Newly Notable -- The Casual Vacancy

There's been plenty of buzz and excitement about J.K. Rowling's new book, The Casual Vacancy, but given the full-on publisher's embargo, reviews were unavailable until the book was actually released last week.
Book critics across the board are having a fairly unified reaction: it's not Harry Potter.  Some reviews are slightly kinder than others, but here's a smattering:
From The New York Times: "The reader can only hope [Rowling] doesn't try to flesh out the Muggle world of Pagford, but instead moves on to something more compelling and deeply felt in the future."
The Entertainment Weekly review was more overt: "When the novel finally arrives at its predictable and heavy-handed ending, what started as a lively comedy of manners has turned into a overwrought slog."
But Guardian out of the UK had a slightly gentler spin: "[it's] no masterpiece, but it's not bad at all: intelligent, workmanlike, and often funny.  I could imagine it doing well without any association to Rowling...it lacks the Harry Potter books' warmth and charm....but the worst you could say about it, really, is that it doesn't deserve the media frenzy surrounding it."
So there it is: it's not HP.  But I'm curious about our local readers.  Have you read it?  What are your thoughts?

Got Plans for the Fall?

Browsing through a slideshow from USA Today, I realized something...  I'm going to be really stinkin' busy this fall.
No kidding.  Take a glance through the list...  Here's a few highlights:
In case you haven't heard, J.K. Rowling's first outing since Harry Potter, Casual Vacancy, is due out September 27.
Bob Woodward's next, The Price of Politics, will be available on September 11.
The latest Jack Reacher novel from Lee Child is also due out on September 11, A Wanted Man.
Ken Follett's sequel to Fall of Giants is also headed our way--Winter of the World comes out on September 18.
And you get the idea...
But the fact is, there's more. Junot Diaz, Michael Chabon, Neil Young, Penny Marshall (admit it--you loved Laverne and Shirley as much as I did and probably want to read her biography as much as I do)....  That should take us through the end of September, but October and November?  Equally impressive outlooks.  I'll be catching up until January.
Give the Reference Desk a call for help placing holds!
Happy Reading!

Some Teasers are Just Plain Mean...

So, you know how promotions run rampant right before a big release of a book or a movie?
Check this out.
It's a teaser clip of an interview between J.K. Rowling and Daniel Radcliffe, talking about Harry Potter and a particular visit that Rowling made to the set.  Here's the really mean part: it's only a minute and a half, and the full interview?  Only available on the Harry Potter Wizard's Collection set...available September 7.
Mean.  Just plain mean.

Newly Notable: The Casual Vacancy

Speaking of people who are baaaaaaaack: you can now put a hold on J.K. Rowling's new book The Casual Vacancy.

According to her publisher, Little, Brown, the book is "blackly comic" and Rowling is now aiming for a more adult audience.  The publisher has offered the following description of the book:
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 fa?ade 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 seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?
The worldwide release date is September 27--sadly, just in time to not make it onto your beach reading list.

J.K. Rowling's Next Big Thing...

...is a completely misleading title for this blog post because we really have no idea what it is. What we do know is what we can glean from this exceptionally vague quote:
"Although I've enjoyed writing it every bit as much, my next book will be very different to the Harry Potter series, which has been published so brilliantly by Bloomsbury and my other publishers around the world. The freedom to explore new territory is a gift that Harry's success has brought me."
Right. Did that clear anything up for you?
What we do know for sure is that the new book is geared toward a more adult audience and that the title, date of publication and details about the book will be released as the year wears on.