The Casual Vacancy - Softcover

J. K. Rowling

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0751552860 ISBN 13: 9780751552867

Publisher: HACHETTE, 2013

Synopsis

The casual vacancy by world-renowned author j.k. Rowling is her first publication after the world-famous harry potter series. It is her first novel targeted at an adult audience.the story is set in an english town called pagford, which is depicted as a peaceful and idyllic place. However, things are not as they seem, and there exists a curtain of façade behind the picture of prettiness. The serenity gets upended when the town’s parish councillor barry fairbrother dies. The situation gets complicated and tensions develop as a result of the vacancy of his seat at the council. Things start to get ugly, with the development of factions, and the mudslinging and blame game that ensues. Everyone seems to be at war with everyone else: rich against poor, wives against husbands, and children against parents, with barry’s vacant council seat acting as the biggest point of conflict.the casual vacancy is an impressive departure from rowling’s fantasy harry potter series. It deals with real-l

About this title

About the Author

J.K. Rowling is the author of the bestselling Harry Potter series of seven books, published between 1997 and 2007, which have sold over 450 million copies worldwide, are distributed in more than 200 territories, translated into 73 languages, and have been turned into eight blockbuster films. She has also written two small volumes, which appear as the titles of Harry's schoolbooks within the novels. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages were published by Bloomsbury Children's Books in March 2001 in aid of Comic Relief. In December 2008, The Tales of Beedle the Bard was published in aid of the Children's High Level Group, and quickly became the fastest selling book of the year. As well as an OBE for services to children's literature, J.K. Rowling is the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees including the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord, France's Legion d'Honneur, and the Hans Christian Andersen Award, and she has been a Commencement Speaker at Harvard University USA. She supports a wide number of charitable causes through her charitable trust Volant, and is the founder of Lumos, a charity working to transform the lives of disadvantaged children.

Review

JK's first grown-up novel is an eminently-readable tale of small minds in small-town England * Bella * A perfect holiday read * Best Magazine * Rowling once again shows her skill at laying bare the best and (more often) worst of human nature * Star Magazine * This is a book with a social conscience . . . Much lurks behind Pagford's idyllic facade * The Times * Rowling weaves a web of connections that resonate long after the book ends * Daily Express * Wrestles honourably and intelligently with big moral and political questions . . . a study of provincial life, with a large cast and multiple, interlocking plots, drawing inspiration from such writers as Trollope, Gaskell and, perhaps most of all, George Elliot . . . [the plot] is big, engrossing, and runs like clockwork * Guardian * Rowling is a great storyteller with a clear eye and a warm heart, and The Casual Vacancy is a moving and immensely pleasurable novel * Sunday Business Post Ireland * The Casual Vacancy is a brilliant novel, entertaining, intelligent, moving, passionate and hard-hitting; touching on familiar subjects but approaching them with great originality and skill. Moreover, it's unputdownable . . . The novel is a triumph * Irish Times * This is a novel of insight and skill, deftly drawn and, at the end, cleverly pulled together. It plays to her strengths as a storyteller * The Economist * The action bowls along compellingly, most of the characters are vividly drawn and there are some sharp - often very sharp - observations about their social pretensions . . . a bold and distinctive effort * The Sunday Telegraph * Insightful, meaningful, daring and resolutely challenging to tabloid assumptions regarding the moral worth of individuals * Scotland on Sunday * A big, ambitious, brilliant, profane, funny, deeply upsetting and magnificently eloquent novel of contemporary England . . . This is a deeply moving book by somebody who understands both human beings and novels very, very deeply * Lev Grossman, Time Magazine * An exquisite and occasionally moving black comedy . . . The acid test - I suspect it would do well even if its author's name weren't J.K. Rowling * David Robinson, Scotsman * Heartbreaking - turning the page seems unbearable, but not as much as putting down the book would be * Deepti Hajela, Associated Press * One marvels at the skill with which Rowling weaves such vivid characters in and out of each other's lives * Christopher Brookmyre, The Daily Telegraph * The Casual Vacancy is a stunning, brilliant, outrageously gripping and entertaining evocation of British society today. [J.K. Rowling] has done a rather brave thing and pulled it off magnificently * Henry Sutton, The Mirror * A needle-sharp and darkly comic expose of today's class-ridden society . . . A highly readable morality tale for our times * Emma Lee-Potter, Daily Express * This is a wonderful novel. JK Rowling's skills as a storyteller are on a par with RL Stevenson, Conan Doyle and PD James. Here, they are combined with her ability to create memorable and moving characters to produce a state-of-England novel driven by tenderness and fury * Melvyn Bragg, The Observer *

Edition details

• Publisher: HACHETTE
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0751552860
• ISBN 13: 9780751552867
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 576