Jellyn's Full Review: Marc Shapiro - J.K. Rowling: The Wizard Behind Har...
Find out all about the author of Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Azkaban and Harry Potter and the Doomspell Tournament. What led her to create this 'land of Muggle' and where did she come up with names such as Justin Finch Fletchey and Cho Chan? No other writer could tell you that, I'm sure. Since most other writers would get the names of the author's books and characters correct. Marc Shapiro has written a stunning 100+ page unauthorized biography of J. K. Rowling, an author whose works he apparently doesn't know much about.
About Marc Shapiro and his So-Called Research
According to the About the Author in the back of this book, Marc Shapiro is a 'freelance entertainment journalist'. He's written 'more than a dozen celebrity biographies'. Impressive credits? You decide.
From the sources mentioned in the front of the book, Shapiro has gleaned all of his information about Rowling from newspapers, magazines, and internet sites. In short, he has no new information to present to his readers that they couldn't find on their own.
The Meat of the Book
This book, J. K. Rowling: The Wizard Behind Harry Potter is a fairly short biography of J. K. Rowling's life. Or rather, her life as defined by writing. Apparently from the day she was born, she was destined to write Harry Potter. Mostly it's an interesting summary of her life liberally (and I do mean liberally) sprinkled with quotes from interviews she's given.
There are a few key moments mentioned in the book that are memorable, but which most fans of Harry Potter have probably already heard of. The first is the moment when she's on a train and has her epiphany about a boy on his way to magic school. And the second is when she hears her first book just sold at auction for 100,000$ (US).
Her life is interesting, especially if you fancy yourself a writer as well. However, if you're expecting something in-depth, this book isn't it. If you're expecting to hear some new things you haven't already about her life, and you watched the Biography documentary about her, you'll be rather disappointed.
Oh yes, and there's some photos in the middle. Black and white pictures of Rowling, some of them at press conferences or the like. Not terribly interesting, in my opinion.
Credibility or Try Reading the Books, Shapiro
If not for the glaring errors about the Harry Potter books, I might have rated this book three or four stars. It's not a masterpiece of a biography, but it might be a nice introduction to Rowling's life for children. However, those glaring errors are there. And I cannot forgive them.
Cho Chan (Cho Chang), Justin Finch Fletchey (Justin Finch-Fletchley), and Prisoners of Azkaban (Prisoner of Azkaban); those errors I could forgive as typos. Even though there's rather a lot for such a short book. But there's more.
'In the world of Harry Potter, owls run banks, apprentice students chase after--' Oh yes, you read correctly. Owls run banks. Any seven year-old can tell you that goblins run banks, Mr. Shapiro.
Once you run up against a few of these errors, you start to question the validity of the rest of the book. If he doesn't have the facts of Harry Potter straight, maybe he doesn't have the facts of J.K. Rowling straight either. I don't really know too much about her life to tell you that; however, I did find one thing. He has her putting in to a London train station called Knight's Cross. A Google search didn't yield me a station by that name, so I suspect he meant King's Cross. Of 9 and 3/4s fame. Which, incidentally, gets not a single mention in this book.
The book even ends on a high note of errors by going on about Harry Potter and the Doomspell Tournament instead of book 4's real, final name of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. That's all right, you say? He didn't know what title it would finally be published under? Well, if that's the case, then why did he say 'Bookstores were selling out of copies [of Doomspell Tournament] in a matter of minutes and were already on the telephone to reorder'? Perhaps he was talking about pre-orders, but this is entirely unclear in the paragraph about it and it doesn't really seem to say so. You can't sell out of a pre-order.
To Sum Up
This book is a short summary of J. K. Rowling's life as it centers around her writing and Harry Potter in particular. Most of the meat of the text is actually quotes by Rowling. How well is the book researched? I can't really say, but it doesn't hold up well to a Harry Potter fan's scrutiny.
It would have been so simple for Shapiro to acquire a fact-checker in the form of a ten year-old and it would have been very nice had he tried to do some research of his own. He could've attended one of her readings or press events. He could've tried getting an interview with her; if only a phone interview. He could've at least attended an online chat or tried Emailing her a question or two. He hasn't even interviewed any fans of Harry Potter, as far as I can tell. He was lazy, lazy, lazy.
Details
This book was published in August 2000. From the text, presumably it was written before Goblet of Fire really did come out and before any of the movies had been released. The ISBN is 0312272243 and it's 107 pages long. Or rather, short.
Amazon lists a revised edition with a November 2001 date. One can only wonder if the factual errors and apparent typos were corrected or if they only tacked on another chapter to account for new developments in the year between editions. It's supposedly worth another dollar to you to find out, because the price went up from 4.99 to 5.99.
Don't waste your money. I know I didn't. I bought it from a discount place.
Complete with an eight page photo insert filled with new photos, this updated edition includes new information on the third exciting film, Rowling s m...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.