Real-Life Fantastic Beast #14: Introducing Macrobiotus naginae.

January 19, 2023 by 1 Comment

As longtime readers know, one of my regular Wizarding world talks is on newly discovered species named for Harry Potter characters. The last time I spoke about this publicly was at 2020’s online Queen City Mischief and Magic Festival, when the count was 12:  1 dinosaur, 1 extinct lizard, 1 crab, 1 snake, 2 stink bugs, 2 wasps, and 4 spiders. Since then, one more “potter wasp” was added to the collection in 2021.  At the end of 2022, however, a 14th animal joined the menagerie:  the Finnish tardigrade, Macrobiotus naginae.

 

This microscopic critter is by far the smallest of the collection so far, as well on of the more interesting. Tardigrades are tiny, but among the hardiest of animals on our planet, capable of surviving extremes of temperature, pressure, drought, starvation and even the vacuum conditions of space. As for the name, like the stink-bug Graphorn bicornutus, draws inspiration from the Fantastic Beasts films rather than the book series proper. As stated in the scientific paper describing the discovery:

Etymology: Named after J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter book series character Nagini –Lord Voldemort’s treasured snake companion. Formerly a cursed woman who is ultimately and irreversibly transformed into a limbless beast, this fictional character provides a fitting name for the new species in the pseudohufelandi complex, which in turn is characterized by reduced legs and claws.

You can read more about these Wizarding World inspirations here and here.

Filed Under: Louise Freeman, Shared Text

Shared Text: Philosopher’s Stone Ending

December 23, 2022 by Leave a Comment

This piece is funny on several levels, but I post it here just to note that the Babylon Bee, a satire site,  assumed that everyone reading it would be that familiar with the ending of a book published twenty-five years ago.

They assumed that because, oddly enough, it happens to be true, one more demonstration that the Hogwarts Saga remains the global shared text.

Filed Under: Shared Text

Harry Potter Still Magic – Bloomsbury Reports

October 28, 2022 by 1 Comment

The publisher for Harry Potter in the UK, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, reports a 35% increase in sales for the series in it’s interim financial report for 2022.

Sales of Harry Potter titles were strong, up 35%. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was the 2nd bestselling children’s book of the year to date on UK Nielsen Bookscan, on the 25th anniversary of its first publication, showing the enduring appeal of this classic series

BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING PLC
Unaudited Interim Results for the six months ended 31 August 2022

In the last full year report for 2022 Harry Potter sales grew by 5% compared with a growth of 2% in other Children’s titles. How important the books are for Bloomsbury can be judged by the 2021 report which shows seven of their top ten best selling titles come from the series. Two of these, including the top spot are for complete boxed sets. Given that this report contains the year that Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was given away free to the world as we struggled with Covid lockdown, it is amazing to think that sales increased 7% that year too.

While idly checking out the company’s financial report, I thought it would be fun to check out the first mention of J.K. Rowling’s works in the 1997 report:

… the Smarties prize [was awarded] for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by Joanne Rowling. …

… The second in the children’s Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, will also be published later this year.

BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING PLC
Results for the twelve months ended 31 December 1997

And compare it with the report for 2007, when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published:

2007 saw the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final title in the Harry Potter series. With 2,652,656 copies sold out of UK bookshops on the first day of release, the book exceeded all expectations. With all seven books in the series now published, the books are available in a range of box sets and formats. The series will remain a children’s classic for years to come.

Revenue in Children’s increased 261.4% to £98.92m (2006, £27.37m). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, published in July 2007, was the main contributor to the increase. Gross profit for Children’s for 2007 increased 198.9% to £39.60m (2006, £13.25m) with the contribution to administrative expenses up 219.6% to £30.01m (2006, £9.39m).

BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING PLC
Results for the twelve months ended 31 December 2007

While the kind of performance shown in the 2007 report may belong to publishing folklore, Harry Potter is still a force in publishing, and growing stronger every year.

Filed Under: Nick Jeffery, Shared Text

‘Harry Potter’ Now on Legal UK Currency

October 24, 2022 by 1 Comment

I kid you not. We’re not talking Galleons and Knuts here but 50 pence coins — but still, is there anything that says ‘Shared Text’ more than having a character from a book on coinage within a country?

Here is the story as reported in an announcement from Bloomsbury, the publisher of the Hogwarts Saga in the UK and several other Commonwealth nations:

The Royal Mint launches a spellbinding coin collection ⚡

This week we wanted to share the exciting news that The Royal Mint have just launched an official 50p featuring Harry Potter, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

The Royal Mint’s craftspeople have faithfully reproduced one of Jim Kay’s iconic illustration of Harry in colour for the first time on official UK coins. Many of the coins in the range also feature an enchanting ‘latent feature’ which rotates in the light to reveal a lightning bolt and the number ‘25’.

Jim Kay commented: “It hasn’t really sunk in yet. It is the same for most aspects of publishing – because you are on your own all of the time in a studio, none of it quite seems real until you see the book on a shelf in a shop. Then you think ‘oh yeah! I did that!’ This is completely new to me though, a coin!”

They include a link to the Royal Mint’s interview with Kay, ‘Behind the Harry Potter Designs with Jim Kay.’ Reading stories at the BBC and The Mail, you’ll learn that this coinage is not a one-and-done; there will be other Potter-themed coins featuring the Hogwarts Express train, Albus Dumbledore, and the School of Witchcraft and Wizardy’s castle. The late Queen Elizabeth II will be on the reverse side of this year’s coins and King Charles III on later issues.

In the larger scheme of things, a Harry Potter 50p coin is not earth-shaking news. Rowling tweeted today about protests outside the UN in support of the people’s protest against the Islamist regime, about a ‘transgender’ takeover of a bathroom in Mexico (and the misogynist violence in that country women suffer), an Iranian professor who has courageously defied the regime in Tehran, forfeiting her safety and almost as certainly her career. This coin that features Rowling’s Potter is, relatively speaking, small beer; it remains a tribute, however, to this storyteller’s artistry and its continuing hold on the 21st century reader.

Hat-tip to Professor Stauffer for the link!

 

Filed Under: Shared Text

Shared Text: ‘NYC Sort of Like Hogwarts’

October 22, 2022 by Leave a Comment

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1582867965279883264

Project Veritas suckered a staffer for New York City Mayor Eric Adams into saying out loud what people are only allowed to think. He agreed with the person he didn’t know was filming and recording his conversation that New York is a violent, dangerous place to live now — and that was more than okay.

How did he express this? With a Harry Potter reference, of course: “I’ve just always joked, New York is sort of like Hogwarts. Like, it’s a lot of fun, great opportunities, and people die.” 

He was fired for this comment and the many others he made. I’m guessing that his all but saying the mayor of New York was on the take and had been for some time was what got his ticket punched rather than the Hogwarts allusion. I bring it up just to make the point once again that no other work of literature, divine revelation, or comic book inspired film series is referenced as often as the Harry Potter novels is today because its status as the Shared Text of everyone living means name-dropping anything about the books will be understood.

For the New York Post’s take on this story, see ‘City Hall staffer fired after slamming city’s migrant response, cops.’

Filed Under: Shared Text