JKR "excluded" from Jubilee reading list

[ResisterRex]

Story originally in the Sunday Times but also picked up by the Telegraph.

Sunday Times:

The Big Jubilee Read — 70 books fit for Queen and country

"However, the most conspicuous absentee is JK Rowling — arguably the most successful British novelist of the past two decades.

“There was a big discussion about JK Rowling,” said Susheila Nasta, emeritus professor of modern literature at Queen Mary and Westfield University. “She was on the long-list with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. A space was cleared for someone equally as good but whose work was not as well known. There were some very tricky decisions.”"

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/344f3d9e-bdbd-11ec-b03a-035ba70491ca?shareToken=4bcae05ee43c246590f27c816ac9420c

Telegraph:

JK Rowling excluded from Platinum Jubilee list of great reads in wake of transgender row

"Palace aides declined to comment."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/17/jk-rowling-excluded-platinum-jubilee-list-great-reads-wake-transgender/

I think Tolkien is a far more odd omission than JK Rowling

Missing out Ian McEwan and Atonement is weird too. It was published in 2001 and was overlooked for The Life of Pi fgs as is including Keri Hulme's The Bone People

And whilst I don't like him Irvine Welsh is surely a better choice for 1993 than Carol Shield's The Stone Diaries

The first Harry Potter was published in 1997. The 1997 book is Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things . In the context of this list Roy's book is a much better choice.

@Ides

Dear lord, JK Rowling isn't a great author. I'm sorry, but she just isn't. She's just been lucky enough to hit on a theme that wowed film-makers. She just made the mistake of getting herself embroiled in the GC/trans rights debate, rapidly found herself out of her depth, but had no choice but to continue. I get that she's a darling of that weird alliance of right wing women and full-on misandrist radical feminists ... but she really, really isn't much good as an author.

She's great at applying make up (full marks for the lip-gloss, especially), and she's made lots of money as a result of her books chiming superbly with what the film industry wanted at a particular time. But that's it. She's not a great author and even less of a thinker. Time to get over it and move on. Most of all: stop quoting her in relation to the GC/trans-rights debate. It's embarrassing.

If she isn’t a great author then why have I read the Harry Potter series nine times? Haven’t done that with any other books. The films were okish but the books are fantastic.

I write fiction myself and I am constantly in awe of JK’s foreshadowing, her research, the detail, the charactisation, the references to myth and literary classics in her characters’ names, etc…

You can sling all the mud you want at her, but she doesn’t care and neither do her readers. The bottom line is she is the best at the world at what she does. You?

meant to say as is including Keri Hulme's The Bone People for 1983 over Susan Hill's The Woman in Black

She's great at applying make up (full marks for the lip-gloss, especially), and she's made lots of money as a result of her books chiming superbly with what the film industry wanted at a particular time.

What utter stupidity. Harry Potter books were a massive global phenomenon long before the films came out, and praising a self-made billionaire philanthropist for her lipgloss as a form of put down is unbelievably pathetic. Also “misandrist radical feminists.” 😁

That said, I expect that since you pay so much obsessive attention to the subject you also manage to get your lipstick mostly on your lips most of the time so you can’t be an entirely hopeless human being. Two and a half cheers for you!

Big snubs for scifi writers, considering there are a couple on there, so obviously they do meet whatever criteria is being used. There’s no books at all for 1988, which was the year Ian Banks released The Player of Games, one of my favourite of his books. I know we have a few Ian Banks fans on this board, and for my money, he’s a much better author than JKR or many others on this list.

"She's great at applying make up (full marks for the lip-gloss, especially),"

What a prick!

Considering how padded out with unnecessary text a lot of Harry Potter books are - relaxing read but not great literature- JKR is brilliant at pithy tweets about women's rights. Shows her skill.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2Ynpj933DJ2YG5nsMS6fn8k/a-literary-celebration-of-queen-elizabeth-iis-record-breaking-reign BBC webpage with full list. Baffled anyone is saying Orwell isn't on the list. He died several years before the Queen's accession to the throne. Must look again to see if Anthony Powell made the cut.

No. Hmm. John Le Carre did for Tinker Tailor, so not all literary fiction.

@Ides

Dear lord, JK Rowling isn't a great author. I'm sorry, but she just isn't. She's just been lucky enough to hit on a theme that wowed film-makers. She just made the mistake of getting herself embroiled in the GC/trans rights debate, rapidly found herself out of her depth, but had no choice but to continue. I get that she's a darling of that weird alliance of right wing women and full-on misandrist radical feminists ... but she really, really isn't much good as an author.

She's great at applying make up (full marks for the lip-gloss, especially), and she's made lots of money as a result of her books chiming superbly with what the film industry wanted at a particular time. But that's it. She's not a great author and even less of a thinker. Time to get over it and move on. Most of all: stop quoting her in relation to the GC/trans-rights debate. It's embarrassing.

I do laugh at posts like this.

There was a woman at my work once who used to bang on about JKR being 'not a great author'.

She also used to 'write'. I read one of her 'books' once. Not published by anyone because it was complete and utter nonsense.

I couldn't get to page 2. Drivel.

Commenting on make up application, now what sort of person is concerned with women's make up techniques?

I mean, she did happen to get lucky time and time and time again didn't she?

I really enjoyed reading the HP series but in my view the Strike novels are better. I love them, and as far as I know none of the tedious allegations of her unoriginality have been made about this series.

Looking at the nature of the list I think Doris Lessing is more of an omission.

She just made the mistake of getting herself embroiled in the GC/trans rights debate, rapidly found herself out of her depth, but had no choice but to continue

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I did just hear one of the list makers on R4’s Today, who said JKR wasn’t included as HP is a children's book.

Call me cynical but I think they probably excluded her deliberately to create controversy because otherwise no one would have even noticed this list.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

No. Hmm. John Le Carre did for Tinker Tailor, so not all literary fiction.

TTSP is a much cleverer and more revealing book about England than any of the Harry Potter series (I also think it is better written). I admire JKR enormously for her campaigning, her charity work, her determination to keep control of the Harry Potter world she created but the books are, imo, pretty poor quality, especially the later ones that are very, very repetitive and overly long.

I'm surprised that Shuggie Bain made the list. Despite being an enthusiastic reader, I'd only heard of about 25% of the titles and read even fewer .

there are a couple that are resoundingly crap.
Only a couple? There are several books on there that I don't rate so it doesn't encourage me to explore the rest of the list.
Disappointed.

The list only has one children's book - The Book Thief

It's largely literary fiction and/or fiction which has something to say about the Empire (decline of) colonisation and post colonisation and the Commonwealth. There's no way the first Harry Potter should have usurped Arundhati Roy's book.

The Cormoran Strike novels are enjoyable reads but they are neither unique nor exceptional .There are 1000s of novels in that genre which are also enjoyable reads.

I think missing out Atonement and The Lord of the Rings and Things Fall Apart and actually Lucky Jim are questionable - but not including Rowling isn't.

(And don't get me started on the shoehorning in of Evaristo and Shuggy Bain)

@CrossPurposes

Looking at the nature of the list I think Doris Lessing is more of an omission.

Good point.

And no Kingsley Amis. Lucky Jim was the first campus novel. It's still very funny.

@Ides

Dear lord, JK Rowling isn't a great author. I'm sorry, but she just isn't. She's just been lucky enough to hit on a theme that wowed film-makers. She just made the mistake of getting herself embroiled in the GC/trans rights debate, rapidly found herself out of her depth, but had no choice but to continue. I get that she's a darling of that weird alliance of right wing women and full-on misandrist radical feminists ... but she really, really isn't much good as an author.

She's great at applying make up (full marks for the lip-gloss, especially), and she's made lots of money as a result of her books chiming superbly with what the film industry wanted at a particular time. But that's it. She's not a great author and even less of a thinker. Time to get over it and move on. Most of all: stop quoting her in relation to the GC/trans-rights debate. It's embarrassing.

Jesus look at this tit 👀

Looking at the list, its stated purpose is to showcase varied books from all around the Commonwealth - it's not a list of the 'best' or 'most popular' books and it's not an exclusive list of British books.

I agree with pp that if any fantasy should've been on there it should have been LOTR. Harry Potter, along with other fantasy writing, would not exist without LOTR. I say this as a fan of neither!

The omissions seem to be books that librarians see leave the shelves regularly. Given who made up the list it seems reasonable that JKR and other prolific and well read authors were left off in order to promote reading around the history of the Queen's reign. I mean, she did actually reign over people, not imaginary beasts and dust. Those people, the diversity and the complexity, changing nature of how the Commonwealth us now viewed, is far more interesting a book list, even if not as populist.

I doubt any if the authors left off the list will be bothered, they will see what the list actually is. I'm more interested in the inclusion of one author who dislikes being on lists, even more so a list for the Queen, I would imagine. I shall await his response...

I don't think in this instance it is anything to do with the trans debate.

Glad to see Life of Pi and Handmaid's Tale on there.

Any list is going to be controversial, obviously, but I was struck from the cursory look I had earlier that there were so few books from genres. Either make it all literary fiction or attempt to cover the whole spectrum of fiction, but this half-hearted effort of picking one children's book, one comic sci fi novel and one spy novel from 70 years is neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring. Where's the crime fiction? Fantasy, romantic fiction? You can't call Wolf Hall historical fiction, so that's another genre ignored.

Are there any short story collections there? There are so few books on the list I've heard of, let alone read, I'm afraid I don't know.

If it was a list of childrens books it would be an omission.

But compared to the others on that list... not so much.

A list of children's books of the last 70 years would be fantastic though.

I would be fascinated to know how many of these the Queen had read?!

She just made the mistake of getting herself embroiled in the GC/trans rights debate, rapidly found herself out of her depth, but had no choice but to continue.

I feel like cross-stitching this because it is such a brazingly fantastic quote