Good morning! Happy Friday The 13th! 😯 I know right? I feel like I need to rent a spooky movie or something!
Today is my day off and it looks gloomy out there. The weather may sabotage my bike ride plan for the day… but that may mean that I will be inside reading instead which… makes me smile.
When asked the question… uh, Sheila… if you were sent to live on a deserted island for five years and you could only take along with you 5 books, what would those books be? While I would no doubt sweat this decision… I can guarantee you there would be at least one Harry Potter book in this mix.
SO…. that said…
yesterday Shelf Awareness revealed that J K Rowling (master mind of all that is Harry Potter) is releasing a new book called The Casual Vacancy. This books sounds as though it will have none of the magic that bought Harry a permanent residence in my heart, however… it is JK Rowling, and that makes me interested.
Publisher Little, Brown called the novel a “blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising” tale of what happens in the English village of Pagford after parish council member Barry Fairweather dies unexpectedly. “Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty facade is a town at war.”
according to Little Brown Publishing
I quickly popped on-line and pre-ordered this book that is due to release in late September. While currently the hard cover is sitting at a hefty $21, I believe it will go down in price before release.
My question is, do you pre-order books from favorite authors? Would you pre-order this one?
**I also need to announce the winner of the gift card for the Easter Egg Hunt that took place during the Monday What Are You Reading meme! Thank you to all who participated! I was really pleasantly surprised of how many of you went egg hunting. I had a lot of emails saying that you really enjoyed doing this… enough so, that I will probably do it again in the future. 😀
The criteria was that you had to 1) find 3 of the 4 hidden eggs and email me where they were AND 2) you had to comment on each of these blog posts that had the Easter Egg in order to qualify. (a couple of you forgot that part!). That said, using random.org, the winner of the $25 Amazon Gift Card is:
Lindsey from Literary Lindsey
Congratulations Lindsey!!! The gift card will be in your e mail yet this morning, please let me know here that you have received it. 😀
Also…. thank you to my wonderful Egg Hosts: Mari from Bookworm With A View, Lori from Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book, Kathy from Inside Of A Dog, and Reagan from Miss Remmer’s Reviews. You all ROCK in my book! 😛
Book Journey 
Congrats to the winner!!! Great idea Sheila!!
Thank you Lori, it was a lot of fun! I appreciate your participation!
I totally pre-ordered it. Terrified, but excited!
I agree! Whata ton of pressure on her really!
Congrats to Lindsey!
And yes, I do preorder books from favorite authors…and while I haven’t read any of the Harry Potter books, I do admire J. K. Rowling. This new book sounds intriguing.
It might be more my cup of tea than Harry…sorry, Sheila, for the blasphemy! lol
It’s going to be a spooky day here…it’s raining and windows are shaking. Ooooohhhh.
Whoa! That is blasphamy but as all is fair in love and book discussions.. its ok 😀
Just a little rain here but enough to keep me indoors which actually sounds appealing – an afternoon of reading!
I love Harry Potter and Rowling, but honestly, I don’t know yet about this new book. I was excited about it when I first heard she had a new one out, but now that I’ve read the plot teaser, it just doesn’t sound all that interesting. Not like the kind of book I would normally read, you know? So rather than preordering it, I’m just going to keep my eye on the library list and see when it first gets ordered, so I can be first in line on the hold list. Then I’ll read it and see if I want to buy my own copy.
I would agree Amanda, if I read this synopsis anywhere else I would probably pass on it – but since it is JK I am going to read it and see what she does with it 😀
I don’t pre-order books, but I am excited to read ths one! I like the premise, and I think it’s good that it’s nothing like Harry. If she tried to write more fantasy, I think it would be held up to so much comparison that it would be doomed to failure.
I have to pre order or I forget about them… sad but true. Then I see people reading books I could not wait to read and kick myself for not knowing it was out! 😀 As much as I wish it would have been Potterish…. I htink you are right, best to leave that alone.
I didn’t realize it was Friday the 13th. If I hadn’t stopped here this morning I would have been blissfully ignorant of that fact. I know it’s Friday, and I already wrote the date on a few forms, but it didn’t click.
I don’t pre-order books mostly because I always have such a big to-read pile and it would only languish there calling to me. And then I’d feel guilty for not reading it yet.
I read the Friday the 13th somewhere this morning too or I would have forgot as well 🙂
I’m very much on the fence about the new Rowling book. It was suggested early on that because her publisher is one that often does mysteries, it would be a mystery. The synopsis….eh….I don’t know. Doesn’t grab me. Perhaps it will be wonderful. I certainly hope so. I suspect I will wait until some further info about it or reviews or maybe even until publish date. I feel rotten, but I just can’t decide. And, yes, I do pre-order books at times. Certainly did the latter HP books and was waiting on my doorstep for them. LOL
I hear you Kay, I bet there is a ton of stress on her part to write well because you know the media will have a hay day (hay day? where did I pull that out of?) saying “Potter worthy it is not”.
I’m going to pre-order it, not something i usually do, but this one i will 🙂
It’s hard to explain but good or bad I want it for my collection. The fact that she is writing again is a bit of history in itself. I find her remarkable and think her life before Harry Potter and now after is a true rags to riches tale which is part of my addoration for her.
I generally don’t pre-order books so I probably won’t pre-order this one.
Just this past year I started Kathy, otherwise I lose the fact that I wanted them somewhere in my head 😉
I will be pre-ordering Rowling’s new book.
Awesome… I am thinking about possibly a read – a – long.
Yay!! Thank you so much Sheila! I haven’t seen it pop up in my email yet though…
Lindsey.Stefan@comcast.net, right?
You are awesome – it’s about time the grownups got an Easter Egg Hunt too!
I sent it out a little later than I had planned on Lindsey, check again, you should have it now 😀
I got it. Thank you so much – you are awesome! 🙂
I almost never pre-order because my library is so awful that I spent years waiting, waiting, waiting for things to get to a reasonable price or find them used (in my younger, broke days — because the library often *never* gets the books I’m interested in reading). That made me patient, when it comes to books I want to read. Having said that, I stalled on either the 3rd or 4th Harry Potter book so while I love Rowling’s writing, I’m not in any hurry to read her first grown-up-targeted novel. I’ll probably read it eventually, though.
Stalled? Stalled on Potter? 😯
LOL, just messing…. I understand that. We do have a pretty awesome library here as well as library sales and I find so many great reads there that usually things pop up that I am hoping to read.
I preorder books, but generally not so far in advance. I will probably preorder it sometime during the summer. $21 for an adult hardcover isn’t that bad, not like the $19 Nook preorder price.
I am thinking the price will drop Sarah, I dont know why but once it gets over that $20 mark then I think its high… offer it to me for $18 and I dont think twice.. although I do prefer the new books around $11- $14. 😀
I haven’t preordered it, but I did pop over to the local library catolog and saw that one of the libraries has already added it (which is unheard of so far in advance). I silently blessed the librarian who added it since I put it on hold and am #4 on the list. With 18 libraries in the consortium that means I should be first in line at my local library. So excited!
Thats pretty cool Alyce! I have never checked on pre released items at the Library before nor never guessed that you may be able to put it on hold! NICE!
I do per-order books but only from very few authors. Otherwise, I tend to wait. I heard once that per-orders do not count towards the release date ( week) sales. Have you heard this? If it were true, then I would not per-order from my select few authors, rather I would purchase on release date to help their sales rating.
I had not heard that about the pre-orders, if so… that is really sad – where do those prders get counted? Curious now.. 🙂
Congrats to Lindsey!
Yes I do but no I won’t. 😉
Lots of time I pre-order favorite authors (book 7 of Harry Potter arrived on that Saturday) but I usually just mark it on my calendar.
I heard the new JKR book is strictly for adults. Not sure I’ll get it, I’ll wait to see what you have to say about it. I’d rather have another HP book 🙂
I would TOTALLY rather have another Harry Potter book. 😀 ANd yeah… I pre ordered book 7 too 🙂
no…and no