People of the decade: JK Rowling

The Harry Potter phenomenon sparked a trend in global readership in the following decade that would see the blockbuster become respectable and make authors such as Dan Brown and Khaled Hosseini the new stars of literature, says Jane Shilling.

There was a time when the term “literary blockbuster” would have seemed an oxymoron. Blockbusters were the opposite of literature: fat, foil-embossed volumes, light on plot, obsessed with designer names, bought at the beginnings of journeys – because they were all the airport shop had to offer – and discarded once read. But at the turn of the millennium, a young boy with broken spectacles and a mysterious scar on his forehead transformed the destiny of the blockbuster.

Harry Potter was not a new phenomenon in the summer of 2000. It was 10 years since JK Rowling, stranded on a delayed train between Manchester and London, had the idea for a story about a young boy attending a school of wizardry. The first Harry Potter book was published in 1997 and went on to win a couple of prestigious children’s book awards. A successful sequel was published, then another. But it was with the publication of Rowling’s fourth book, Harry Potter And The Goblet of Fire, that something extraordinary occurred.

The book was published simultaneously in the UK and US on July 8, 2000, and immediately broke sales records. In the UK, the book sold as many copies on the day of publication – some 372,000 – as the previous title had sold in a year. In the US the book sold three million copies in 48 hours. There had been an adroit marketing campaign by Rowling’s publishers, but sales on this scale were unprecedented. The success of Goblet Of Fire came from readers: they caught the book from each other like the flu.

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Year in Review: Books

The year 2009 has been described as the Year of Anxiety, so it should come as no surprise that the books published in 2009 reflected scary stuff – from government conspiracy theories to zombies and, natch, vampires.

In Texas, writers both living and deceased made their mark on the national literary scene. Meanwhile, booksellers were battling it out for your discretionary dollar by making books cheap, cheap, cheap. All told, 2009 was a great year to be a book lover.

1. The Lost Symbol:

Dan Brown’s follow-up to his global best-seller The Da Vinci Codewas the one book everyone wanted to read. And Brown didn’t disappoint. Trading the mysteries of Christianity for the mysteries of American history, Brown titillated his fans with conspiracy theories dating back to the Founding Fathers. Brown’s publisher, Doubleday, printed 5 million copies to start, and Amazon.com readers downloaded it faster than any other book in the retailer’s history. It was just what most people needed in a tough year: a bit of frivolous distraction.

3. The Last Olympian:

Perhaps the most popular book to come out of Texas this year was the finale of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. Published in May, the novel entranced teens, who raced through its 400 pages to learn the fate of Percy (a son of Poseidon) and his friends as they fight an army of monsters to get to the portal to Mount Olympus (which is on the top of the Empire State Building). Look for Riordan’s popularity to soar as the movie adaptation of the first in the series, The Lightning Thief, hits theaters in February.

7. Christians vs. Vampires:

It wasn’t long ago when the Left Behind books, a series of Christian novels depicting the “end of days,” rivaled Harry Potter for the top of the best-sellers list. The times have changed, and there was no surer sign than the failure of the much-hyped Christian Book Expo held in March at the Dallas Convention Center. Organizers had expected 10,000 to 15,000 people, but only 1,500 attended.

In contrast, more than 3,000 fans of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire-romance Twilight series paid $255 each to attend the inaugural TwiCon at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel in August. The event was so successful, organizers are moving it to Las Vegas and Toronto for 2010.

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Books: The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England

“I was passionate about the past and yet history teachers seemed determined to feed me history that was designed to be as tedious as possible,” says The Time Travelers Guide to Medieval England author Dr. Ian Mortimer. “The teachers themselves were fine, but they were all slaves to the syllabus. Thinking about the past should always have an anarchic edge.”

The Time Travelers Guide to Medieval England drops you in the year 1300. Experience how people lived, dressed, worked, the difference between the classes and anything else you want to know about Medieval times but were afraid to ask. The Time Travelers Guide to Medieval England is a surprisingly engrossing read, even if you don’t particularly care about history. For anyone who enjoys history, they’ll be engrossed by the facts that dispel the history taught about that time frame, for instance, the aristocracy had indoor plumbing. An easy read, you can pick it up and read any chapter.

“I first realized I wanted history to have a present-tense dimension at the age of about ten, in the hall of Grosmont Castle in South Wales,” says Mortimer. “I was very disappointed that it didn’t measure up to my imagination, being a quiet ruin rather than a bustling medieval fortress.”

Mortimer got the idea for a fun history book in 1993, inspired by Douglas Adams’ A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. However, that was postponed when in a friend recommended he speak to a woman called Sophie, working at the corporate office of a major bookshop chain. “Six months later she moved in,” says Mortimer. “Two years later we married. In the process I became somewhat distracted.” Thirteen years passed before he actually sat down to write The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England.

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2009: The Year of the Vampire

In 2009, fangs were the new black.

Although fangs and their blood-sucking owners have been around for centuries turning into bats, hiding from the sunlight and avoiding garlic, this past year their popularity seemed to explode into pop culture. From television to movies to books, consumers have sunk their teeth into the vampire frenzy in 2009, but will the same be true for 2010?

“Vampires look like us,” said Jerry Pierce, an assistant professor of history at Indiana University Northwest, who said part of the attraction to vampires is their human sensuality. “We can identify even with that sex element. And they always wear leather. Werewolves in leather just doesn’t work.”

Glenn Sparks, a professor of communication at Purdue University Lafayette, said what made recent vampire stories, such as TV’s “The Vampire Diaries” and the books and movies of the “Twilight Saga” popular is the stories are about how we relate to each other. He said people are aware that we need human connection beyond social networking sites and cell phones, and teens especially are exploring those relationships.

“Hollywood is able to depict the theme in a way that made it seem real to young people, and young people are the fad-makers of the culture,” said Sparks. “It could have been about something else and relationships, but it happens to be about vampires and relationships.”

Khris Rettig, a librarian at the Lake County Public Library Schererville-Dyer branch, said she’s noticed long lists of reservations for any “Twilight Saga” book, or any vampire book in general. The library has a program that creates surprise packages for readers, grouping a certain type of book together and labeling it, such as “For the thrill seekers.” She created a package labeled “If you liked ‘Twilight.’” It was on the shelf for only about two hours. That’s part of the reason the library doesn’t create a vampire display.

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What did you think about today’s book & author news?