Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Stephen King on J. K. Rowling and adverbs

A treat today: a handwritten 2003 review by Stephen King of J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." See the explanation below and don't miss reading King's work - beautifully written, warm words of praise for Ms. Rowling, except for her excessive use of adverbs. He gives the perfect putdown of adverbs, which my students know is one of my bugbears too.

For the July 11 issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine, the editors asked Stephen King to review the fifth ''Harry Potter'' book. 'We knew we wanted to do something special with J.K. Rowling's fifth book, 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.' So we decided to approach the OTHER most popular author on the planet, Stephen King, who agreed to take the assignment.

''King didn't have much time to read the 870-page book -- even he couldn't get the publisher to cough up an advance copy -- and he worked on the review while in New York City doing publicity for his 'Dark Tower' fantasy series and casting an upcoming film project. Moreover, he told us that he'd left his PowerBook back in Maine and declined our offer to borrow a laptop.

''Instead, he delivered a spiral-bound notebook with the review written out in his distinctively neat handwriting."

King took a shining to the book and gave it an A.

Download the review (1.2 MB)

1 comment:

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