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The Year of J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is being celebrated by the weekly news and entertainment magazines as one of the most prominent people of 1999. Time Magazine, in its December 27th issue, names Rowling among nine ''People Who Mattered'' -- in other words, runners-up to its Person of the Year, who for 1999 is Amazon.com's founder Jeff Bezos. (The other people who mattered: Alan Greenspan, Madeleine Albright, Tiger Woods, Jiang Zemin, Queen Noor, Steve Jobs, Joel Klein & Bill Gates.)

People Weekly includes Rowling among the ''25 Most Intriguing People of '99'', listed 16th in a group including John F. Kennedy, Jr., Ricky Martin, TV producer David E. Kelley, Pokémon, and Hillary Clinton. And Entertainment Weekly lists Rowling 6th among 12 entertainers of the year, who also include ''the Blair Witch crew'', Julia Roberts, and Being John Malkovich director Spike Jonze (who also acted in Three Kings). (Among EW's ''breakouts'': The Sixth Sense star Haley Joel Osment, just nominated for a Golden Globe Award.)

More Best and Worst Books of '99

Both Entertainment Weekly and People Weekly, in their December 31st issues, publish lists of the best and worst books of the year. Neither best fiction list includes any works of SF/F/H, though People mentions J.K. Rowling in a ''Write On!'' sidebar. Both magazines include SF/F/H works among the worst of the year though: EW cites Thomas Harris's Hannibal, and People both Anne Rice's Vittorio the Vampire (''Fangs, but no thanks'' it comments) and Salman Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Feet.

EW does include two science-themed books among its nonfiction best of the year: Dava Sobel's Galileo's Daughter 7th, and Wendy Kaminer's Sleeping with Extraterrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Peity 9th. Three of EW's fiction best, Annie Proulx's Close Range: Wyoming Stories in first place, Roddy Doyle's A Star Called Henry (5th), and Michael Frayn's Headlong (9th), were also named among the top books of the year by the New York Times Book Review.

(Tue 21 Dec 1999)

(Tally of 1999 SF/F/H titles)

DECEMBER SF/F/H NEWS