Day 24: Special Announcement

JK Rowling announced her new book The Casual Vacancy release date of September 27, 2012.
The Casual Vacancy is her first adult novel:

"In the novel, the unexpected death of Barry Fairweather leaves Pagford, the small town he lived in, in shock. Pagford appears to be a peaceful, serene town, but underneath that, it is a town at war. Fairweather's death leaves an empty seat on the parish council, and this causes the biggest fight Pagford has ever seen." (Huffington Post)

I also learned the JK Rowling website linked here and above is her new website that launched today. Good luck with it, though, I tried to check it out, but the "timeline" navigation leaves something to be desired.

I did read her Harry Potter series and I'm looking forward to reading her adult fiction. I look forward to reading something that maybe she didn't feel so pressured to write. Some of the Potter series felt rushed and unedited. I saw her speak several years ago (side effect - I was there to see Stephen King) and was quite impressed with her tales of writing the last few novels. Even then, she hinted there was an adult novel - not related to HP in anyway - and that was 2006, now that I do the math.

I think what I love most about this announcement ...

Can you feel the electricity? That moment of excitement that comes with the announcement of a new novel that could be huge? Did you stand in line for Harry Potter books? Twilight? Have you ever seen so many readers gather with such anticipation you could almost reach out and touch it? You walk around, watching the "real" fans decked out in full Hogwart's garb - and most aren't children.

You line up the night before, just to get a spot - to buy a book. You spend hours talking with other book lovers about what could happen in the next book - what's already happened in the previous books. You talk about the movies - the possibilities - and who would be Hufflepuff and who would be Slytherin - because either might be more daring and fun than Gryffindor.

Whether you even liked the Harry Potter series or the Twilight series, you can't deny they brought about an astounding level of excitement about reading around the world that's never been seen before. Of course, word of mouth is much better than the old days - now we have the internet (Thanks Al!) to share good-reads globally.

Will The Casual Vacancy draw the same excitement? Who can predict? 

But, considering most children who began reading the series are now young adults - I'm guessing this could be a pretty exciting September.

We'll have to wait and see (to paraphrase Paul Sheldon).   

(Visit J.K. Rowling's Amazon Page)