Cover And Page Count Revealed For J.K. Rowling's New Novel
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via Galleycat:
Behold, the cover for A Casual Vacancy, the new novel from J.K. Rowling, due to hit Sept. 27. It'll weigh in at 512 pages. Here's the synopsis:
When Barry Fairweather dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils...Pagford is not what it first seems.
And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet to see. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?
Blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.
The hardcover will cost $35, the large-print hardcover $39 and the eBook $19.99. Though those are just the list prices. Expect to see them discounted... especially the eBook. I'm guessing $14.99, after Amazon has its way. We'll see.
I am going to read this book. I'm very interested to see what Rowling can do with more adult material. What do you think?
News by Rob W. Hart
Rob W. Hart is the class director at LitReactor, as well as the associate publisher for MysteriousPress.com. He's the author of The Last Safe Place: A Zombie Novella, and his short stories have appeared in Shotgun Honey, Thuglit, Crime Factory, and Needle: A Magazine of Noir. He lives in New York City, and you can find his website at www.robwhart.com.
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Comments
I never cared for anything else she did, and the synopsis sounds beyond boring and cliche. Obviously this is a snap judgment, and it may turn out to be interesting, but at this point there's nothing that makes me want to read it at all.
I never got into Harry Potter, but I'm curious.
I liked the Harry Potter books for the most part. The story was good and fun. Plus, she got a ton of kids to read books over 300 pages long. I salute that. I will probably read this when it comes out, just to see. The Harry Potter books definitely got better, IMHO, as they went along. I'm just a big fan of books and authors for that age range, like Kate Dicamillo, Natalie Babbitt, and Madeleine L'Engle.
Cover's a little bland if you ask me.
It best not be $19.99 for an ebook. Even a discounted $14.99 is too much. Sorry, Rowling, but I'm going to pass till it's at least $9.99.
I love Harry Potter, but this looks so... boring. I'll probably still get it because I think she's a good author and it may turn out to be a good and enjoyable book.
It is a bit expensive but Rowling is one of the great storytellers of our time. I will be pre-ordering this because I believe Rowling is an incredible author. Love the cover. Less is always more.
I think some people here are a little too artistic, sophisticated and intellectual to see the potential in the concept, and that's probably because the mind behind it has really only produced dull characters, drab descriptions and boring situations in her stupid dumb dull drab boring retarded books about witches and wizards. Don't count on J.K. Rowling writing anything worth reading. After seven flops, we know what she's all about. And the cover... I have this saying, and I think it holds water. It goes like this: Always judge a book by its cover.
Please excuse the incessant, girlish squealing. I'm having a silly fan moment. I don't care what people think of her, because I love her writing style, characters, and world building. Will be pre-ordering this when I purchase books for the fall semester. It bums me out that I will have to wait to read it, because I'm taking two literacture courses and two other courses. Damn, damn, double damn! Haha. Ugh, SO EXCITED!
Most adult hardcovers are around $30 or more, after tax, this one is listed as $21 on Amazon which will come out to around $23. Not that bad, though I agree that the Kindle price is set pretty high. However, Charlaine Harris (who is slightly less popular) was getting $17.99 for her last Sookie Stackhouse ebook. The price is down to $14.99 now, but the first month or two after its release it was $17.99. One reason I still buy paper books. They're often cheaper than the ebook and I get free shipping right now. [shrug]
Sounds like Hot Fuzz, but really, really boring
@Josh - Why both with a interesting cover of a book that will probably sell millions no matter what you put on it? It could literally be my boots on my floor for the cover and I don't think it would hurt the sales.
I liked the Harry Potter books when I was younger but looking back on them now the writing seems dull and even somewhat juvenile. The synopsis of this doesn't exactly excite me and I'll more than likely give it a miss.
@SammyB - The average this year is $28 and change for adult hardcover list price in fiction. Though I don't know where these figures come from, because most of what I see new in your average gigantic retail chain is definitely not that high, at least according to most of what I've pulled off the shelves lately. Regardless, BN discounts by 20% almost anything new, not counting the 10% member discount, and you usually get massive early release (or sometimes preorder) discounts from most places releasing anything that's highly anticipated. I got Murakami's 1Q84 for $15, and that's a 926-page (I believe) novel listed at $30.50.
A lot of hip things have been said.
@Michael J. R. - really? The Barnes and Noble near my house rarely discounts new releases. I'm also not a member of the program to get the extra percentage off. I was a Borders customer until they closed and I know their new releases were always between 20 and 40% off. When they closed I switched to Amazon, because the B&N near me never has the books I want. Three times now I have gone there to pick up a new release and they did not have it in stock at all!
The last adult hardcover I purchased from B&N (around Christmas) was $28.99 with no mark down, so I paid around $31 and change. It was a gift, but the price still bummed me out, because I was thinking "I could have bought two to three YA hardcovers from Amazon! Or four mass market paperbacks!" Haha.
Dunno. The BN stores where I'm at now in Texas and the ones back home in Cali always have stuff heavily discounted at release. Hell, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick was 50% off right out of the gate. Which makes sense, because how many people will buy that? But still. The stores where you live must suck.
I do miss Borders, though. They were infinitely the better giant retail chain, and they had better deals. Without them, BN has basically stopped offering decent email coupons because they no longer have any brick and mortar competition. I rarely buy anything there unless it's something on the discount table for the same price as you'd find at Half-Price Books.
Awful thing about where I live, there don't seem to be any good independent bookshops at all.
Yeah. They do.
:( Then again, I live in Las Vegas. We only have a few B&N stores in the entire city. Independent book shops are mostly used books (there are maybe 3 that are still open) and there is only one shop that sells at rates that aren't majorly inflated. That might actually explain a lot.
I purchased a few bargain books last time I was in a Barnes and Noble. I will give them credit for that. You can find some good items in the clearance, if you have time to look through all of it. Got my hands on aToni Morrison that was $5. Oh well, haha.