Mr. Dale had recorded only one audiobook, which was never released, Mr. Ditlow offered him the job. “I think it’s just one of those combination factors of luck and just going by your gut,” Mr. Ditlow said.

Since he first went into the recording studio in the summer of 1999, Mr. Dale has recorded every single word of the “Harry Potter” series, amounting to 117 hours and 4 minutes of reading time across the seven books — or a lot of long car rides. Including sales of CDs, cassettes and digital downloads, the audiobooks have sold more than 5.7 million copies, according to the Random House Audio Publishing Group, which now owns Listening Library.

For his work on the “Harry Potter” series, Mr. Dale has won a Grammy Award and holds the record for creating the most voices in an audiobook in the Guinness Book of World Records.

“Deathly Hallows,” which runs to 784 pages in the ink-and-paper version, took about two and a half weeks, working six-and-a-half-hour days, recording about 18 to 20 pages an hour, to finish. As with the other books, Mr. Dale received the manuscript only two or three days before he was scheduled to begin recording.

“That makes it impossible for me to actually read it before recording it,” said Mr. Dale, who does not possess the 13-year-old megafan’s ability to inhale the book in a weekend.

So he read about 100 pages ahead, and noted all the different voices he needed for the first few days of recording. The benefit of reading in chunks, Mr. Dale said, is that: “I don’t ever know how the book is going to end so I can’t unconsciously lead you in the direction that the book is going. I don’t know who the villain is because I am just reading 100 pages at a time.”

By now the publisher has digital files of all the voices he has used for long-running characters like Hermione Granger, one of Harry’s sidekicks, as well as more minor recurring characters like the Death Eaters, so that Mr. Dale can recreate those voices for the latest book. He takes into account the aging of the main characters, who started out as 10 and 11 in “Sorcerer’s Stone” and are now 17 and 18 in “Deathly Hallows.”

For new characters Mr. Dale uses an old-fashioned cassette recorder and tapes one or two sentences in the new voice and notes the place in the text. Then, when he shows up in the studio and starts to read, he will go to his tape recorder, rewind until he finds the right voice, and play it back to refresh his memory before recording the text. To create the range of voices, he calls on his knowledge of dozens of accents from across the British Isles and imitates the voices of friends and relatives.

For Peeves, the poltergeist, he used the voice of an old comedian friend. For Prof. Minerva McGonagall, Mr. Dale chose the voice of an aunt on his wife’s side, who, perhaps fortunately, did not live to hear herself commemorated that way.

As with the earlier books, Ms. Rowling (whom Mr. Dale said he has met twice) sent along a list of new words and character names and their corresponding pronunciations. Whenever he stumbled on a word not on the author’s list, Mr. Dale would record it in context in several ways to account for every possible pronunciation.

The producers are sticklers for absolute fidelity to the text. “If she says ‘someone laughs, ha, ha, ha,’ and I do four ‘ha’s,’ I am stopped and told, ‘Just do three,’ ” Mr. Dale said.

This Friday night, in the run-up to the release of “Deathly Hallows” at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, Mr. Dale will appear at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square in Manhattan, where he will invite children onto the stage to do impressions of his voices. After the book is released, he will do a tour of Houston, Washington, Philadelphia and Charlotte, N.C.

Since attracting a fan base for his “Harry Potter” readings, Mr. Dale has been recording other children’s classics, like “A Christmas Carol,” “Peter Pan” and “Around the World in 80 Days.”

“So if we can encourage the children who follow Jim Dale to listen to other books he records,” Mr. Dale said, “then we are really encouraging them to read or listen to other books that they may never find on their own.”

This fall fans will also be able to hear Mr. Dale’s voice as the narrator of “Pushing Daisies,” a new television series from Barry Sonnenfeld, the director of “Men in Black.”

But it is his role as the aural embodiment of Harry Potter that has brought Mr. Dale a chance at the kind of immortality that many performers crave.

“We have been part of history — big, big history,” Mr. Dale said. “It’s like the people who were connected with Lewis Carroll or the people connected with J. M. Barrie when ‘Peter Pan’ came up. It has been marvelous. Now my voice can be heard in hundreds of years’ time. We all need to leave something behind, and I am leaving behind a legacy of the ‘Harry Potter’ audiobooks.”

[ifyoucantfixit]

       I too resisted the Harry Potter mania at the beginning.  My grandaughter Kelsey was a dyed in the wool fan from the first.  But when the second book was published, she was living with me at the time.  She was reading the first one again in order to remember ever small detail she may have forgotten. 
        She kept saying" gramma you should read these. You would like them too."  I of course said "no honey iI am not really into that stuff."  I never have been.  Not since reading Tolkiens books more years ago now than I care to impart.  I loved them, but that was fantasy enough for me.  She finally said "what if I read them to you.  I really want to share them with you.  I want to have someone to talk to about them."  So naturally not being able to resist her anything much.  I relented.  And as they say.  The rest is history.  I too, am very much looking forward with a bit of sorrow.  I am anxious to find out the ending.  However I being the kind of reader I am.  Never wanting a good book to end.  I am sorry to have it over.   This time however I am sad also that we wont be reading it together again.  I loved that time we spent together as much as the books. 

[MaineWriter]

The New York Times has a review published in today's paper. Apparently, they bought the book in a bookstore in New York City on Wednesday. The publishers (Scholastic in the US and Bloomsbury in the UK) are not happy with the New York Times!

I won't post the review here, but here's the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/books/19potter.html

There are other reviews out there, too. I saw one from the Baltimore Sun which was also published in a Seattle paper.

L

[MaineWriter]

I have decided that everyone is reading Harry Potter. My empirical evidence is the dramatic slow down in posting on this forum, as well as other BBM forums (no, I don't monitor the Harry Potter boards).

I also wrote a drabble where it was revealed that Jack reads Harry Potter and a bunch of people posted comments! I haven't had comments on my LJ in ages!

http://lazylfarm.livejournal.com/40241.html

In our household, we have one hardcover copy of the book (for me) and the CDs read by Jim Dale. Tony bought them yesterday and Hannah (my daughter) is buzzing through them. Twenty-one hours of story and I think she'll be finished tonight.

Me? I've read two chapters. I want to savor this, since it is the last book!

L

[MaineWriter]

Harry Potter U.S. Sales Set Record, Scholastic Says (Update1)

By Katie Hoffmann and Josh Fineman

July 23 (Bloomberg) -- "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,'' the seventh and final book in J.K. Rowling's best- selling children's series, sold a record 8.3 million copies in the U.S. on its first day, publisher Scholastic Corp. said.

Customers at Borders Group Inc., the second-largest U.S. bookseller, bought 1.2 million of the books, the highest single- day sales of any title in the company's history. In the U.K., retailer Asda said its shelves were almost cleared out.

"The final Harry Potter book will undoubtedly be the biggest seller of the series so far; that's a given,'' said Simon Davies, an analyst at ABN Amro in London. He has a "hold'' rating on Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, the series' U.K. publisher.

First-day sales surpassed the U.S. record of 6.9 million copies set by Rowling's sixth book in the series in 2005, New York-based Scholastic said in a statement yesterday. The company this year released 12 million copies at 12:01 a.m. July 21, the biggest initial printing for a book about the boy wizard. Bloomsbury declined to say how many millions of copies it had ordered for its first printing.

The 1.2 million copies of "Deathly Hallows'' sold at Borders on the first day exceeded the 850,000 copies sold of book six, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,'' in 2005, the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based company said in a statement yesterday. New York-based Barnes & Noble Inc., the world's largest book retailer, plans to release Harry Potter sales figures today.

"We've never had a book like this before,'' Borders Chief Executive Officer George Jones said in an interview. "It drives a whole lot of traffic into our stores.''

Ordering More

Asda, the supermarket chain owned by Bentonville, Arkansas- based Wal-Mart Stores Inc., sold almost all of its 500,000 copies this weekend, breaking store records, the company said.

"We've never seen anything like it,'' Asda spokesman Ed Watson said in a telephone interview in London. "This is our most successful book launch ever.''

The chain sold 97 percent of its inventory since it went on sale July 21, twice the rate of the previous book in the series, and is ordering more copies.

W.H. Smith Plc, the U.K.'s largest magazine retailer, sold "hundreds of thousands'' of books, said spokeswoman Sue Beaumont. The books sold at a rate of 15 copies a second in the first hours, she said. "We were expecting it to be hugely popular, and this is in line with our expectations,'' she said.

Advance orders for the book reached more than 2.2 million copies at Amazon.com Inc., the world's biggest online retailer, and more than 1.3 million at Barnes & Noble, a record for both retailers. Amazon said today it delivered almost 1.3 million copies on July 21 in its largest single-product distribution.

Harry's Franchise

The series has sold more than 325 million copies worldwide since 1997, making it the biggest children's book series ever. The first six books are on the U.K.'s all-time bestseller list, and three have made it to the U.S. bestseller list since 2001, according to New York-based Nielsen Media Research Inc.

Potter and his adventures at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry also spawned a franchise that has generated billions of dollars in sales of DVDs, box-office receipts, soundtracks and licensed trademark goods, according to Nielsen.

Shares of Scholastic, which have fallen 5.7 percent this year, dropped 41 cents to $33.80 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading July 20. London-based Bloomsbury's shares rose 3 pence to 187 pence. They have declined 27 percent this year.

Fans Line Up

Sales of the book were helped by people like Donna Cappiello, who was among about 5,000 fans waiting for sales to begin after midnight July 21 at Barnes & Noble's Union Square store in Manhattan. She, her 14-year-old daughter Annalee and 10- year-old son Dylan bought a total of four copies -- one for each of them, plus a fourth copy for when the children are older, because the first three copies would be worn out, based on past experience, said Cappiello, 37, who lives in Brooklyn.

"Harry Potter is responsible for the literacy of my generation. I don't think any of the kids in my class would read if it wasn't for Harry Potter,'' said Annalee, wearing a black cape and hat.

To contact the reporters on this story: Katie Hoffmann in New York at [email protected] ; Josh Fineman in New York at [email protected]

[MaineWriter]

By the way, Hannah finished listening to the CDs and said the story "was great" but it made her cry for "a long time."

Leslie

[MaineWriter]

I just finished "Deathly Hallows" a little while ago.

It's very good, lots of excitement and plot twists. It is a satisfying conclusion to the series.

But now I have that empty feeling. It's all over? I am done reading? No more, nothing to look forward to? Sigh...

L

[MaineWriter]

'Harry Potter' author ties up loose ends

Lindsay Toler
Associated Press
Aug. 5, 2007 12:00 AM

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 last week 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 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. The 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 don't 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.

Harry's 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. She 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 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."

[MaineWriter]

I know...I have been missing the book and series since I finished it two weeks ago.

L

[opinionista]

There won't be more Harry Potter books but JK Rowling seems to be working on a new crime-themed novel. I'm not sure how accurate is this since it is not clear how the source found out exactly what was JK Rowling working on when she saw her writing at a cafe.  Anyway, here is the scoop.


Report: Rowling writing detective novel

LONDON - J.K. Rowling has been spotted at cafes in Scotland working on a detective novel, a British newspaper reported Saturday.
The Sunday Times newspaper quoted Ian Rankin, a fellow author and neighbor of Rowling's, as saying the creator of the "Harry Potter" books is turning to crime fiction.

"My wife spotted her writing her Edinburgh criminal detective novel," the newspaper, which was available late Saturday, quoted Rankin as telling a reporter at an Edinburgh literary festival.

"It is great that she has not abandoned writing or Edinburgh cafes," said Rankin, who is known for his own police novels set in the historic Scottish city.

Rowling famously wrote initial drafts of the Potter story in the Scottish city's cafes. Back then, she was a struggling single mother who wrote in cafes to save on the heating bill at home.

Now she's Britain's richest woman — worth $1 billion, according to Forbes magazine — and her seven Potter books have sold more than 335 million copies worldwide.

In an interview with The Associated Press last month, Rowling said she believed she was unlikely to repeat the success of the Potter series, but confirmed she had plans to work on new books.

"I'll do exactly what I did with Harry — I'll write what I really want to write," Rowling said.

The office of Rowling's literary agent, Christopher Little, was not immediately available to comment late Saturday.

From: Yahoo News

[MaineWriter]

Thank you to magicmountain for alerting me to this interesting news item!


Rowling outs Hogwarts head Dumbledore

AP - Harry Potter fans, the rumours are true: Albus Dumbledore, master wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay.

JK Rowling, author of the mega-selling fantasy series, outed the beloved character while appearing before a full house at Carnegie Hall in New York. After reading briefly from the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, she took questions from audience members.

She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds "true love".

"Dumbledore is gay," the author responded to gasps and applause.

She then explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards. "Falling in love can blind us to an extent," Rowling said of Dumbledore's feelings, adding that Dumbledore was "horribly, terribly let down".

Dumbledore's love, she observed, was his "great tragedy".

"Oh, my god," Rowling concluded with a laugh, "the fan fiction."

Potter readers on fan sites and elsewhere on the internet have speculated on the sexuality of Dumbledore, noting that he has no close relationship with women and a mysterious, troubled past. And explicit scenes with Dumbledore already have appeared in fan fiction.

Rowling told the audience that while working on the planned sixth Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, she spotted a reference in the script to a girl who once was of interest to Dumbledore. A note was duly passed to director David Yates, revealing the truth about her character.

Rowling, finishing a brief "Open Book Tour" of the United States, her first tour there since 2000, also said that she regarded her Potter books as a "prolonged argument for tolerance" and urged her fans to "question authority".

Not everyone likes her work, Rowling said, likely referring to Christian groups that have alleged the books promote witchcraft. Her news about Dumbledore, she said, will give them one more reason.

[mvansand76]

Mods, hear me out, please, this DOES belong here... 

Dumbledore is gay, 'Harry Potter' author reveals
Headmaster of Hogwarts in "Harry Potter" series is gay, J.K. Rowling says

Readers had long speculated on the character's sexuality

Rowling: Dumbledore in love with, let down by his rival, Gellert Grindelwald

NEW YORK (AP) -- Harry Potter fans, the rumors are true: Albus Dumbledore, master wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay.

J.K. Rowling, author of the mega-selling fantasy series that ended last summer, outed the beloved character Friday night while appearing before a full house at Carnegie Hall. After reading briefly from the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," she took questions from audience members.

She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds "true love."

"Dumbledore is gay," the author responded to gasps and applause.

She then explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards. "Falling in love can blind us to an extent," Rowling said of Dumbledore's feelings, adding that Dumbledore was "horribly, terribly let down."

Dumbledore's love, she observed, was his "great tragedy."

"Oh, my god," Rowling concluded with a laugh, "the fan fiction."

Potter readers on fan sites and elsewhere on the Internet have speculated on the sexuality of Dumbledore, noting that he has no close relationship with women and a mysterious, troubled past. And explicit scenes with Dumbledore already have appeared in fan fiction.

Rowling told the audience that while working on the planned sixth Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," she spotted a reference in the script to a girl who once was of interest to Dumbledore. A note was duly passed to director David Yates, revealing the truth about her character.

Rowling, finishing a brief "Open Book Tour" of the United States, her first tour here since 2000, also said that she regarded her Potter books as a "prolonged argument for tolerance" and urged her fans to "question authority."

Not everyone likes her work, Rowling said, likely referring to Christian groups that have alleged the books promote witchcraft. Her news about Dumbledore, she said, will give them one more reason.








I've never read any other fanfic than BBM, but thought this would be fun to share! I bet the HP fandom is 1000 times the size of BBM!

[SFEnnisSF]

Which one is Dumbledore again?  Not really into the series but I saw a few of the movies...

[Brown Eyes]

 
I heard this today on the news!  I quite like this development and actually can see what Rowling means about Grindelwald and Dumbledore.  It's pretty cool that she's so willing to talk about or bring out that aspect of the story line.

Which one is Dumbledore again?  Not really into the series but I saw a few of the movies...

Dumbledore is the headmaster of Hogwarts and one of the main characters throughout the series.  And, at times he's quite a father-figure to Harry and he often definitely acts as Harry's protector. Dumbledore's known as the best (or at least one of the best) wizards of all time.  In the movies, etc. he's the old wizard with the long white beard.

[MaineWriter]

Which one is Dumbledore again?  Not really into the series but I saw a few of the movies...

The Headmaster, the guy with the long white beard.

Leslie

[MaineWriter]

More on the Dumbledore news...

Most fans applaud Rowling's "outing" of Dumbledore
Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:43pm EDT

By Solarina Ho

TORONTO (Reuters Life!) - The Muggle, or non-wizard, world is agog at author J.K. Rowling's bombshell announcement that one of the main characters in the Harry Potter books was gay.

By Monday afternoon, after a weekend of gossip about Rowling's "outing" of Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, there were almost 6,000 comments on the issue on two popular Harry Potter Web sites, www.leakynews.com and www.mugglenet.com.

"Mostly people are happy that she has done this," said Melissa Anelli, webmistress of the Leaky Cauldron site, admitting that the site has seen a small subset of vocal readers unhappy at the revelation.

"I think it's great, I think the way she handled it was that this was just another fact about him, the same way that he's a teacher, he likes bowling, chamber music. And if more people were like that, we'd have less of a problem today."

Rowling unveiled her news in New York's Carnegie Hall on Friday, in answer to the question of whether Dumbledore -- a believer in the prevailing power of love -- had ever fallen in love himself.

"I always thought of Dumbledore as gay," she replied, explaining that Dumbledore fell in love with his brilliant friend Gellert Grindelwald, who later became a powerful dark wizard whom Dumbledore defeated.

In the book that describes their friendship, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", one character says the two "got on like a caldron on fire."

"To have one of the coolest, most respected wizards in history and mentor of Harry Potter as gay, is the bravest move JKR has ever made. I salute her," a fan identified as "Shain" wrote on the Leaky site.

"Deathly Hallows" was the final installment of the Harry Potter series, where an orphan child wizard is pitted against the evil Lord Voldemort.

The series has already courted controversy for its themes of witchcraft, and is on many banned lists.

Dr. Solomon Shapiro, a child and adolescent psychiatrist who heads the Gender and Sexual Orientation Service at Toronto's Hincks-Dellcrest Centre said the revelation could be positive for gays.

"There's a paucity of gay characters in literature, especially in children's literature, which reinforces a belief that being gay is unusual and not normal."

"Having a positive gay role model in a popular children's series can help thousands of young people who are gay, or think they might be gay, come to fully accept themselves as they are."

Rowling, who appears in Toronto on Tuesday, said her books were a plea for tolerance.

"The Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry," Rowling said during the Carnegie event.

[MaineWriter]

From Time Magazine:

Monday, Oct. 22, 2007
Put Dumbledore Back in the Closet
By John Cloud

When J.K. Rowling announced at Carnegie Hall that Albus Dumbdledore—her Aslan, her Gandalf, her Yoda—was gay, the crowd apparently sat in silence for a few seconds and then burst into wild applause. I'm still sitting in silence. Dumbledore himself never saw fit to come out of the closet before dying in book six. And I feel a bit like I did when we learned too much about Mark Foley and Larry Craig: You are not quite the role model I'd hoped for as a gay man.

I'm not defending the closet, a perilous and sad place. But I don't see how Rowling's outing of Dumbledore strikes a blow for gay equality so great that even Carnegie Hall—cathedral of the arts, cynosure of homosexuals—should erupt in joy.

Yes, it's nice that gays finally got a major character in the sci-fi/fantasy universe. Until now, we had been shut out of all the major franchises. Tolkien, a conservative Catholic, wrote a rich supply of homoeroticism into The Lord of the Rings—all those Men and Hobbits and Elves singing to each other during long, woman-less quests. The books and their film versions feature tender scenes between Frodo and Samwise. But in the end Sam marries Rose Cotton and fathers 13 children. Thirteen! You'd think he had something to prove.

Other fantasy worlds have presented gay (or at least gay-seeming) characters, but usually they are, literally, inhuman. George Lucas gave us the epicene C-3PO and the little butch R2-D2, and their Felix-Oscar dialogue suggests the banter of a couple of old queens who have been keeping intergalactic house for millennia. But their implied homosexuality is quite safe. There is no real flesh that could actually entangle, just some electrical wiring. Similarly, there was a complicated girl-on-girl plot in 1995 on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but let me spare you a fanboy's geeked-out summary by noting merely that the two girls weren't really girls—they were gender-complex aliens called Trills—and all they did was kiss.

So along comes Rowling with Dumbledore—a human being, a wizard even, an indisputable hero and one of the most beloved figures in children's literature. Shouldn't I be happy to learn he's gay?

Yes, except: Why couldn't he tell us himself? The Potter books add up to more than 800,000 words before Dumbledore dies in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and yet Rowling couldn't spare two of those words—"I'm gay"—to help define a central character's emotional identity? We can only conclude that Dumbledore saw his homosexuality as shameful and inappropriate to mention among his colleagues and students. His silence suggests a lack of personal integrity that is completely out of character.

I had always given the Potter books a pass on the lack of gay characters because, especially at first, they were intended for little kids. But particularly with the appearance of the long, violent later books, Rowling allowed her witches and wizards to grow up, to get zits and begin romances, to kill and die. It seemed odd that not even a minor student character at Hogwarts was gay, especially since Rowling was so p.c. about making her magical creatures of different races and species, incomes, national origins, and developmental abilities. In a typical passage, the briefly mentioned Blaise Zabini is described as "a tall black boy with high cheekbones and long, slanting eyes." Would it have been so difficult to write in a line in which Zabini takes the exquisitely named Justin Finch-Fletchley to the Yule Ball?

And then there's Dumbledore himself. I don't mind saying I got misty when Rowling killed off Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince. His twinkling eyes, his flowing manteau, his unfailing (if at times fortune-cookie-ish) wisdom—Rowling made it impossible not to revere him.

But here is a gay man as de-sexed as any priest—and, to uncomfortably extend the analogy, whose greatest emotional bond is with an adolescent boy: scarred, orphaned, needy Harry. Rowling said at Carnegie Hall that in her conception of his character, Dumbledore had fallen in love long ago with Gellert Grindelwald when the two were just teenagers. But Grindelwald turned out to be evil, which apparently broke Dumbledore's heart. (Quite evil: Grindelwald is Rowling's Hitler figure, opening a camp called "Nurmengard" for political enemies in the 1940s. Dumbledore/Churchill eventually defeats Grindelwald/Hitler in a 1945 duel.)

But as far as we know, Dumbledore had not a single fully realized romance in 115 years of life. That's pathetic, and a little creepy. It's also a throwback to an era of pop culture when the only gay characters were those who committed suicide or were murdered. As Vito Russo's The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies (1981) points out, in film after film of the mid-century—Rebel Without a Cause; Rebecca; Suddenly, Last Summer—the gay characters must pay for their existence with death. Like a lisping weakling, Dumbledore is a painfully selfless, celibate, dead gay man, so forgive me if I don't see Rowling's revelation as great progress.

Am I making too much of this? Undoubtedly. Some of the best Star Trek fan fiction—and there is so much you couldn't read it all in a lifetime—involves steamy Kirk-Spock love affairs. So it will be with the Potter world, as Rowling has acknowledged. Lasting books cease to be their authors' property; we are now all free to imagine a gay life more whole and fulfilling than the one Rowling gave Dumbledore. But it would have been better if she had just left the old girl to rest in peace.

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1674550,00.html

[dot-matrix]

From IMDb and WENN

Rowling Shocked by Response to Gay Dumbledore


 Author J.K. Rowling is stunned by the reaction she received after outing popular Harry Potter character Albus Dumbledore as gay. The writer revealed the truth about the Hogwarts school headmaster's sexuality at New York's Carnegie Hall on Friday as part of her American book tour. The outing of Dumbledore provoked more that 3,000 comments on Harry Potter fansite, The Leaky Cauldron - and Rowling is shocked by the furor over her character's sexual orientation. Rowling says, "It has certainly never been news to me that a brave and brilliant man could love other men. He is my character. He is what he is and I have the right to say what I say about him."

[MaineWriter]

Here's an interesting editorial from the Dallas Morning News:


Harry Potter and the author who wouldn't shut up

BOOKS: Now that J.K.'s outed Dumbledore, will she leave nothing to the imagination?

08:09 AM CDT on Wednesday, October 24, 2007

By JEFFREY WEISS / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected]

With the greatest of respect, I'd like to say something to Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling:

Shut up. Please.

Stop talking about what Ron will do for a living, whom Neville will marry, what kinds of creatures Hagrid will raise.

If you didn't put it in the books, please don't tell us now.

I guess I don't want you to stop explaining completely. I'd love to know more about what inspired some of the plot details in the books. If you want to dish about how you decided on those particular inscriptions for the headstones, how you came up with the names for the characters, or how you cleverly planned the religious underpinnings of the broad arc of the story – I am all ears.

But telling us that Dumbledore is gay, as you did last week? Why would you do that?

As a fan, I can understand both the authorial impulse and the public interest. As a reader, it's making me nuts.

Another awfully good British author, the late Douglas Adams of the successful Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy series, confronted a comparable question a few years back. One of his fans asked about the kind of computer one of his characters used. He replied, in part:

"The book is a work of fiction. It's a sequence of words arranged to unfold a story in a reader's mind. There is no such actual, real person as Arthur Dent. He has no existence outside the sequence of words designed to create an idea of this imaginary person in people's minds. There is no objective real world I am describing, or which I can enter, and pick up his computer, look at it and tell you what model it is, or turn it over and read off its serial number for you. It doesn't exist."

I'd disagree with that a bit. It does exist – in the minds of any reader who wants it to exist. And that's what you're interfering with.

The physicist Erwin Schrödinger long ago came up with a wonderful thought experiment. He imagined a cat that existed across possibilities – somehow simultaneously alive and dead until somebody checked to see which was true.

What seems weird (but true) in physics is just the way it has always been with a good story. What exactly did Huck Finn's raft look like? Did Captain Ahab's father whip him every St. Swithin's Day? Did Bilbo Baggins use product on his hair back in the Shire?

As a reader, I get to decide, because the author left those details untold in the books. Which is one reason that a book is almost always better than the movie based on it. More explicit backstory is not always better. Compare the brilliant book (and cartoon) of How the Grinch Stole Christmas with the awful live-action movie. The Grinch had an unhappy childhood? Who cares?

Based on what you decided to put in the books, I can imagine that Dumbledore once had a girlfriend or that he was so emotionally crushed by guilt that he sealed himself off from romance or that he was one of those rare men for whom romance never really came up – or that he was gay.

I can consider any of those possibilities as I read – or I can mull over all of them at the same time. Talk about magic.

Is Dumbledore gay? He is for you, apparently. But unless you said it in the actual books, must he be so for me? Your saying so now makes it harder for me to imagine anything different. Do you really want to limit your fictional world that way?

Jo – can I call you Jo? Like all of your myriad fans, I've spent so much time exploring the children of your mind over this past decade that I feel we are friends.

You lived with Harry, his friends and his foes for so many years. You birthed them, shaped them, honed the fine details of their existence. And you thought long and hard about exactly which of those details were so important to the story that you would include them in the books.

For all of those years, until those books were published, the characters and settings were yours to command and control. But then you let them go.

And speaking for all of your happy readers I need to tell you: Now they are ours.

Jeffrey Weiss is a general assignment reporter for The Dallas Morning News.

[MaineWriter]

And from the Los Angeles Times:


Seven clues that 'Potter's' Dumbledore was gay
"Albus Dumbledore" is an anagram of "Male bods rule, bud!"
By Deborah Netburn
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 23, 2007

The Potter-verse was thrown for a loop when author J.K. Rowling announced she had always imagined one of the main characters in the "Harry Potter" series -- Albus Dumbledore -- to be gay.

Even the most diligent "Harry Potter" scholars found themselves caught unaware. But could anyone have seen this coming? Did Rowling leave any clues in the book?

To find out we called Andrew Slack, head of the Harry Potter Alliance, an organization that uses online organizing to mobilize more than 100,000 Harry Potter fans around social justice issues, drawing on parallels from the book. Slack is incredibly fluent in "Potter" textual analysis, and we knew that if anyone could predict Rowling's curveball, it would be him.

Speaking from his home in Boston, Slack said he hadn't guessed that Dumbledore was gay, but in hindsight, he was able to point to specific character traits of the Hogwarts headmaster that might have indicated his sexual orientation.

Below he tells us seven textual clues that Dumbledore was gay.

1. His pet. "Fawkes, the many-colored phoenix, is 'flaming.'"

2. His name. "While the anagram to 'Tom Marvolo Riddle' is 'I am Lord Voldemort,' as my good friend pointed out, 'Albus Dumbledore' becomes 'Male bods rule, bud!'"

3. His fashion sense. "Whether it's his 'purple cloak and high-heeled boots,' a 'flamboyantly cut suit of plum velvet,' a flowered bonnet at Christmas or his fascination with knitting patterns, Dumbledore defies the fashion standards of normative masculinity and, of course, this gives him a flair like no other. It's no wonder that even the uppity portrait of former headmaster Phineas Nigellus announced, 'You cannot deny he's got style.'"

4. His sensitivity. "Leaders like Cornelius Fudge, Rufus Scrimgeour and Dolores Umbridge (yes, even a woman) who are limited by the standards of normative masculinity could not fully embrace where Voldemort was weakest: in his capacity to love. Dumbledore understood that it's tougher to be vulnerable, to express one's feelings, and that one's undying love for friends and for life itself is a more powerful weapon than fear. Even his most selfish moments in pursuing the Deathly Hallows were motivated either by his feelings for Grindelwald or his wish to apologize to his late sister."

5. His openness. "After she outed Dumbledore, Rowling said that she viewed the whole series as a prolonged treatise on tolerance. Dumbledore is the personification of this. Like the LGBT community that has time and again used its own oppression to fight for the equality of others, Dumbledore was a champion for the rights of werewolves, giants, house elves, muggle-borns, centaurs, merpeople -- even alternative marriage. When it came time to decide whether the marriage between Lupin the werewolf and Tonks the full-blooded witch could be considered natural, Professor Minerva McGonagall said, 'Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world.'"

6. His historical parallel. "If Dumbledore were like any one in history, it would have to be Leonardo DaVinci. They both were considered eccentric geniuses ('He's a genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes'); both added a great deal to our body of knowledge (after all, Dumbledore did discover the 12 uses of dragon's blood!); both were solitary, both were considered warm, loving and incredibly calm; both dwelt in mysterious mystical realms; both spent a lot of time with their journals (Leonardo wrote his backwards while Dumbledore was constantly diving into his pensieve); both even had long hair! And, of course, a popular thought among many scholars is that the maestro Leonardo was gay."

7. The fact that so few of us realized he was gay. "No matter how many 'clues' I can put down that Dumbledore was gay, no matter how many millions of people have read these books again and again, Rowling surprised even the most die-hard fans with the announcement that Dumbledore was gay. And in the end, the fact that we never would have guessed is what makes Dumbledore being gay so real. So many times I have encountered friends who are gay that I never would have predicted. It has shown me that one's sexual orientation is not some obvious 'lifestyle choice,' it's a precious facet of our multi-faceted personalities. And in the end whatever the differences between our personalities are, it is time that our world heeds Dumbledore's advice: 'Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.' Today as I write this, I believe that it's time for our aims to be loyal to what the greatest wizard in the world would have wanted them to be: love."

[louisev]

Here is another "nay" vote on outing Dumbledore:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/29/arts/29conn.html?em&ex=1193803200&en=dc5213d6bef5e62e&ei=5087%0A

I found myself nodding with the theory that "it isnt relevant."

[MaineWriter]

From ABC news:

'Harry Potter' Fans Disappointed
New Spinoff From J.K. Rowling Will Go to a Select Few Handpicked by Author
By LAMA HASAN

LONDON, Nov. 2, 2007 —

"Harry Potter" fans brace yourselves. The wizardry tales of "Beedle the Bard" -- mentioned in the final book "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" -- are handwritten and the illustrations are by J.K. Rowling herself. But here's the catch: Only seven of the books exist in the world!

"Six of these books have been given to those most closely connected to the 'Harry Potter' books during the past 17 years. This seventh book will be auctioned," Rowling explained in a recent BBC interview.

Harry Potter and his world of wizards, witches and warlocks has made Rowling a rich woman. The author has sold 350 million books and counting, been translated into 65 languages and had her work made into highly successful movies. But this time, Rowling told the BBC, the money will go to a charity in Europe close to her heart.

"I could not think of any person with less of a voice, more disenfranchised than a child with mental health issues or mental illness or mentally handicapped who has been taken from their family or given by their family to a mental institution and then placed in a cage," she said.

Rowling put pen to paper to say farewell to all things Harry Potter.

"I've been writing about the world, about Harry, Ron and Hermione, but it comes from that world. It's been partly, I didn't expect it to be, but it's been therapeutic in a way -- a nice way to say goodbye," she said.

What about those fans who won't get to enjoy the tales?

Fourteen-year-old Terrel Phelps is not too happy. "It's kind of depressing," he told ABC News, "because I know there's gonna be something in it that I really don't know yet I won't get to know, and that makes me upset."

Fourth-grader Alexis Harris from New York is more resigned. "I think it would be nice to read it but & what can you do?''

If you're thinking of bidding on the one book up for auction next month, the starting price is a mere $60,000.

But diehard "Potter" fans shouldn't be too disheartened -- Rowling owns the copyrights to her new fairy tales, and their mysteries may still one day be revealed.

And she is working on another story.

"There's a half-finished book for children, that will probably be the next thing I do, that I publish," she said. "But I am in no rush to publish at the moment."

Still, at least it's something to look forward to.

[MaineWriter]

from Entertainment Weekly:

Final 'Harry Potter' Split Into Two Movies

Warner Bros. will release the first part of ''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'' in November 2010 with a second movie following in May 2011
''Harry Potter'' Seeing as the franchise has grossed billions, it's a wonder the final film isn't being split into a dozen parts

Murray Close

(FROM VARIETY) – The final installment of the Harry Potter movie franchise is being released in two parts, six months apart. Warner Bros. is set to release the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in November 2010 with the second part of the finale opening in May 2011. Both movies will be directed by David Yates and written by Steve Kloves. The movies will be shot concurrently, and it's not yet clear at what point in the story, adapted from J.K. Rowling's 784-page book, the films will break. The seventh and final novel sees Harry and his friends battle archnemesis Voldemort to the death. The book sold a record 11 million copies during the first 24 hours after its release last July. The sixth movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, also directed by Yates, will open this November. Daniel Radcliffe and the rest of the cast from the sixth movie are already confirmed for the finale.

[Brown Eyes]

I think it's a good idea to split up the last book into two movies.  I felt like the 5th movie was really rushed in order to fit all the vital info in.    These later books are so long and complex, they seem well suited to longer amounts of time on film.