Neil Gaiman | JK Rowling didn't rip me off, we stole from the same people

Forgotten?

During his talk on Saturday Neil Gaiman made a reference to a graphic novel of his I'd never heard of: The Books of Magic.
He made a joke about it. "People said JK Rowling stole off me. Of course she didn't. We were just stealing off the same people."
Or words to that effect.
The cover of the book is striking. What the heck is Harry Potter doing on a flying skateboard, and why is Hedwig grey?
The superficial overlap with Harry and Hogwarts is extraordinary. And I wondered how on earth I didn't already know that Gaiman, hardly an unknown writer, indeed, probably the best known fantasy writer in the UK right now, had written such a book, albeit as long ago as 1993.
Gaiman solved the mystery himself, to a degree. He explained that The Books of Magic were published by DC comics who sold the adaptation rights to Warners Bros, who in turn produced a brilliant first draft of the script. But it was just about this time that Harry Potter took off.
And remember, Harry Potter wasn't just another successful kids book: it was a phenomenon. Children, adults, dogs were queueing round blocks to get copies, to hear Rowling speak. Shops went mad about Harry Potter with supermarkets often giving hardbacks away for as little as £3.99, just so they could have a piece of the Harry action. And of course Warners won an extremely competitive bidding process to make the blockbusting movies.
Which have made a billion or so since.
Gaiman's graphic novel, in a parallel universe, might have had us all talking and dreaming about magic. As it was it was swamped by Rowling's juggernaut. Fair play her.
As for the film adaptation: Warners wanted to make the film, but it needed to be different to Harry Potter. So they messed about with the script so much that DC and Gaiman said, no thanks, please don't make this now. As for the book, it has been in limbo. But with Harry's adventures now finished, surely, surely it's time for a revival.

Top 100 Books | Big Issue relaunches the list

Are these Britain’s most loved books?

     Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkein

     To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee

     Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

     Lanark, Alasdair Gray

     Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie

     His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman

     Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke

     Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

     Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake

     The Road, Cormac McCarthy

With over a million paperback sales in Britain alone, David Nicholls’ bittersweet romance One Day is one of the best-loved books of the moment. The film is out this week - which is why the book is appearing on the covers of magazines.

But what are the best-loved books of all?

The Big Issue is this week relaunching my off the cuff bid to compile a Top 100: the books you couldn’t live without.

I’ve been running the poll for the past few weeks right here. But now the magazine sold by the homeless is taking the idea to a national audience via its own websites www.bigissuescotland.com  and www.bigissue.com.

Together, we want you to list the ten books you think are the best you've ever read. The ones you believe are genuinely memorable and entertaining.

The responses I’ve received so far have been extraordinary: diverse, unusual and challenging.

But even with a small sample it was clear that a few titles were appearing again and again.

From these I have compiled a Top Ten – reproduced here. And it’s hardly a surprise that perennial favourites Lord of the Rings and To Kill A Mockingbird are neck and neck at the top.

But notice that there is no Dickens, JK Rowling or Agatha Christie – despite the fact they are the biggest selling authors of all time.

Instead, readers went for cultish books like Lanark, Gormenghast and the bleak American masterpiece The Road.

What makes the final list depends on you.

Email your top ten to top100books@bigissue.com.

There are no boundaries. All genres should be considered - just vote for the books that mean the most.www.bigissuescotland.com

Everyone who has voted so far will have their lists folded in to the new campaign. Over the next few days I'll break down the list of titles I have so far to give you some ideas, and to create talking points.

What has become obvious is that the more people who take part in this poll, the more meaningful the final list will be so please share this link with your friends on social media and encourage others to take part. We are all really looking forward to seeing what the final top 100 will look like.

Harry Potter | What did they do to the end of the Deathly Hallows? | JK Rowling

I'm not going to go on an on about this. The talented and hard working individuals who made the Harry Potter movies know more than I do about turning books into film and what flies in the multiplex. But I do wish they hadn't messed with JK Rowling's ending.

It's not completely different, of course. The essential elements are there, right down to having Neville chop off the head of the snake. But the final battle did not resonate with me on screen as it did in the book. It was too focussed on Harry, Hermione and Ron. Everything was over simplified. And in the apparent rush to keep the action at breathless, breakneck speed a lot of the subtlety and even humour of Rowling's climax was sadly lost.

The films have never really done justice to Rowling's large cast of secondary characters. I can understand this -- the language of film is such that you need to concentrate on the lead. But why did they, for instance, have Snape's death scene in a hitherto unmentioned boathouse on the lake and not the far more meaningful Shrieking Shack (which Harry etc could get to via the tunnel, unseen, rather than just wander over to when all the death eaters are apparently looking the other way....)?

Why didn't Harry use his invisibility cloak in the forest and to evade the death eaters once the battle was rejoined?

In the book the battle is rejoined by the wizards and by the centaurs and the elves from the kitchen - while believing Harry is dead. It shows they are undefeated, defiant. It was far more powerful...

Why didn't Harry use the Elder wand at the end to repair his old wand?

Why not have the glorious scene in Dumbledore's office when all the portraits applaud him? Couldn't Warner Bros afford all those actors?

Why for that matter have the lame scene with Snape leading the kids into the hall, then Harry revealing himself? Rowling's version in the Ravenclaw tower was a lot better...

Oh I could go on, but you probably already think I'm a bit of an ubergeek to have said this much. Usually with Potter films I enjoy them the second time more, when I'm not too concerned about what is not there. But this one I feel got the pitch of the ending wrong. It was too grey, too joyless and you never got the sense of a great coming together of good magic to defeat the bad.

So yes, I did love it. Well done to them all. But the books are better...

Harry Potter | Why it’s OK to relax and enjoy the Deathly Hallows | JK Rowling

We’ve all had the experience: that rolling of the eyes as someone tells you they couldn’t get past chapter three of the first book.

For some, not liking Harry Potter – indeed, the fact they have never read even one of the multi-million selling books – isn’t so much a cultural omission as a badge of honour.

“It’s just for kids” they say. Then: “And the writing is so bad...” And the clincher: “Philip Pullman is so much better.”

I find it weird that with so many people around the world utterly hooked on these books, enough to go and queue and a bookshop to buy one at midnight, that avid readers aren't at least be curious to know what they are all about.
But Not Liking Harry Potter is as much a part of the JK phenomenon as Hermione’s know it all attitude and Daniel Radcliffe’s bare chest.

Well, here are a few reasons why I think it is ok to be a grown up and to love Harry Potter. I’m looking forward to the final film, too. I hope the 3D is worth it...

1.       She can write. Oh yes she can. Nobody does a big story as well as JK Rowling. Quibble about her prose if you want to – and question the quality of editing she got, especially on book #5, which to my mind rambles a bit – but her books are structured brilliantly, the stories told with great pace and her twists and reveals hard to second guess. But don’t just take my word for it, Stephen King rates her as one of the greatest storytellers ever – and he should know.

2.       It really isn’t just for kids. They might be about a bunch of kids carrying wands, but the Harry Potter books are also about life’s big themes. Harry’s fight with Voldemort is as timeless, as elemental as you can imagine: a genuinely good hearted person who is prepared to put others first versus an entirely ruthless and self seeking individual who cares little for truth or beauty but only in power. Simplistic? Hardly. Rowling is careful to make sure that Voldemort is not simply a monster: so we learn of his past, that he was an orphan, not unlike Harry, who chose his path. And what of his followers? Evil or self serving? Rowling appreciates the political world, has a sense for the human scale of evil and with characters like Umbridge shows us how small mindedness can be terrible.

3.       Nostalgia can be a good thing. In proportion, certainly. There is something deeply nostalgic about the Potter world which I am sure explains a large part of their popularity with adults. The Magical World is a place where everyone knows everyone else, where they are all pushing in roughly the same direction, where tradition and family values count. These are good values which mainstream British society has lost to a large degree. And of course it is elitist – the magicians are different, set apart, inherently special. And this appeals to us too – because don’t we all feel that somehow we are just like that too? Better than average, different to the crowd?

4.       Characters you care about. Is there a greater creation in all of literature than the Weasley family? No, I’m serious. Varied, anarchic and full of detail, Rowling’s Weasleys sum up a lot of what makes her books so addictive. You want these people to survive and when they suffer a terrible loss you feel it completely in your gut. The Weasleys don’t come across as well in the films as they do in the books – no fault of the actors, it is just that the films don’t have the time to recreate them properly.

5.       Myths and legends. She is often accused of plucking the best from old stories and presenting them as her own. Anyone who knows anything about writing should be able to tell you that this is poppycock. Rowling is incredibly well read, it’s true, and she has a magpie genius for summoning ideas into her narrative. But this is her great strength not a weakness. In part, it is the familiarity of the books that help them work so well. They speak of rings, of power, of magicians – and well, these aren’t alien ideas, these have been around for centuries – so we accept them more. But Rowling’s goblins and elves are not Tolkein’s, they are very much her own.

Neil Gaiman | Books | Competitive reading: it's not what novels you've read that count, but how many

It's the dark not so secret truth at the heart of ever book obsessed individual. It's why so many of us are resisting e-books - at least in part. Because it isn't what you've read that really counts, it is how many, how thick they were, and the fact you have them piled up around the house.

The book group was comparing and contrasting the other day and three members discovered to their delight that I had not yet read American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I've read four of his books, but not that one. It's on my to do list, but it is a big book and big books take time so I've not tackled it yet.

But there was a certain glee in the fact that neither I or another group member had got round to it yet. This was one-upmanship at its most raw. A notch on the bedpost we couldn't claim but they could.

Reading is a deeply personal, solitary affair. You have to lock yourself away either mentally or physically in order to consume a book and you do so at your own pace and bringing your own life experiences to it. Films and television are completely different experiences.

And yet the communal aspect of reading the same book as someone else is extremely important. We are compelled to share in what we are reading, which is why book groups, reading lists and the Top 100s are so vitally important. Humans are social animals and we like to know what each other is doing and thinking. This I think explains why some books take off: why suddenly everyone wants to share in the experience of reading a Larsson, Rowling or a Brown. And why some readers generate an extraordinary loyalty to one or more authors, without whom they can not imagine functioning.

Pottermore, but not enough

Great to hear that JK Rowling is bringing us a wealth of new material about the Potter universe. Her Pottermore.com website is planned as a sort of encyclopaedic interactive website. Sounds interesting. Because we know that JK has long held back details about the characters that never made it to the books...


But hang on...


"Although the author made clear that she had "no plans to write another novel", the fresh Potter material – to be unveiled later this year - already stretches to 18,000 words about the novels' characters, places and objects, with more to come. From Professor McGonagall's love for a Muggle as a young woman, to how the Dursleys met (Petunia was working in an office); from new information about Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff houses, to details about wand wood..."


Say that again? (I'm quoting from the Guardian) You said, "stretches to18,000 words"? You mean, just 18,000 words, don't you? Considering that the later books swelled beyond 100,000 words each, the idea of her holding back another 18,000 words.... well it doesn't sound like much. Not so much a Potterverse as the cuttings that fell on the editing room floor.


Not that I'm not grateful, JK. It will be a delight. It's just, I don't think we should get too carried away by this. Pottermore may well be a huge amount of fun, and it makes sense from a business and a creative point of view for her to create an online hub for controlling and reselling her brand through ebooks and the like. But those of us who love the books and admire JK for her storytelling are going to be left disappointed.


You know, I'm not even bothered about getting a Harry sequel or prequel. That story feels done to me. But I would like to read more JK. So come on Jo... write us another series. Surprise us (again). Bet you can...

Pottermore.com: New Harry Potter project spellbinds cyberspace

Ha. Youtube is now awash with little videos like this. Breathless YAs waving wands around wondering what on earth JK Rowling is up to.
That woman: she sure can sell her brand...

New Harry Potter project spellbinds cyberspace - Gadgets & Tech, Life & Style - The Independent

So what is it going to be?

An iPad app allowing the user to kill Voldemort and snog Hermione.

No, too easy.

a gigantic Harry Potter theme park to be built inside the M25, providing ten thousand jobs and saving the British economy.

Naaah, it rains too much in Britain.

An HP sequel? The website insists it isn't a new book, but what if she has written a prose poem instead? An epic in the style of Childe Harold all about Harry's children fighting a new dark wizard?

Naaaah.

I know, it's a boy band. Inspired by The X Factor JK has put together a great new pop act...

No, definitely not.

Oh, I don't know. I give up. Perhaps it will be a new book, after all. But just not a Harry Potter book - but set in the same world. I can't help but feel that is what JK should be doing right now.

But the smart money is on the theme park. Or the iPad app...

Did Dumbledore create his own horcrux?

I'm a huge JK Rowling fan, which is good because my children are obsessed with Harry Potter. We've just worked our way through the Half Blood Prince on audio (a great way of keeping everyone distracted on even short car rides).

I've read the book already, of course, and seen the rather disappointing film version (how did they get it so-o-o wrong?). But listening to Stephen Fry's narration got me thinking: did Albus Dumbledore create his own version of a horcrux in order to keep up the good fight after his death?

Horcruxes were Voldemort's dastardly plan to live forever. A slither of his soul is sliced off and kept in an artefact, for revival at a later date. To kill Voldemort, Harry has to first destroy all the horcruxes. In the end he doesn't destroy any of them, but his friends do. It's a great yarn.

In the last book, Dumbledore is dead. But we discover late on in the story that Snape truly is Dumbledore's man. Snape's posthumous memories include him plotting with Dumbledore's portrait on how and where to leave Harry the Gryffindor sword.

Later still, when the war is won, Harry speaks to the Dumbledore portrait. My feeling about both these scenes is that Dumbledore's image goes way beyond any other magical portrait. You sense it is more than just an impression of the living man. you sense that it is Dumbledore.

If that is the case, does Dumbledore live on in his portrait? Is it in some sense a horcrux? And if it is, did big D have to kill anyone to make it?