The Sunday Times is reporting that back in April, J.K. Rowling published a new novel, The Cuckoo’s Calling, under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith. Thanks to The New York Times, those of us without Sunday Times subscriptions can hear the story. According to the article Rowling said: “I had hoped to keep this secret a little longer, because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience,” she said in a statement. “It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation, and pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name.”
The books description, from Amazon, states:
A brilliant debut mystery in a classic vein: Detective Cormoran Strike investigates a supermodel’s suicide.
After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, and creditors are calling. He has also just broken up with his longtime girlfriend and is living in his office.
Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, thelegendary supermodel Lula Landry, known to her friends as the Cuckoo, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man.
You may think you know detectives, but you’ve never met one quite like Strike. You may think you know about the wealthy and famous, but you’ve never seen them under an investigation like this.
The story of the unmasking of Rowling is as follows:
The story of how The Sunday Times uncovered the truth is an odd one that involves, as seems so often the case these days, Twitter. It started on Thursday, said Richard Brooks, the paper’s arts editor, after one of his colleagues happened to post a tweet mentioning that she had loved “The Cuckoo’s Calling,” and that it did not seem as if the book had been written by a novice.
“After midnight she got a tweet back from an anonymous person saying it’s not a first-time novel — it was written by J. K. Rowling,” Mr. Brooks said in an interview. “So my colleague tweeted back and said, ‘How do you know for sure?’ ” The person replied, “I just know,” and then proceeded to delete all his (or her) tweets and to close down the Twitter account, Mr. Brooks said. “All traces of this person had been taken off, and we couldn’t find his name again.”
[…]
First he did some Internet detective work, finding many similarities between “The Casual Vacancy” and “The Cuckoo’s Calling.” Both books shared the same agent, publisher and editor in Britain, for example. It seemed particularly odd, he said, that the editor, David Shelley, would be in charge of both someone as important as J. K. Rowling — a very big job, indeed — and someone as seemingly unimportant as Robert Galbraith.
He then started reading the book. “I said, ‘Nobody who was in the Army and now works in civilian security could write a book as good as this,’ ” he said. Next, he sent copies of “The Cuckoo’s Calling,” “The Casual Vacancy” and the last Harry Potter novel, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” to a pair of computer linguistic experts, who found significant similarities among them.
[…]
“I [Mr Brooks] e-mailed a blunt question: ‘I believe that Robert Galbraith is in fact J. K. Rowling, and will you please come back with a straightforward answer?’ ” he related. On Saturday morning, he said he received a response from a Rowling spokeswoman, who said that she had “decided to ’fess up.’ ”
Ms. Rowling now stands to make a lot of money from this new book, and so do the publishers. One interesting aspect of the whole story is how Little, Brown essentially colluded in keeping a secret that caused it, at least until now, to forgo possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.
In a short statement released on Sunday, Reagan Arthur, Little, Brown’s publisher, said that the company was “pleased and proud” of “The Cuckoo’s Calling.” “A reprint of the book is under way and will carry a revised author biography, which reads ‘Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for J. K. Rowling,’ ” she said. The company said it planned to publish a second book in what looks set to be a series by Mr. Galbraith, a k a Ms. Rowling, next summer.
Filed Under: Books, JK Rowling |
Harry Potter fan Becca is raising money for LUMOS as a gift to Potter author J.K. Rowling for her birthday. If giving Jo a great birthday present isn’t enough to make you want to donate, this might help: All donations will be entered to win one of many great prizes, including signed photos by actors, and even a signed copy of The Casual Vacancy! If you would like to be entered into the prize draw please have a read of the FAQs/Ts&Cs before donating as they contain important info.
Some more information on the fundraiser may be read below:
What is Light Up Jo’s Birthday?
JK Rowling’s 48th birthday is on the 31st July 2013. Every year, fans come together to create projects for Jo’s birthday- books, videos and websites filled with messages of love for the woman who changed the lives of millions around the world. But actions speak louder than words, so what better way to express our love for Jo than by helping a cause close to her heart?
Last year, in Light Up Jo’s Birthday’s first year, we raised over £1,000 for Lumos. Jo said it was one of the best birthday presents she had ever received. So what are we going to do this year? We’re going to do it bigger and better!
Who are Lumos?
Lumos is a charity founded by JK Rowling which aims to end the institutionalisation of children around the world. To find out more, hover over Lumos’s logo to the left. Last year the money raised by Light Up Jo’s Birthday went towards making a school accessible, so that disabled children can attend mainstream school and stay with their families instead of having to go into an institution.
If everyone who reads this donated just £1, which is less than the cost of sending Jo a birthday card, we could make a real difference to many children’s lives again.
Filed Under: Birthdays, JK Rowling |
MSN Money is reporting that J.K. Rowling’s edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is set to be auctioned off at Sotheby’s for charity this Tuesday. The Guardian has also posted numerous photos of the book, which contains notes and annotations from the author.
Dr Philip Errington, director of printed books and manuscripts at Sotheby’s, said: “This can undoubtedly be regarded as the definitive copy of any Harry Potter book. Not only is it a fine copy of a first edition of the first book, but the author has significantly personalised it with numerous written comments and many impressive and evocative illustrations. The personality of the author leaps from these pages and we are treated to a remarkable insight into her creative genius.”
Filed Under: Books, JK Rowling |
We’ve learned that J.K Rowling along with many of the Harry Potter cast and crew were also at the inauguration of the updated WB Studio Tour London with The Royal Family. Additionally, Prince Harry’s Facebook page has been updated with numerous photos of the trio – not the Potter trio of course; Harry, William and Kate – touring the Harry Potter section. UPDATE: The Duchess’ Facebook also has an album with photos from the day.
The following members of the Potter family were in attendance: David Heyman, David Yates, Mike Newell and Matthew Lewis . We will have photos of them as soon as they become available. For now view these (which will be updated as more appear online):
Filed Under: David Heyman, David Yates, JK Rowling, Matthew Lewis, Warner Bros. Studio Tour London - The Making of Harry Potter |
As we posted back in January, J.K. Rowling attended the Bath Literature Festival on March 10th. The Independent posted a video and highlights from her chat with James Runcie.
Fans are constantly asking if she will write a prequel to the Potter series based on the Mauraders. Once again she has stated that she currently has no plans to do so, because she feels “prequels are not generally very successful,” but will “never say never”.
Of the adult themes in her newest book, The Casual Vacancy, she says “I have never ever sat down and thought… ‘now is the moment to write a book with a penis or with swearing in it’. This was a book I was burning to write… I draw on my own adolescence… and on my experience of adolescents as a teacher… I see adolescence as very fragile. When I watch my two young children, who are eight and 10, they will watch shows on Nickelodeon where teenagers are wholly false.
She also teased about the new children’s book she is writing by saying, “It will be shorter [than Potter]. I’m very bad at estimating what sort of age group will like this… I think it might be for slightly younger children.”
It wouldn’t be a J.K. Rowling interview without talking about the success of the series, so in talking about her first experience with fame: “From about 2000, I knew there would never be any topping Harry Potter. My publishers had got this train for the book launch which consisted of me leaving Kings Cross. I looked out at all the people screaming. It was like Beatlemania. I remember thinking ‘you will never top this’. [Now], I can say ‘oh, I will never top it’ or I can see how lucky I am… I truly feel completely free.”
Filed Under: JK Rowling |
The Bath Literature Festival website has been updated with some exciting news for J.K. Rowling fans. The author is set to attend their festival this March. View the programme for the festival and book your tickets, at this link! Rowling is scheduled on March 8th, from 8-9pm. and the description is as follows:
J.K. Rowling needs no introduction. A storyteller like no other, she has brought the pleasure of reading to a whole generation, and we are delighted to welcome her to Bath to talk about her first novel for adults The Casual Vacancy. This is an opportunity to meet one of the bestselling authors of all time. Chaired by The Independent Bath Literature Festival Artistic Director James Runcie.
After the event, J.K. Rowling will be signing copies of her new book for ticket holders only. Please make sure you retain your ticket if you want your copy of The Casual Vacancy signed. Please note, the author will NOT be signing anything other than The Casual Vacancy.
The Casual Vacancy is a book for adults. This event is not suitable for under 16s.
Thanks to @TomFeltonInc for the tip!
Filed Under: JK Rowling |
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