The ever-excellent Mark Lawson has stayed up all night to review the new Potter book. His verdict: quite good, if predictable. He also has some good things to say about JK Rowling:
Mutter about media hype all you want - hiss that Philip Pullman or 100 neglected children's authors are better writers - it doesn't matter. The fact is that - against all historical predictions - this woman has made the antiquated dead-tree reading device called a book a must-have accessory for the young in an otherwise relentlessly electronic age. There is talk of making her a Dame; they should probably make her a saint.
And some less-good things to say about how the book was launched:
Writers and publishers may say that no book should be reviewed like this. Well, yes. But no book should be published like this. Rowling and Bloomsbury have turned literature into news, with all the embargos and immediacy that entails. To adopt a tone appropriate to a book about schoolchildren: they started it.Posted by timo at June 21, 2003 10:41 AM | TrackBack