We love fairy tales around here, as I suppose everyone knows. I have an author friend who evaluates people’s personalities based on their favorite fairy tales (hers is Andersen’s “The Snow Queen”; mine is “Cherry the Frog Bride,” in case you are wondering). I have to confess, “Jack and the Beanstalk” has never really been one of my favorites, even in its Appalachian incarnations of “Jack and the Bean Tree” or “Jack and the Giants”; perhaps goofy Jack just always seemed like too much a klutz for my taste. Maybe I just never approved of his kleptomania. But I’ve gained a different perspective, after finally seeing Jack the Giant Slayer (2013). Join me after the jump for more on how Hollywood got some things really right with this one, and how someone did some good reading, particularly from the works of some of my favorite tellers of tales: the immortal Edmund Spenser and his protégé, C.S. Lewis.
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Jack the Giant Slayer: Someone’s Been Reading My Spenser!
Re-Packaging Harry Potter, Twilight, and Hunger Games Book Sets: For Readers, for Collectors, or for Christmas Gift Givers?
Serious Readers are dedicated re-readers by definition. Their favorite books and series collections have a much-loved, well-worn feel and appearance.
Serious Publishers, facing bottom line demands, are by definition shameless re-treaders. It’s nothing new, Dickens’ work appeared in three chapter pamphlets, then books, then library and collector’s editions. It’s a painless way of making a valuable commodity pay again and again into one’s account.
Witness these several new variations and versions of Harry Potter, Twilight, and Hunger Games:
- A Box Set of the two Harry Potter Scholbooks and Beedle the Bard in luxurious Hardcover. “The books have been completely redesigned to form an elegant boxed set with colorful boards, headbands, footbands, and foil stamping.” $12.95
- Special Edition Harry Potter Box Set. All seven books in paperback — “The box itself is beautifully designed with new artwork by Kazu Kibuishi, and the books create a gorgeous, magical vista when the spines are lined up together.” $57.27
The Twilight Saga White Collection. “This gorgeous gift set–available for a limited time only–includes paperback editions of Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, and The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner with exclusive white covers, making it the perfect gift for fans of the bestselling series.” $48.93
- The Hunger Games Trilogy Box Set — Paperbacks. “All three books in the Hunger Games trilogy are now available for the first time in a paperback box set! This special edition showcases the iconic logos in a striking new design.” $26.48
I would bet good money (chocolate doubloons!) — if there were any way of verifying the data that would have to be gathered — that almost all of these sets are bought by or bought for readers who already have all the books in question. Scroll down the Amazon pages linked above and you’ll note that the most popular reviews are written by Twi-hards and their equivalent in Harry Potter and Hunger Games fandoms, fans who rate these sets on the desirability-for-obsessed-fan scale.
Curiously, though, if you scroll farther down, you’ll find reviews from readers who think these are new books about which they want to give a thumbs up or down with respect to their content for potential buyers. See especially the new hardcover School Books set. No joke.
Which makes me wonder. I’d say these re-treaded re-packaging bundles are sold largely at Christmas gift time to aunts and brothers not knowing what to get niece, nephew, sister or little brother — but because each knows the other will love anything to do with their favorite series of books, this is a no-fail present. Sure beats a movie-stills calendar or Snape action figure, right?
But maybe there’s more to it. Maybe the super editions actually draw in new readers? Let me know what you think — and please share your gift stories if you have given or received any of these sets.
Trivia time: What were the best selling Dickens novels of his lifetime? A HogPron No Prize to anyone that guesses two out of three before checking this literary historian’s best estimates. Maybe someday Ms Rowling’s Cormoran Strike mysteries will be better remembered than her Harry Potter novels?
Cuckoos’s Calling: Success Not from Quality but JKR Fame?
Joanne Rowling published Cuckoo’s Calling under a pseudonym, Robert Galbraith, and also beneath a contrived identity; Galbraith was supposedly a veteran now working in security services. The book was turned down by more than one publisher but was picked up eventually by the same house, different imprint, that published Casual Vacancy. Did they know that Galbraith was Rowling? They deny it.
Ms. Rowling is open about her decption and what motivated her; she wanted to write, be published, and be accepted or rejected outside the Harry Potter critical bubble. I can imagine, if I doubt anyone can really appreciate (as no one living has gone through the crucible of Potter Mania as the author), how liberating and exciting this kind of gamesmanship must have been for her.
There are two or three questions about this approach that are worth exploring, most obviously the ethics of posing as a combat veteran. Today I want to discuss briefly — in hopes of opening the question and hearing what you think — the idea that Cuckoo’s Calling was published under a pseudonym because the author wondered if she would ever really know whether her new books were good or if publishers fell all over themselves to publish her because her fiction has a guaranteed global audience in the millions. Calling, if the Little, Brown imprint did not know Galbraith was Rowling under wraps, seems to have satisfied the first part of that question and the largely favorable reviews the second.
Or does it? Rochelle Deans sent me an article by Duncan J. Watts, J. K. Rowling and the Chamber of Literary Fame, that argues, no, the fact that Rowling’s effort at disguise was published and received kind notices proves nothing. What matters is that the book sold less than 500 copies to actual readers before her cover was blown. Their argument is based on the tests they have put to the theory they call the ‘Cumulative Advantage Hypothesis.’ The experiment went like this:
Mail Bag: How About a Book on the Meaning of Spells?
On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 2:13 PM, KR wrote:
Just a suggestion but what if you put together a book on all the spells from Harry Potter and all their meanings… Kind of like a dictionary for spells from the Saga. Thanks for the explanations and ideas. Keep writing and keep smiling.
Best regards,
Your fan,
KR
Dear KR,
Thank you for this suggestion!
Three quick thoughts:
I have five book irons in the fire already and I’m making little progress on any of them. I fall over unconscious with the idea of beginning another…
Stephenie Meyer ‘So Over’ Twilight? Yes! and No, Not Really…
It occurred to me when writing yesterday’s post, which began with Stephenie Meyer’s refusal to answer a question about abortion rights, that her refusal to answer, her refusing to answer, was probably driven by humility and, perhaps, by a little practical wisdom. Was the reporter really looking for insight on the issue? Or was he hoping she’d oblige him with the PC ammo that critics would use (citing his interview as a source) to bash Mrs Meyer once again as a neanderthal nobody from nowhere?
That’s a rhetorical question. I’m guessing she could see the downside of stating her beliefs about the rightness or wrongness of abortion, either agreeing with or standing apart from the position of her LDS faith. Either way, it’s headlines and unpleasant blowback from all sides of the political spectrum. By saying, in effect, “I’m an artist, ask me about my work, numbskull,” she neatly sidestepped the pathetic faux controversy that would have blown up her life if she had answered.
If you think I’m exaggerating how anything she says is misconstrued or her fatigue in being treated this way by the Fourth estate, read her answers to this interview in Variety and the statement she had to put out later on her website to calm the back-lash:
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