And what of the controversy raised by some parents who worry the tale of a young wizard promotes witchcraft and the occult? [Rowling's] answer is direct and unforgiving. ''I absolutely did not start writing these books to encourage any child into witchcraft,'' she says with an uncomfortable chuckle. ''I'm laughing slightly because to me, the idea is absurd.''

''I have met thousands of children now, and not even one time has a child come up to me and said, 'Ms. Rowling, I'm so glad I've read these books because now I want to be a witch.' They see it for what it is,'' she emphasized. ''It is a fantasy world and they understand that completely.

''I don't believe in magic, either,'' she said.

(Fri 22 Oct 1999)

§ Slate October 20
Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn (Doubleday) is cited in this week's Summary Judgement feature, with quotes from reviews in the New York Times, Kirkus, and Boston Globe. Also mentioned is news from last week: actor Edward Norton (currently starring in Fight Club) will produce and star in a film version.

(Wed 20 Oct 1999)

§ New York Times October 18
Yet more about Harry: this news article is about how much investors like the Harry Potter books too.

§ Washington Post Book World Oct. 17
Michael Dirda reviews William Gibson's All Tomorrow's Parties (Putnam). He considers Gibson's success a trifle unfair, since ''Sterling and Robinson, for instance, are more dazzling visionaries, with imaginations of enormous scope, fertility and energy. But Gibson possesses a storytelling voice that even Scheherazade might envy.'' The new book is a loose sequel to Virtual Light and Idoru, and Dirda hopes that after this Gibson moves on.

Still, All Tomorrow's Parties is immensely engaging, alive on every page and as enjoyable a weekend entertainment as one could want. Who else but William Gibson would envisage a 21st century in which nature shows would be filmed in Detroit? Or imagine a flophouse that required reservations, booked in advance through an agency in the city?

A case can be made, though, that it's just the reverse. The Christian right has actually been beaten back lately, the Kansas school board that forbade the teaching of evolution was a laughing-stock almost everywhere, and the recent frightful witch hunt involving imaginary sexual abuse of children and Satanic ritual has largely guttered out. Belief in supernatural or non-human agencies out to help or hurt us is probably at its lowest ebb in history. ...

§ New York Times Book Review October 17
Albert Mobilio reviews Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn (Doubleday).

Lethem's actual plot is hardly crackerjack detective material; the slow pacing and predictable turn of events -- standard-issue Mafiosi and an evil Japanese corporation play central roles -- reveal the genre model to be a convenient rack on which to hang his off-kilter humor and dead-on observations. ... In ''Motherless Brooklyn,'' solving the crime is beside the point. If you're a mystery maven, this might bother you. Instead, this is a novel about the mysteries of consciousness, the dualism Essrog alludes to when he talks about his ''Tourette's brain'' as if it were an entity apart from him.