JK Rowling is a British author who is critically acclaimed for her Harry Potter series. After her graduation, she started writing for the series in the mid 1980s. She has even taught English and French in the early days of her career, and continued to write between her stints as a teacher.
The Harry Potter series was a runaway hit as it was received with a lot of love, admiration, and appreciation. It also received many awards, and soon got adapted into films. Rowling has also dabbled into other genres like adult fiction and crime novels, besides children stories.
Let us take a look at some of her best-sellers.
1) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Print Length: 256 pages
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
Link: Buy on Amazon
Harry Potter lives a rather uneventful life with his aunt, uncle, and their son, his cousin, who is a bully and a brat. All of this is about to change when he receives a letter on his 11th birthday that he is the orphaned child of two powerful wizards and possesses unique magical powers of his own that lie latent. He is too scared and skeptical to believe the veracity of the letter. He is invited to join as a student at Hogwarts, an English boarding school for wizards. There he meets many life-long friends who help him discover the truth about his parents’ mysterious deaths.
2) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Print Length: 272 pages
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
Link: Buy on Amazon
Harry comes to spend his vacation with the Dursleys that summer, but they were so mean to him (as always) that Harry soon wanted to get back to Hogwarts and his wizardry. As he is preparing to leave, he receives a warning that if he returns, calamity will strike. Harry’s second year at Hogwarts is filled with fresh new challenges and horrors. As mysterious things begin to happen at Hogwarts, and someone apparently turns every student into stone, Harry himself comes under the scanner, along with a few other names like Draco Malfoy and Hagrid.
3) Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination
Print Length: 80 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Link: Buy on Amazon
Rowling is one of the most inspiring and prolific writers of the century. It is interesting to read some of the pearls of wisdom and advice that she shares in this piece. Rowling was invited as a guest at Harvard University in 2008, and during the course of her pep-talk, she had revealed how she creatively dealt with her failures, embraced them, and ran her imagination actively to produce what we have today as masterpieces. Her frank speech to the students at Harvard has now been given a book-form to inspire anyone who is looking to transform their lives for the better.
4) The Christmas Pig
Print Length: 288 pages
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Link: Buy on Amazon
Rowling weaves a tale so enchanting and enthralling that she excels at what she does the best — spinning fantastical stories for children and adults alike.
This is a heart-warming story about a little boy named Jack, and his treasured toy, DP. DP means the world to him, but the entire world comes crashing on Jack when he loses his dear DP. DP suddenly goes missing on Christmas Eve. But Jack also knows for a fact that Christmas Eve is a night of miracles when even toys (like DP) can come to life. He strikes a new friendship with the Christmas Pig to find DP, and bring him back from the lost land.
5) The Casual Vacancy
Print Length: 503 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Link: Buy on Amazon
People expect a lot from Rowling’s first novel for adults. She has essentially been a children’s writer, and has produced masterpieces. The book was published in 2012.
When a local council dies, his seat remains empty for other contenders to fight over. The story is set in Pagford, a quiet and retiring place in rural England. Idyllic as it is on the surface, nothing is idyllic about the lives of its residents. Outsiders are not welcome here, and the villagers are quite content keeping to themselves. It is the perfect place for brewing rumors and scandals. The residents are constantly at war with each other — the rich with the poor, the teenagers with their parents, husbands with their wives, and so on.
The female protagonist is Krystal Weedon who belongs to the Fields. She struggles to save her heroin-addict prostitute mother from the clutches of the drug-dealers; she struggles to raise her four-year-old half-brother in their mother’s absence, and eventually loses him to death; she also struggles to keep herself safe from rapists like the drug-dealer who had outraged her modesty. Suffering from the guilt that her brother died in an accident because of her negligence, she kills herself. This sends out shockwaves through Pagford.
There are many potential candidates for Barry’s seat (the council who died), but it remains to be seen who gets it in the end.
