Entertainment Weekly has posted up their 15 Entertainers of the 2000s, in their Best of the Decade series. J.K. Rowling made the list at Number 3!
J.K. Rowling
As 1999 came to a close, J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter were already household names — as long as those households contained literate children with a voracious appetite for fantasy fiction. In 2000, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire — the fourth book in the British author’s seven-book cycle — ignited a global pop phenomenon that got the attention of all readers, young and young at heart. By 2007, the planet was both eagerly anticipating and deeply dreading the release of the final Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. When it finally arrived, it became clear that Rowling had nailed one of the decade’s greatest artistic achievements: finishing not just bloody well, but brilliantly. —Jeff Jensen
Harry Potter has come in at Number one for Entertainers of the Decade: Your Picks
Harry Potter
The Entertainer of the Decade is obviously Harry Potter — a franchise that covers all the cultural bases, selling books, movie tickets and merchandise. Fans whip up butterbeer batches, obsess over John Williams’ iconic score, even listen to ”wizard rock.” College students actually play Quidditch (and when someone comes up with the right jet-propulsion technology, they can play it for real). Millions of people all over the globe watched J.K. Rowling answer questions about Deathly Hallows on television. Unlike anything else, Harry Potter has literally taken over the entire world.
Heck, Harry Potter has actually inspired new entries into the Oxford English Dictionary! Muggle is now an actual, accepted word. If that doesn’t point to influence, I don’t know what does. And unlike the vast majority of names suggested by EW readers for this list, Harry Potter has actually been around (and consistently popular) for the entire decade. —James
8. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)
The fourth Potter novel was the darkest yet, forcing poor Harry to contend with Death Eaters run amok and the loss of a major character. That it also encompasses some of the series’ most purely fun moments of escapism is proof of Rowling’s versatile gifts.
The Telegraph has made up a list of the “100 books that defined the noughties“. Deathly Hallows has been named the number 1 book. The article also goes on to say, “Never in the history of bookselling has there been such a phenomenon as Harry Potter; JK Rowling’s series sold in tens of millions and appealed to adults as well as children.”
1 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
Bloomsbury, 2007 £8.99
If you don’t know what a Muggle is by now, you’re either Rip van Winkle or enormously stubborn. This is the seventh and final instalment in Rowling’s record-breaking series about Harry Potter, the world’s most famous lightning-scarred boy wizard and his tribulations with Lord Voldemort. We’ve seen Harry grow from a spindly, messy-haired 11-year-old into a heroic young adult. Children have grown up with him, finding in his battles metaphors for their own. This volume alone sold 15 million copies in the first 24 hours after it was published. Whether wickedly skewering suburbia, or bringing Harry, Ron and Hermione into mortal danger, Rowling is never less than absorbing. Some may sneer at her books, but they are triumphant sagas about the defeat of evil that tap into our basic hunger for stories. Most importantly, she makes reading a 700-page book seem easy. This one even has a quotation from Aeschylus as its epigraph. It stands as a cornerstone of the decade, a melding of high and low culture that appeals to all ages and nations.
Today there is some more news on the Harry Potter Encyclopedia, also known as the Scottish Book 😉 If you remember a little while ago I posted about JKR working on the book, now the Sunday Mail has some information from JK Rowling’s attorney.
Neil Blair, a lawyer for Rowling’s agents Christopher Little, downplayed expectations of imminent publication. He said: “The encyclopaedia simply remains something Ms Rowling would like to complete sometime in the future.”
But an insider said: “Everyone hopes it comes to fruition. Even though the original Harry fans are now adults the obsession remains and this would be a huge seller. Obviously she is under no pressure and can pick and choose her projects but Harry is more than just another character for her.”
Rowling, 44, has said she has begun assembling all her old notes, including the histories of many characters who had only bit parts in Harry Potter’s larger drama. But at a court case in New York last July to stop publication of the unauthorised The Harry Potter Lexicon, she admitted her work had come to a halt because of the stress.
The timing of the books will be important as the final two Harry Potter films are due out in 2010 and 2011.
In an upcoming speech that will be given by President Obama at a back to school event in Arlington, Virginia tomorrow, the President mentions Harry Potter and JK Rowling. You can watch the speech tomorrow at 12:00 PM (EDT) at this link.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.
But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.
That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.
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